Our History
In Spring of 2016, a small group of academic staff members and student support administrators convened to determine the academic rationale for a co-curricular record at MSU. Under the leadership of former Provost, Dr. June Pierce Youatt, and with stewardship in the campus incubator, the Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology, this group defined the rationale and scoped the nature of the potential record. A human-centered design approach was taken to help the campus identify and realize values. Their work led to the creation of My Spartan Story and the Spartan Experience Record.
My Spartan Story formally transitioned to the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education in January 2020. It is the first project of its kind to be incubated in the Hub and then formally established as a new unit. My Spartan Story was in an early adoption phase throughout the 2019-2020 academic year and launched to the MSU community in fall 2020.
Fall 2016 - Spring 2017
Design
Between fall 2016 and spring 2017, the Hub hosted a series of campus-wide design exercises.
Fall 2017
Vendor Selection
In fall of 2017, Orbis Communications was the selected vendor through MSU’s competitive bid process. Since early 2018 we have been integrating the vended software with MSU’s systems.
August 2018
Committees
Throughout these processes, we engaged over 200 different students, faculty, and staff in the scoping, ideas, design, prototyping, implementation, and testing tasks.
In August of 2018, two committees were charged to support the campus wide launch of the co-curricular record: the Steering Committee and the Advisory Committee.
September 2018
Naming
In September of 2018, the Steering Committee vetted the names: My Spartan Story for the interactive platform aimed at tracking and student integrated learning. These stories lead to an individual Spartan Experience Record, an MSU validated complement to the academic transcript.
Spring 2019 - Spring 2020
Soft Launch
The My Spartan Story Team sought early adaptors to place their co-curricular experiences into the platform. Over 200 submissions were gathered during this time by faculty and staff all throughout the university, recognizing over 2,500 students.
Fall 2019
Transition To APUE
My Spartan Story transitioned out of the Hub in Fall 2019 and became an official unit within the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education.
Fall 2020
Student Launch
My Spartan Story and the Spartan Experience Record are formally launched to all undergraduate students.
Building this new culture around a co-curricular record has consisted of a diverse, community-wide effort which was enabled by clear values, vision, leadership, and support across the campus.