USC Undergraduate Advisement Database (ADB)
A home-grown platform built in 2007 to synthesize disparate undergraduate student data for use by 500+ program advisors across more than 250 program units. Until recently, ADB served every undergraduate academic program at USC. It also serves supplemental programs such as Athletics, Neighborhood Academic Initiative, Student Affairs, Academic Review, and Study Abroad.
ADB is maintained by Undergraduate Education in collaboration with an external vendor, Provost IT, and ITS.
The widescale adoption of ADB allowed the for standardization, visibility, and governance needed to manage the complex, federated advising model practiced at USC.
While ADB provides critical functionality to undergraduate programs, there has always been a desire and demand to expand to graduate programs. Additionally, the technical burden of a custom system creates development latencies prompting some academic units to implement systems that meet their rapidly changing, student data needs.
Advise USC Program Sparked: Fall 2020
The creation of Academic Programs in 2019 brought together Undergraduate Education and USC Graduate School under the direction of Andrew McConnell Stott.
The demands of COVID-19 highlighted the painful business impacts of an aging and inadequate advisement platform. A project team was started in Fall 2020 to replace ADB.
The Academic Programs project team engaged with ITS for guidance on advisement platform options and pricing.