Innovating at Campus Scale: The Case of Michigan's Atlas

In 2016, a curricular information service was launched on the main campus of the University of Michigan. Through course guide entry links, students could view five-year historical summaries of various course properties. In subsequent years, the service expanded to share more elements of the academic landscape, including recent information on instructors and degrees. Rebranded as Atlas and positioned as an aid to improving academic decisions, this local campus innovation has scaled to be used by 99% of undergraduate students, with more than 54,000 unique users in calendar year 2022. A schedule builder feature and the ability to create and share collections have driven user growth and offer unique research windows into student academic preferences and decisions. As Atlas pivots from sharing passive historical views to more actively guiding students' academic pathways, the faculty and staff team behind the service continue to experiment with community building, translational research, and maintaining innovation at scale. Here, we review the growth and evolution of the service and share the experience of innovating at scale at a major American research university.