Frequently Asked Questions
General Information
What is Atlas?
Atlas displays hundreds of pages of course, instructor, and major profiles, allowing students, faculty, and staff to gain insight into information such as popular courses and grade distribution. Atlas data can be used to make informed decisions regarding planning, reporting, and more.
Where does the data for Atlas come from?
Atlas pulls information from multiple sources. The primary source is the Student Records Data Warehouse, which drives content for most course, instructor, and major profile pages, including grades, evaluation data, and student academic demographics. Additionally, we utilize APIs published by various units within UM for data on class seat availability, course descriptions, and class meeting locations.
How often is data updated in Atlas?
- Evaluation Data: Updated once per term, shortly after being published to the Student Records Data Warehouse.
- Course and Section Descriptions: Updated once per term.
- Course Offerings, Meeting Times, and Locations: Updated nightly, with class seat availability refreshed every few minutes.
When will the next term's info be available?
We follow the course catalog availability set by our upstream data providers at ITS. Class data is typically available once the Wolverine Access class search is published by the Registrar's Office. Please note that there may be adjustments to the class schedule after publication, leading to temporary inconsistencies between Wolverine Access and Schedule Builder until we re-sync the catalog.
Access and Errors
Why am I getting an error when trying to access Atlas?
Errors may occur during peak times, such as registration season. Try refreshing the page, waiting a few moments for dropdowns to load, or checking back later. If issues persist, please contact the Atlas support team.
Atlas Downtimes / Server Updates
Atlas is available 24/7, but the Schedule Builder feature may experience regular downtimes that coincide with scheduled maintenance for Wolverine Access. We indicate these time periods on the Schedule Builder page. If system downtime is necessary, we aim to schedule it during off-peak hours, typically around 7 AM on Fridays.
Course and Instructor Information
Why is a specific instructor not showing up?
Instructors are only visible on Atlas if they are considered full-time and have taught a course in the past five academic years.
What does “Data not available” mean?
To protect individual student and instructor privacy, we have minimum data thresholds established in collaboration with U-M leadership. We show “Data not available” when there isn’t enough data to meet these thresholds.
How often is information displayed on Atlas updated?
| Data | Description/Examples | Source | Refresh Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course Info | Course title, description, prerequisites, median grades | Data Warehouse (via M-Pathways) | Pulled once schedule is released |
| Course Descriptions | Summary of course | Data Warehouse (via M-Pathways) | Pulled once schedule is released |
| Course/Section Info | Section descriptions | LSA Course Guide | Every 24 hours |
| Meeting Times/Staff | Meeting times, instructors | Data Warehouse (via M-Pathways) | Every 24 hours |
| Student Info | Student records | Student Records Data Warehouse | Every 24 hours |
| Staff Info | Staff records | Staff Record/HR | Every 24 hours |
When are faculty evaluations updated in Atlas?
Faculty evaluations are typically updated once per term after the evaluation data is published.
Graduation Roadmap
Where does the data come from?
The Graduation Roadmap connects to multiple U-M data sources. Nightly updates from Wolverine Access provide currently enrolled courses, your course grades, as well as summaries of which courses have been used to satisfy specific requirements for past graduates. Requirement data is pulled from the Degree Audit system of Wolverine Access. The Atlas team worked with ITS to build an integration for running the Degree Audit system with future courses, providing the ability to check future planned courses.
How does Atlas determine which courses meet requirements?
Atlas reflects the results of reports built by the University's Degree Audit system. All data is reflective of the information available in the University's information systems.
Atlas says this course satisfies my program requirements. Is that true?
Graduation Roadmap results should be verified with your advisor. The Degree Audit system is complex, but there are some gaps in its ability to connect specific courses with some requirements. Some reports may be incomplete due to lack of information in the data system, or an incomplete set of rules for some degrees.
Why can't I get a course to satisfy a requirement in the future when I know it does now?
Some requirements need information that does not yet exist. For example, distribution requirements (e.g. Social Science or Humanities) associations are only available for current and former terms. There isn't enough information in the system to know if a course will satisfy such a requirement in a future term.
Why does my course satisfy some requirement but not another?
The Degree Audit system assesses a complete set of classes against all requirements, and many rules may result in conflicts that have cascading impacts on where a particular course ends up on an audit report. There are additional challenges with how the audit system handles requirement satisfaction with multiple majors and minors.
How reliable are the results of Graduation Roadmap?
As a reflection of the Degree Audit mechanisms of Wolverine Access, the results are as good as can be provided to us. As mentioned in above FAQs, there are gaps in the accuracy of the prediction because not all data is available for future classes. Graduation Roadmap currently provides a tool for exploring possible degree pathways. Always verify your plan with your advisor.
Why does it take so long to check my Roadmap?
Processing a Degree Audit takes significant resources. It may take several seconds for a report to be generated. Due to this, the University's data systems have a limited number of reports that Atlas can generate at a given time. To ensure fairness in the system, report requests are queued up on a first-come, first-served basis. If there are lots of other Atlas users requesting reports, it may take several minutes for the queue to handle your request.
Why does my Roadmap fail to load?
Given the variety of Majors and Minors offered by the University, there are undoubtedly combinations that trip-up the Degree Audit system where results can't be generated.
Can my Advisor see my Roadmap?
Not at this time. Roadmaps are not sharable, and are only visible to you.
Feature Requests and Support
How can I contact the Atlas team?
You can reach the Atlas team in two ways:- Email: atlas-support@umich.edu
- Feedback Form: Use the feedback form located on every Atlas page for specific issues. This allows us to gather additional context about your feedback.
I’m interested in Atlas but am not affiliated with the University of Michigan. What should I do?
Start by watching our Atlas Overview and Demo video. If you have further questions, feel free to contact us at atlas-support@umich.edu.