Building Advisement Rules in Campus Solutions Prin and Prac

University of Glasgow
Building Advisement Rules in Campus Solutions
Principles and Practice
Eleanor Waugh
Arthur Whittaker
Version 1.0
5/11/2010
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Introduction
Building of Plan Rules
Naming Conventions
Annual Progress and Progression
Equivalent Courses
Allowing Courses to satisfy more than one Requirement
Dealing with Simultaneous Grades and GPA Requirements
Assessing students for the award of Merit or Distinction
Effective Dates and Requirement Terms
Testing
3
4
5
7
7
8
12
16
17
18
Appendix 1: Conversion of current GPAs/grade points to GPAs/grade points
using the 22 point scale
19
Appendix 2: Controlling Display of Program Requirements on AA reports
20
Appendix 3: Distinction and Merit
25
Appendix 4: Job Aids
33
Job Aid AA01: Creation and Maintenance of Course Lists
33
Job Aid AA02: Academic Requirements Creation and Maintenance
41
Job Aid AA03: Academic Requirement Groups Creation and Maintenance
54
Job Aid SR3.12: Creating Equivalent Courses
61
Job Aid AA04: Course Share Sets
65
Job Aid AA99: Rule Building Ancillary Tasks
67
2
1 Introduction
One of the aims of the new student records system is to give students much greater
responsibility for selecting courses and enrolling in classes. Students will have more
control of their curriculum and timetable.
There is no requirement for a new student or a continuing student who is progressing
normally to meet an adviser to have a curriculum approved. It is therefore essential
that all the information on the requirements of their Plan is clearly set out in their
online record.
The information held in the system as advisement rules (AA rules), is communicated
to students and staff via ‘advisement reports’. Underlying the display of requirements
are rules which must ensure students are accurately assessed for progression within
their Plan.
Colleges, Schools and Boards of Studies will need to ensure procedures are in place
to create/update AA rules, following the creation of/changes to Programs, Plans or
Courses.
This document describes procedures and conventions to be used for AA rule building
and maintenance in order to ensure an appropriate level of uniformity of advisement
reports.
In addition to this document, there are Job Aids which describe in detail each part of
the process of rule building. There is also an online Oracle PeopleSoft Help facility
that users might find useful.
It is anticipated that new Programs (awards) will be created only rarely. When a new
program is approved, or an existing program is modified, responsibility for ensuring
the AA Program rules are created or updated lies with the College. College
procedures must ensure that the AA rule updating becomes a natural follow-on to the
PIP approval process. For the initial build, pre August 2011, SLP team members will
build Program rules for UG Programs and generic PGT. We do not intend to check
automatically part time students against the Program Requirements, at least in the
first instance. The Plan rules will still be applied to part time students.
When a new Plan is approved, or an existing Plan is modified, responsibility for
ensuring the AA Plan rules are created or updated lies with the School. School
procedures must ensure that the updating of AA rules becomes a natural follow-on to
the PIP approval process. Similarly, minor changes to AA Plan rules (updating
course lists) may be required following the creation of new courses.
3
2 Building of Plan Rules
Plan rules are built using the following features of Campus Solutions –
 Course Lists
 Requirements
 Requirement Groups
Academic Requirement Groups consist of Academic Requirements that are satisfied
by Course Lists.
There are many ways to build advisement rules in Campus Solutions. The Academic
Advisement team on the SLP produced rules for the plans we worked on with, what
we considered to be, a satisfactory representation of those rules to students using
the ‘Plan by my Requirements’ facility in the Student Centre.
Normally Course Lists must be created before Requirements which, in turn, must be
in place before a Requirement Group can be set up.
To start building academic advisement rules, a detailed curriculum for each year of
the Plan is required. This will help to identify where Course Lists, including the use of
wild cards, may be helpful. The rules will include the requirements for progression
within the Plan including a detailed curriculum and specified grades. (Appendix 1
shows the new grade points associated with the 22 point scale that will be in
operation from 2011.)
The following Job Aids explain procedures in detail JA_AA_01 Course List Creation and Maintenance
JA_AA_02 Requirement Creation and Maintenance
JA_AA_03 Requirement Group Creation and Maintenance
In the Plan rules for a BSc, MA or MA Soc Sci there is considerable flexibility in the
courses students can select to complete their curriculum in first year. In theory,
students on any of the above Plans can enroll on any course in Arts, Science or
Social Sciences (although there may be some restrictions on the admission of
Science students to some Arts or Social Sciences courses).
Using wild card lists that include all of the above with no guidance or
recommendation could be confusing for students. Depending on their specified Plan,
some students may have only 40 credits worth of courses required in first year,
leaving a free choice for the remaining 80 credits. It is proposed therefore that lists
of recommended courses should be produced to be included in Plan rules. This will
direct a student towards a more tailored list from which to select courses in the first
instance.
Other courses that are possible in terms of meeting Program or Plan requirements
must still be shown and wild card lists for this can be constructed by subject and
level.
As noted above and in Job Aids, use of the Long Description field can provide an
opportunity to give advice and often this should include a statement along the lines of
‘Please consult your adviser for guidance on course choice or if you need further
information.
4
3 Naming Conventions
It is important to maintain a degree of consistency in the naming of Course Lists,
Requirements and Requirement Groups and in the completion of Description Fields
in Campus Solutions. The following are the proposed conventions.
3.1
Naming of Course Lists, Requirements and Requirement Groups
3.1.1
Course Lists (Description field)
The ‘Description’ field should describe the content of the list with the defining subject
area/course name first, followed by the level, eg Maths 2, English Lit 1, Archaeology
all, Mech Eng 4M, Mech Eng 4H, Science 1, Arts 2 etc
If there are other qualifiers, these come last eg Maths 2 (for hons); Maths 2 (nonhons) or Maths 2 (2A,2B,2D).
3.1.2
Requirements (Search Description field)
Requirements should be defined (in the ‘Search Description’ field) by the stage of the
plan/program to which they apply not the stage to which they admit students.
Plan requirements (Search Description field):
Subject area/course name should come first followed by the level for which the
requirement exists eg English 1, Geography 3H, Sociology 2. Other qualifiers should
come last eg Mech Eng 5M compulsory, Mech Eng 5M optional.
For requirements with only one line item, the line item ‘Search Description’ field may
mirror exactly a course list and therefore may share the same name – Biology 1
(Course list consists of Biology 1A and 1B and is also called Biology1).
Program requirements (Search Description field):
The award title should come first followed by the year and any other qualifiers eg BSc
Hons Year 1 Progress, BSc Hons Year 1 normal progression.
3.1.3
Requirement Groups (Search Description field)
Requirement groups normally define a complete year of a Plan or Program and may
consist of one or more requirements.
For a plan the subject comes first followed by the award name and level eg Statistics
BSc hons Year 1, English Lit MA Year1.
In the case of a program, the award name appears first followed by the level eg MA
hons Year 1, MEng Year 4, MA hons Year 2 etc.
N.B. All Course Lists, Requirements and Requirement Groups created for course
enrolment purposes, will be prefixed ‘ER’ to differentiate them from Academic
Advisement Requirements. Enrolment pre- and co-requisites may be visible in some
lists in Campus Solutions alongside Course Lists, Requirements and Requirement
Groups created for Academic Advisement.
5
3.2
Description Fields within Course Lists
3.2.1 Description
See 3.1.1 above
3.2.2 Short Description
This should be abbreviated in the most meaningful way possible, given the 10
character restriction. The Program Award can be omitted and the last character
should be the year. e.g. Biology 1
3.2.3 Long Description
This does not appear on an advisement report and is not a compulsory field but it
may be used to provide additional information for staff (to expand the initial
description from ‘Biology 1’ to ‘Biology 1A and 1B’.
3.3
Description Fields within Requirement and Requirement Group Pages
3.3.1 Search Description
See 3.1.2, 3.1.3 above
3.3.2 Short Search Description
This should be abbreviated in the most meaningful way possible, given the 10
character restriction. The Program Award can be omitted and the last character
should be the year. e.g. Zoology 1 or Zoo 1 Comp
3.3.3 Long Description
It is recommended that this is kept identical to the Search Description (the default
setting). This does not appear on an advisement report.
3.3.4 Report Description
It is recommended that this is kept identical to the Search Description (the default
setting). This appears as a heading in the advisement report.
3.3.5 Report Long Description
This is a descriptive field which appears in the advisement report. It is recommended
that the tone of this is ‘student friendly’ and personalised. e.g. ‘To complete first year
you need 120 credits normally at grade D3 or better’.
3.4
Types of Courses appearing within a Plan
To identify which courses must be taken and which are optional, the terminology –
Compulsory, Recommended and Optional courses – has been adopted. This avoids
using terms like options or modules. It also allows the concept of recommended
courses to be introduced to focus the student’s attention on specific courses relevant
to their Plan.
6
4 Annual Progress and Progression
This will be controlled by Program and Plan Requirements. Program Requirements
for each year of study (Academic Level in Campus Solutions terms) will be contained
in two Program Requirement Groups for each year, one for minimum progress and
one for normal progression on the Program. Program Requirements will not be
checked at the start of each academic year. They will be checked only at the end of
semester 2, when final results of assessments are available. The mechanism for
doing this is described in appendix 1: ‘Controlling Display of Requirements on AA
Reports’.
Plan Requirements will usually encompass the Program Requirements along with
any additional Plan rules. UG Program Requirements will only display on
advisement reports for students who have not satisfied them. Program requirements
for part time students will not be checked automatically. This will be achieved by only
checking Program Requirements for students who attempt at least 91 credits in any
Term (academic year). For PGT both Program and Plan requirements will appear on
reports. Details of how this is achieved are also described in appendix 2.
Reports will be run at the end of each academic year for all students to check that
they have satisfied requirements and to determine their progression status
(Academic Standing). Academic standing values are shown in Appendix 2.
Plan rules will be available at any time for students or advisers to run ‘Advisement
Reports’ or ‘What if’ reports. ‘What-if’ reports compare a student’s academic record
to date against a new Program and/or Plan showing which requirements are
satisfied.
5 Equivalent Courses
Course equivalences allow courses to be identified as an acceptable alternative to
courses specified in Plan rules for the purposes of progression within the Plan. This
may be used in writing Academic Advisement rules where the number of students
likely to present with the alternative qualification is sufficient to make it worthwhile
setting up the Equivalence.
For example, this might apply to level 1 Engineering Mathematics courses for
students who transfer from Engineering to Science in order to pursue a BSc honours
Mathematics degree. Recognising the Engineering Mathematics courses as
equivalents for Academic Advising purposes would allow the student to satisfy this
part of the Mathematics Plan.
Job Aid SR 3.12 Creating Equivalent Courses describes the procedure for setting up
equivalent courses.
7
6 Allowing Courses to satisfy more than one
Requirement
By default, Campus Solutions will allow a course to satisfy only one Requirement (or
Requirement Group). This is achieved by defaulting the ‘Credit Include Mode’ in the
Parameters tab for the Requirement/Requirement Group to ‘All Stats’. CS allows
‘Credit Include Mode’ to be set to ‘Verify’. This allows a course to be used to satisfy
a requirement, but leave the credit associated with that course to be used to satisfy
another requirement. At first sight, ‘Verify’ appears to be an appropriate way to allow
the same course to meet Program and Plan requirements. Unfortunately, using
‘Verify’ limits the options available for “Choice Resolution Method” and formatting the
advisement report. For this reason, the use of verify is not recommended at UoG.
A more controlled way to allow the same course to be used to meet both Program
and Plan requirements is to use ‘Course Share Sets’. This will allow courses to be
used more than once to satisfy Requirement Groups of both the Program and the
Plan while retaining ‘All Stats’ rather than ‘Verify’ in the ‘Credit Include Mode’ field
throughout Requirements and Requirement Groups. The benefits of using ‘All Stats’
are:


a more informative advisement report, showing what courses have been used
to meet requirements,
the ability to choose, for example, the best 80 credits from a set of courses
amounting to more than 80 credits (by setting Course Ranking Scheme to
‘Grade Points’, Course Resolution Scheme to ‘Investigate. All Combinations’
[Figure 1] and setting Maximum Credits to 80 in the appropriate box [Figure
2])
Within the Program, ‘Partition Sharing’ allows courses to be used more than once to
satisfy different line items in Requirements eg 120 credits at grade D with 80 of the
credits from Science courses [Figure 3]. The same courses may be used to satisfy
both. At Plan level, Partition Sharing is not required and can present misleading
information if the system allows courses to be re-used to satisfy more than one
requirement [Figure 4]. Partition sharing can be set in Requirement Groups to allow
sharing between Requirements [see Figure 1]. It can also be set in Requirements to
allow sharing between Line Items [Figure 3].
The intention is to create a Course Share Set for each year of each Program. All
Plan Requirement Groups will share courses with the corresponding Program
Requirement Group for the particular year. Each Program Requirement Group will
share with all years of that Program, but Plans will not share courses across years.
The table illustrates how it will work for the BSc program.
Year Program
BSc
1
BSc 1 CSS
BSc 2 CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
2
BSc 1 CSS
BSc 2 CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
Plan
Maths
BSc 1 CSS
Plan
Statistics
BSc 1
CSS
BSc 2 CSS
BSc 2
CSS
8
Similarly for
all Plans
associated
with the
BSc
3
4
BSc 1 CSS
BSc 2 CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
BSc 1 CSS
BSc 2 CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 3
CSS
BSc 4 CSS
BSc 4
CSS
(CSS = Course Share Set)
Course Share Sets are set up in Academic Advisement/Academic
Requirements/Define Course Share Sets [Figure5] and, once created are displayed
under the Parameters tab in Requirement Groups [Figures 1 and 4]. (See Job Aid
JA_AA_04 Course Share Set Creation and Maintenance.)
N.B. When setting up Course Share Sets, all that needs to be entered is the
effective date, description and status. The Course Share Set created is then
selected under the Parameters Tab in Requirement Groups.
Figure 1 - Example for BSc (Life Sciences) Program
9
Figure 2 - Requirement Line Item Parameters for ‘Maximum 80 credits’
Figure 3 - Partition Sharing of Line Items in a Requirement
10
Figure 4 - Example for Zoology Plan
Figure 5 - Example Course Share Set (N.B. This currently shows only the Zoology
Plan, but all other Life Sciences Year 1 Plans should appear when they are created)
11
7 Dealing with Simultaneous Grades and GPA
Requirements
If there is a GPA requirement and a grade requirement over the same number of
credits, it is good practice to write this as two separate line items. Though possible to
put both requirements in one line, the advisement report will be confusing (though
strictly accurate) if all grade requirements are satisfied, but the GPA requirement is
not.
Example
There is a Statistics 2 requirement for 40 credits of Statistics courses with a minimum
GPA of 12 and a minimum grade of D (GPA/unit = 10) in all courses.
This could be set up as below.
This will result in the problem illustrated below if one result is lower than D. The
student in question got an E in Statistics 2S, so this grade does not show in the
Requirement defining ‘Required Stats Courses’ because it fails to meet the
requirement for a minimum of grade D in all courses. The potential confusion is that
the student should still gain the credits for the course with the E. The ‘30 taken’ is
confusing. It should say ‘only 30 credits taken satisfy this requirement’. Similarly, the
GPA displayed is the GPA over the courses which satisfy the total requirement, not
all courses in the list.
12
A less confusing way is to write two line items, one specifying the GPA requirement
and one specifying the grade requirement:
13
Line Item Parameters Tab
Line Item Detail Tab
Must set to
DLIST
This DLIST refers to
the line item above.
See below for more
14
Derived Course Lists, or DLISTS are another way of setting up course lists. In this
case the derived course list is to use the same course lists as that used by the
requirement line above. See Peoplebooks for more information.
The use of two lines results in a less confusing AA report:
15
The DLIST and ‘Used by Requirement’ in the Line Item Detail tab also results in a
less repetitive advisement report for a student with no results:
8 Assessing students for the award of Merit or
Distinction
The requirements for merit are 12 < GPA < 14 over the best 360 credits from any
courses. On the face of it, this is simple. A requirement can be set up with Line Item
Parameters Minimum GPA = 12
Minimum Units = 360
There are actually two complications:
1. If a student has done more than 360 credits, we want to count only the best
360.
2. A student getting a GPA of 14 or more should be awarded Distinction, not
Merit, so we need to be able to set a maximum GPA.
We have not yet found a way of dealing with these two complications using a single
requirement Line Item. Two line items appear to be needed as described in
appendix 3.
The requirements for Distinction are easier to set up. The procedure is also
described in appendix 3
16
9 Effective Dates and Requirement Terms
Each student will have a Requirement Term associated with both their Program and
Plan. The system will look at the Requirement Term and apply the appropriate
Requirement Groups as of the term start date of the Requirement Term and apply
the AA rules effective as of that date (as defined by the Effective Date of the
appropriate Requirement Groups).
If a student has a requirement term of 2005, for example, then the most recent AA
rules, up to and including 2005 will be applied. AA rules with effective dates of 2006
and beyond will not be applied to that student.
The normal UoG procedures for dealing with students who are on-course when the
regulations change, is to apply the rules which act in the student’s favour.
A new grading scheme will be implemented from September 2011. It has already
been agreed that this will be applied to all students when their exam results are
brought into CS. New GPA calculations will be performed for all students for all
years, based on historical exam result data.
UoG Recommended Procedures
Apply 2011 regulations (AA rules) to all new students in August 2011. These rules
will apply to these students as they progress from year to year and eventually
graduate.
Do not apply any (retrospective) advisement rules to continuing students who have
already progressed into their current year of study.
Apply 2011 regulations to all continuing students going forward, unless major
changes have been made to Plans. If there have been major changes in Plan
regulations, it may be necessary to write a few special Plan rules with appropriate
effective date. It may also be necessary to look individually at students not satisfying
2011 regulations and manually create exceptions consistent with the regulations in
force when the student entered the university.
Implementation Steps
1) Write 2011 Program Rules (Course Lists, Requirements and Requirement
Groups) for all years of study with an effective date of 01/01/1901 (this should
cover all current students!). By setting the correct academic level / standing
for each student (see section 6), only the Program Rules for the appropriate
year of study will be applied. Students who fail to meet the 2011 Program
Rules should be looked at on a case-by-case basis to see if they meet the
regulations which were in place when they entered the university. Manual
exceptions should be applied as appropriate.
2) Build all Requirements and Course Lists for Plans with an effective date of
01/01/1901.
3) Build all Requirement Groups for Plans for each year of study (1-5) for
regulations in place as at start of session 2011-12, with an effective date as
shown below:
17
Plan Requirement
Groups for
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Effective Date
1-8-2011
1-8-2010
1-8-2009
1-8-2008
1-8-2007
This means that year 5 students will not have Plan rules checked for their
earlier years of study, since progress/progression in these earlier years has
already been checked outside of CS. Similarly year 4 students will only have
Plan rules checked for ‘this year’ and ‘next year’. It also means that all
students will be checked against current (2011) regulations. If significant
changes have occurred since the dates in the table above and if the changes
affect significant numbers of students, it may be necessary to create new
Course Lists, Requirements or Requirement Groups as appropriate. See
step 4 below.
4) If necessary, to deal with significant changes between 2007 and 2011 it may
be necessary to add a new row to some Course Lists, Requirements or
Requirement Groups. This new row should contain information relating to old
regulations and have an effective date as in the table of section (3) The
original row (which should have the effective date changed appropriately).
The Plan rules with effective date prior to 1-8-2011 should be created by
copying the 1-8-2011 rules and changing the effective date. It is not
expected that the rules for earlier years will be edited to reflect the
actual regulations which were in place at the time unless major changes
have been made which act against the student’s best interest. It is
expected that individual students who are disadvantaged by the application of
the 2011 regulations will be dealt with on a case by case basis.
5) Set requirement term equal to admit term for all new and continuing students,
unless they have taken more than one year to complete one year of study. In
such circumstances, the requirement term should be set so that rules with the
earliest possible effective date that can be applied for the appropriate year of
study, e.g. If a student started in 2005 (admit term = 1-8-2005) but is
nominally about to enter year 3, the requirement term should be set as 1-82009. Such students will have to be monitored to see if manual overrides are
necessary.
10 Testing
When building Plan rules it is recommended that Requirement Groups are tested as
they are created. In training systems, this entails ‘quick admitting’ a student to a
particular Program and Plan, then ‘term activating’ the student. The student then
needs to be enrolled on classes and given grades. By first entering poor grades,
then better grades, it should be possible to check that the advisement rules are
acting as expected. See JA_AA_99.
Following a complete build of a set of Plan rules, it would be good practice for an
independent person to check that they act as expected.
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Appendix 1: Conversion of current GPAs/grade points
to GPAs/grade points using the 22 point scale
Current Grade
Points/GPA
New Grade
Points/GPA
16
14
13
12
11
10
9
8.5
8
6
2
0
18
15
14
12
11
9
8
7
6
3
1
0
Schedule A
GRADE
Grade Points
(GPA/Credit)
A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
B1
B2
B3
C1
C2
C3
D1
D2
D3
E1
E2
E3
F1
F2
F3
G1
G2
H
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
19
Appendix 2: Controlling Display of Program
Requirements on AA reports
There will be two Requirement Groups for each year of study of each Program. The
first Requirement Group will have minimum requirements for Progress and the
second will have requirements for normal progression on a Program. There will also
be separate Requirement Groups for each year of study of each Plan. The Plan
rules will be more specific and more stringent than the Program rules. If a student
satisfies the Plan Rules, he or she should have satisfied the Program rules.
At the start of each year, when a student is planning which courses to study, the Plan
rules will help with this. Ideally, to avoid confusion to the student, Program rules will
not be checked before a student has enough results with grades that satisfy the
Progress rules. A way to achieve this is to use ‘Academic Standing’ rules.
Four academic standing values have been defined. See the table below.
Academic Description
Rule
Standing
Action
Y1PC
Year 1 Progress
Cumulative Credits Attempted >= 90
Check
Current Units Attempted >= 91
Y2PC
Year 2 Progress
Cumulative Credits Attempted >= 210
Check
Current Units Attempted >= 91
Y3PC
Year 3 Progress
Cumulative Credits Attempted >= 330
Check
Current Units Attempted >= 91
Y4PC
Year 4 Progress
Cumulative Credits Attempted >= 450
Check
Current Units Attempted >= 91
The Academic Standing rules are set up in CS via:
Set Up SACR > Product Related > Student Records > Student Standing and Awards
> Academic Standing Rule >
The table below shows more Academic Standing values.
20
Program/Plan
Description
Progress on
Program
Satisfied all Minimumn
Requirements for
Progress within the
Program, as published in
degree regulations
Failed to satisfy one or
more of Minimum
Requirement(s) for
Progress
Satisfied all Requirements
for progression within the
Program as published in
degree regulations
Normal
Progression on
Program
Normal
Progression on
Plan
Initial Acad Standing
Status (after publication of
May exam diet results)
Either Progress or In Review*
- depending on whether all
Plan Requirements have
been satisfied.
Academic
Standing
Code
PROG,
RVPR or
RVPL
Outcome (after meeting of Progress
Committee, resits or adviser consultation)
= Final Acad Standing Status
Progress or Progress with Permission,
Progress with Conditions, Progress on New
Program/Plan or Repeat Year
Refer to Progress Comm
COMM
Exclude or Progress with Conditions,
Progress on New Program/Plan or Repeat
Year
Either Progress or In Review*
- depending on whether all
Plan Requirements have
been satisfied.
PROG or
RVPL
Progress or Progress with Permission,
Progress with Conditions, Progress on New
Program/Plan or Repeat Year
Failed to satisfy one or
more Requirement(s) for
progression within the
Program
In Review
RVPR
Progress or Progress with Permission,
Progress with Conditions, Progress on New
Program/Plan or Repeat Year
Satisfied all Requirements
of the Plan
Progress
PROG
Remains as PROG
Failed to satisfy all
Requirements
In Review
RVPL
Progress or Progress with Permission,
Progress with Conditions, Progress on New
Program/Plan or Repeat Year
* In Review means refer to an
adviser, require resit
attempt(s) or refer to
Progress Committee.
21
Academic
Standing
Code
PROG,
PERM,
COND,
PRCH or
RPTY
EXCL,
COND,
PRCH or
RPTY
PROG,
PERM,
COND,
PRCH or
RPTY
PROG,
PERM,
COND,
PRCH or
RPTY
PROG
PROG,
PERM,
COND,
PRCH or
RPTY
After all assessment results have been recorded in Campus Solutions, a process will
be run to check all students in a particular cohort against the Requirement Groups.
This process will change the academic standing action from YnPC to another value
as detailed in the table above.
Two values are relevant to the task in hand:
COMM – student will have failed to meet minimum progress requirements
RVPR – student will have met minimum progress requirements, but not the
requirements for normal progression on Program.
These academic standing values will be combined with YnPC to define ‘Dynamic
Conditions’. E.g. Check Progress Year 2
Academic Advisement > Academic Requirements > Define Dynamic Condition
Now, when setting up Requirement Groups for Programs, a precondition can be set
up:
Academic Advisement > Academic Requirements > Define Requirement Groups
In the above example, at the start of a Term (Academic Year), no student will have
an academic standing of ‘COMM’, so unless Academic Standing = Y2PC, then this
Requirement Group will not be checked. In other words, unless a student has
attempted 210 credits in total, with at least 91 in the current Term, this Requirement
Group will be ignored. The rationale for the values in the table is that full time
students should have attempted n x 120 credits (n = year of study), so (n x120)-30
gives a margin for error. Part time students will not attempt more than 90 credits in
any Term. Note the emphasis on attempt, not satisfactory performance.
Following on from the above, a further refinement is that successful students need
not really be concerned with Program rules. Plan rules are much more helpful. To
hide Program rules from successful students, ‘Report only when NOT satisfied’
should be chosen in Parameters for the Requirement Group. See below.
Academic Advisement > Academic Requirements > Define Requirement Groups
23
24
Appendix 3: Distinction and Merit
Requirement for Merit:
12 < GPA < 14 over the best 360 credits from any courses.
On the face of it, this is simple. A requirement can be set up with Line Item
Parameters Minimum GPA = 12
Minimum Units = 360
There are actually two complications:
3. If a student has done more than 360 credits, we want to count only the best
360.
4. A student getting a GPA of 14 or more should be awarded Distinction, not
Merit, so we need to be able to set a maximum GPA.
We have not yet found a way of dealing with these two complications using a single
requirement Line Item. Two line items appear to be needed as described below:
is achieved by setting Credit Include Mode = ‘All Stats’ and Course Ranking
Scheme = ‘Grade Points’. With ‘All Stats’, the minimum number of credits to
meet the requirement are chosen. With ‘Grade Points’ the best grades are used.
NB. Setting Maximum Units is not necessary when All Stats
(1) is used. Setting Maximum Units with verify gives only a true/false result – it
will not restrict to the best 360 credits.
(2) Is achieved by another requirement line item with Credit Include Mode =
‘Verify’. With this setting a ‘Maximum GPA’ box appears (not available with
‘All Stats’).
The two requirement lines need to be connected with ‘AND’ to ensure both lines are
satisfied.
The problem with using ‘All Stats’ in (1) above is that all 360 credits will be used to
satisfy this requirement and it will not be possible to use the courses to meet other
requirements without defining a Course Share Set for the requirement group. The
same Course Share Set should be referred to in any other Requirement Groups
where ‘All Stats’ is used (e.g. Distinction).
A further problem with setting ‘Verify’ in (2) is that the outcome will be ‘false’ if the
student has done more than 360 credits. This can be solved by setting Line Detail
type to ‘DLIST’, List Recall Mode to Used by requirement, Academic Requirement to
the current Requirement and Line Number to the previous line (the one with ‘All
Stats’). This ensures that only the best 360 credits are used to calculate the GPA
and check if it is 14 or more.
25
Example
Academic Advisement > Define Academic Requirements
This makes
sure the best
360 credits
are used
26
This makes sure
both lines are
satisfied
27
Don’t really
need to set this.
All stats only
uses the
minimum
required courses.
This box appears
when Credit
Include Mode is
Verify
28
Must set to
DLIST
Checks only the
360 credits used by
the all stats line
Academic Advisement > Define Requirement Groups
29
This makes sure
the best 360
credits are used
Define course
share set
Select Requirement
into Requirement
Group
30
Academic Advisement > Academic Requirements > Define Course Share Sets
No need to fill this in
This information comes from selecting the
course share set into the requirement
group. Not filled in from this screen.
Distinction is much easier:
Academic Advisement > Define Academic Requirements
Use of ‘All Stats’ means that only the best 360 credits are used.
31
Academic Advisement > Define Requirement Groups
A course share set is used because of the use of ‘All Stats’.
32
Appendix 4: Job Aids
Job Aid AA01: Creation and Maintenance of Course Lists
Course Lists are the basic building blocks for Academic Advisement. They are used
to group courses together – usually into compulsory and optional lists. Course Lists
are often common across named Academic Plans and across Program types eg BSc
Hons (Single), BSc Hons (Combined). Wherever possible, Course Lists should be
created once and used in a number of situations. Course Lists are the means of
linking courses to Requirements and Requirement Groups. Individual courses cannot
be linked to a Requirement so it is sometimes necessary to create a Course List
consisting of one course.
1
Creating Course Lists
1.1 Define Course Lists
If a suitable Course List does not already exist, a new List has to be created.
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Course Lists
Ignore Course List and select Add. (The system will generate a Course List number
automatically once new List is saved.)
When the new screen appears with blank fields, there is a copy button in the top right
hand corner that allows you to copy an existing Course List and make any necessary
amendments to rename as a new List or the Copy feature can be ignored to create a
completely new List. If the Copy button is selected
Course List Description
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Course Lists/
Course List Description tab
33
* indicates a required field
34
Field
Course List
Examples
000000002
*Effective Date
01/08/2011**
*Status
Active
Comment
System generated identifier once Course
List has been saved. May be entered
manually unless the details have been
copied from an existing List, in which
case the randomly allocated number
cannot be changed.
Set this to 1st August of the academic
year from which this Course List applies.
The main reason to change this to
“inactive” would be if there is something
wrong with the requirement. If a
program/plan stops being delivered, the
correct procedure is to insert a new row
*Description
Biology 1
*Short Description
Biology 1
*Usage
Academic
Advisement
Biology 1A and 1B
Long Description
*Academic
Institution
Academic Career
GLSGW
UG
( ) with the appropriate effective date
and make the status inactive as of that
date. Previous rows should remain
active to keep correct history.
Enter an appropriate description for the
Course List (see notes on naming
conventions).
Enter an amended Short Description if
necessary (limited to 10 characters)
Leave as Academic Advisement
Not a compulsory field but may be used
for additional information for staff.
Can only ever be Glasgow
Select the career using Look-up icon (
) or by type in appropriate code – UG,
PGT etc
Academic program
2105
Select Academic Program using Look-up
icon or type in appropriate code. May be
left blank if the Course List is likely to be
re-used eg a Course List created for
Psychology may be used by the MA,
BSc or MA Soc Sci programs.
Academic Plan
Leave blank
It is likely that Course Lists will be used
for multiple Plans, this field should be left
blank.
Academic Sub-Plan
Leave Blank
It is unlikely that Sub-Plans will be used
at UoG.
** During the initial build, we are using an Effective Date of 01/01/1901 in Course
Lists and Requirements to allow them to be used by any Requirement Group.
Requirement Groups will use effective dating to apply different rules to different
cohorts of students. See Section 8 of Building Advisement Rules in Campus
Solutions ‘Effective Dates and Requirement terms’. The effective date defaults to
today’s date and it is easy to forget to set the 1901 date. If you need to change it
later, you need to choose “correct history” first. If the effective date is greyed out, try
going to the course list detail tab and clicking “fetch”.
35
1.2 Course List Detail
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Course Lists/
Course List Detail tab
Course Lists may consist of specific courses or may use the WildCard functionality.
(NB At the Requirement stage, it is possible to combine existing Course Lists in
different ways (add, subtract, intersect) to define a Requirement.)
1.2.1 Course List consisting of specified courses
36
Field
*Course Sequence
Examples
1
Comment
The system assigns the numbers
sequentially, but it is possible to change
the order if the order in which they
appear is significant for the advisement
report.
Do not check WildCard box if you intend
to use specific courses in the list.
Check box if appropriate.
WildCard Indicator
Include Equivalent
Courses
Course ID
000013
Select courses by using the Look-up
icon or by entering individual codes.
These are the unique identifiers attached
to the course when first created. They
are not codes from the Catalogue
(Biology 1001 in the above example).
The Subject or Catalogue Number may
be used in the Look-up table. See
section 3 for details of how to look up the
old UoG course codes.
Term
Leave blank
Not expected to be used at UoG.
Associated Class
Leave blank
Not expected to be used at UoG.
Topic ID
Leave blank
Not expected to be used at UoG.
On the screen below, the WildCard Indicator is checked on the Course List Detail tab
and the screen changes as shown.
1.2.2 Course list using WildCard functionality
37
The above is an extract of list using WildCard functionality, based on subjects.
Field
*Course Sequence
Examples
1
Comment
The system assigns the numbers
sequentially, but it is possible to change
the number if the order in which they
appear is significant for the advisement
report.
Check Wild Card box. This changes the
fields that follow.
Check box to allow courses included in
the list to show on the advisement
report..
There is a problem with how courses are
displayed when Academic Groups are
used to create WildCard lists. Oracle is
investigating but has not yet solved the
problem. It is advisable to avoid Groups
when creating WildCard lists.
Select Subject using Look-up or type in
Subject Description.
Use Catalog number to add any
additional qualifiers required eg to
identify all level 1 courses within the
specified Subject.
Use this field to provide additional
information on the content of the
WildCard list in the advisement report.
Wild Card Indicator
Display Wild card
Academic Group
Subject
COMPSCI
Catalog Nbr
1###
Report Description
EarthScience
level 1 courses
1.3 Course List Parameters
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Course Lists/
Parameters tab
38
Ignore Course List parameters tab.
2
Maintenance of Course Lists
Course Lists may require amendment from time to time. When a change is
introduced requiring the deletion or addition of entries, the amended List must be
introduced with a new Effective Date to indicate when the existing list ceases to be
current and the new List comes into effect.
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Course Lists/Find
an Existing Value
Identify the Course List to be amended then select Course List Detail tab. Before
attempting to amend the List, the individual courses must be displayed so select the
Fetch button at this point.
Once the courses (or Wild Card entries) have appeared, return to Course List
Description tab.
Use the ( ) icon to add a new row, with a new Effective Date (today’s date is the
default). This allows the original List to be retained and the new List to become active
from the chosen Effective Date.
The Course List Detail page can then be amended using the
39
(
) and () icons.
3
Checking Old UoG Course Codes
You can find the new course identifier and catalog number from the old UoG course
code as described below.
Reporting Tools>Query>Query Manager
Click HTML against UOG_COURSE_CHECK
Type in old code, e.g. 9ESU and then “View Results”
Similarly, UOG_COURSE_CHECK_2 can be used to find a UoG course code from
the CS Course ID (not Subject + Catalog Number).
40
Job Aid AA02:
Maintenance
Academic
Requirements
Creation
and
Academic Requirements define the rules of a Plan using Course Lists. A single
Academic Requirement may be used for multiple Plans by attaching it to the
appropriate Requirement Groups. Academic Requirements may contain a single line
item referring to one course list (eg for a set of compulsory courses) or it may contain
several line items referring to lists of optional and/or compulsory courses.
1
Creating Academic Requirements
1.1 Define Academic Requirements
Academic Requirements may contain a single line item referring to one course list
(eg for a set of compulsory courses) or it may contain several line items each
referring to a list of optional courses.
Navigation: Academic Advisement/Academic Requirements/Define Academic
Requirement
Select Add a New Value.
Ignore Academic Requirement as system will generate a number when Requirement
is saved. Select Add
When the new screen appears with blank fields, there is a copy button in the top right
hand corner that allows you to copy an existing Requirement and make any
necessary amendments to create a new Requirement. The required courses for
Zoology 1, in the example below, would be the same for any other Life Science Plan
so could be copied and simply re-named to Physiology 1, Microbiology 1 etc and the
relevant fields amended accordingly.
41
* indicates a required field
42
Field
Academic Requirement
Examples
000000002
*Effective Date
01/08/2010
(01/01/1901 for
initial build)**
*Status
Active
Comment
System generated identifier but can
be manually entered, unless the
details have been copied from an
existing Requirement, in which case
the randomly allocated number cannot
be changed.
Set this to 1st August of the academic
year from which this Requirement
applies. Use 01/01/1901 for initial
build. See note below**
The main reason to change this to
“inactive” would be if there is
something wrong with the
requirement. If a program/plan stops
being delivered, the correct procedure
*Requirement Usage
*Academic Institution
Academic Career
ADV
GLSGW
UG
Academic Program
2105
Academic Plan
May be left blank
Academic Sub-Plan
Leave blank
*Search Description
Zoology 1
Compulsory
Courses
43
is to insert a new row
( ) with
the appropriate effective date and
make the status inactive as of that
date. Previous rows should remain
active to keep correct history.
Always leave as ADV
Can only ever be Glasgow.
Select the career using Look-up icon
( ) or type in appropriate code (UG,
PGT etc).
Select Academic Program using Lookup or type in appropriate code. This is
to aid searching and identifying the
Program will reduce the number of
entries in the list when searching for a
Requirement.
Select the Plan using Look-up where
the Requirement is expected to apply
to only one Plan. As noted above, this
is to aid searching and reduce the
number of entries in the list. Some
Requirements may be re-used for
multiple plans, in which case it is
better not to identify a specific plan.
In the above example, this
Requirement will be used by only the
Requirement Group for the Zoology
single Hons Plan. but the
Requirement is likely to be copied, renamed and references to Zoology
amended, to be used in other
Requirement Groups for UG Plans in
Life Sciences.
It is unlikely that Sub-Plans will be
used at UoG.
Enter a description that can be used in
a search. ( See Naming Conventions
in AA Rule Building: Principles and
*Short Search
Description
Zoo 1 Comp
*Long Description
Defaults to Search
Description
Defaults to Search
Description
*Report Description
*Report Long
Description
You must
complete the
compulsory
courses listed
below - Biology 1A
and 1B (40
credits) etc (see
above)
Pre -Condition
Practice.) The remaining fields in this
section will be automatically populated
with this description when the cursor
is moved to the next field. These
fields may be edited as appropriate.
Limited to 10 characters, default may
need to be amended. Default above
was Zoology 1
Leave as default
Also limited. This appears on the
student’s Advisement Report as the
heading for the Requirement. Should
conform to Naming Conventions
document to ensure consistent
presentation in the report.
This appears in the Advisement
Report below the heading. Can be
used to provide more detailed advice
to students on curriculum choice or
required courses, grades etc.
Not normally used in Requirements.
See AA Rule Building: Principles and
Practice.
.1 ** During the initial build, we are using an Effective Date of 01/01/1901 in
Course Lists and Requirements to allow them to be used by any Requirement
Group. Requirement Groups will use effective dating to apply different rules to
different cohorts of students.
1.2 Parameters
Parameters may be set for the Requirement overall (total number of credits, GPA or
minimum grade points per unit) or for individual line items, depending on how the
rules are defined. In the example below, the fields are left blank on the Parameters
page and details appear in the Line Item Parameters.
44
45
Field
Minimum Units
Examples
May be left blank
Minimum Courses
May be left blank
Minimum GPA
May be left blank
Minimum Grade
Points/Unit
*Course Ranking Scheme
May be left blank
*Credit Include Mode
All Stats
Choice Resolution
Method
Satisfy in
Sequential Order
Connector Type
AND or OR
Reporting
Print Control
Always Report
Print on Audit
Reports
Chronological
GPA, Units, Course
Count
Comment
Not used if details are to be
included in Line Item Parameters
Not used if details are to be
included in Line Item Parameters
Not used if details are to be
included in Line Item Parameters
Not used if details are to be
included in Line Item Parameters
The default is “Chronological” which
means counting credit for courses
in the order in which they were
taken. The most likely alternative is
“Grade Points” which means
counting credits by the highest
grades first. This would be used
where a student needed to satisfy a
grade requirement from a specified
number of credits which were fewer
than the overall total eg 160 credits
with at least 120 at grade D3 or
above. This would allow the
courses to be ranked by grade to
satisfy the requirement of 120 credit
at D3.
Leave as All Stats. See AA Rule
Building: Principles and Practice .Allowing Courses to satisfy more
than one Requirement.
This field is similar to “Course
Ranking Scheme”, but instead of
referring to courses, it refers to the
order of applying the partitions
(lines) in the Requirement Group.
“Sequential” means that the
partitions will be applied in line
number order. “Investigate All
Combinations” should normally be
used when “Grade Points” is set for
the Course Ranking Scheme.
Need to identify if line items are to
be joined with an ‘and’ or ‘or’
connector. Likely to be used when
students have multiple ways of
satisfying a particular Requirement.
(See Line Items 10, 20 and 30
below.)
Leave as default
Leave as default
GPA and Units may be displayed if
Parameters are being set at this
level rather than at the Line Item
level. Check boxes to show on
46
Advisement Report.
Not commonly used but may be
required if the same set of courses
is used to satisfy more than one
Requirement. See section 6
‘Allowing Courses to satisfy more
than one Requirement’ above.
Partition Sharing
1.3 Line Items
47
If more than 1 Line Item is required use the
button to add the necessary rows.
Select View All to show all the lines added.
Field
Examples
Comment
*Refresh Parenthesis
Select Refresh
This should be selected
Parenthesis button only where there are
multiple line items and one
of the Connector Types is
OR, as in lines 20 and 30
above.
Line
0010
Automatically generated
by the system but may be
changed manually to
change the order in which
Line Items appear
*Line Type
Course
There is a number of Line
Requirement
Types. “Course
Requirement” and
“Condition” will be the
ones used. “Course
Requirement” will be the
default Line Type and
covers the majority of
situations. “Condition”
may be used, for example,
when it is a condition that
a student is a member of a
particular Student Group
48
*Search Description
Biology 1
*Long Description
*Report Description
Defaults to Search
Description
Pre-condition
49
to gain entry to a course
(admission to French
Hons courses may be
restricted to students
admitted to a French Hons
Plan). If this is selected as
the Line Type the
subsequent pages will
change to show details of
the Condition being
attached.
Enter a description that
can be used in a search.
The remaining fields in this
part of the page are
automatically populated
with this description when
the cursor is put into the
next field. These fields
may be edited as
appropriate. If there is
only one Line Item, the
Search Description on the
Requirement page may be
copied and pasted in.
If there is more than one
Line Item each needs to
have a different
description.
Normally left as default.
This description and the
next appear on the
student’s Advisement
Report. The Report
Description appears as the
Line Item heading.
Leave as default (None) –
not used at Requirement
level
1.4 Line Item Parameters
50
Field
Minimum GPA
Examples
May be left blank
Minimum Units
40
Minimum
Courses
Minimum Grade
Points/Unit
May be left blank
Maximum Units
Allowed
May be left blank
Maximum
Courses Allowed
*Course Ranking
Scheme
*Credit Include
Mode
Print Control
May be left blank
9.00
Chronological
All Stats
Print on Audit
Reports
Display Select
line
*Reporting
Display GPA,
Units Course
Count
Always Report
Comment
Enter the minimum GPA required for the line
item if specified in the Plan.
Enter the minimum number of credits for the
line item, if specified in Plan.
Usually left blank. For most of our Plans,
credits, rather than courses, are counted.
Enter the minimum GPA per Unit if specified
in Plan. This may be used in place of
Minimum GPA where a minimum grade per
course is specified. In the example of
Biology 1 above, students must achieve a
minimum grade of D3 in each of the level 1
courses.
Enter the maximum number of units for the
Line Item if specified in Plan. (This is more
likely to be used where the line item includes
a list of optional courses from which
students may choose a limited number.)
Enter the maximum number of courses for
the Line Item if specified in Plan.
See comments under 1.2 Parameters
above.
Leave as All Stats
Normally left as default.
Check this box if you want to display all the
courses that a student may take to satisfy
this Line Item in the Advisement Report.
Normally left as default.
Check boxes as required to show this
information on the Advisement Report
51
1.5 Line Item Detail
If more than 1 Line Item has been added, select View All to show all the lines (if they
do not show from the previous page).
52
Field
Course List
Examples
000000205
Additional Course Lists for one
Line Item.
2
Comment
Use the Look Up icon
to search for the
appropriate Course List.
In the search enter the
code for the Academic
Program and/or Plan as
appropriate. (Not all
Course Lists will be linked
to a specific Plan if they
are likely to be used in
more than one Plan.) If
you know the number of
the Course list, this can be
entered directly.
If there is more than 1
Course List for a Line
Item:
Add a row using the
Select the appropriate join
(Y – Union with, N –
Subtract from, or I –
Intersection with)
Attach the appropriate
Course List
Repeat as required.
Maintenance of Academic Requirements
Academic Requirements attached to Requirements Groups may change as Plan or
Program rules change. When a Requirement needs to be amended, the new version
must be introduced with a new Effective Date to allow the previous rules to be
maintained in the original Requirement for students who were in attendance when
that Requirement Group was current. Student terms are defined in the Program/Plan
information.
To change the Effective Date, go to the Requirement tab (see 1.1 above) and add a
new row using the
( ) icon. Fields in the Requirement, Parameters, Line
Items, Line Item Parameters and Line Item Detail tabs can all be changed and
changes will be effective from the new date selected (default is the date on which
the new row is added).
53
Job Aid AA03: Academic Requirement Groups Creation and
Maintenance
Requirement Groups are the mechanism for connecting Program and Plan
Requirements to a particular Program and Plan. A requirement Group can only be
associated with one Program/Plan, but a Program or Plan can have multiple
Requirement Groups associated with it. At UoG, the expectation is that there will be
one Requirement Group for each year of every Program and one Requirement Group
for each year of every Plan.
1
Creating Academic Requirement Groups
1.1 Define Academic Requirement Groups
Academic Advisement → Academic Requirements → Define Requirement Groups
Select Add a New Value
Leave Requirement Group number defaulted to 000000 and select Add. (The
system will generate a number automatically upon saving).
When the new screen appears with blank fields, there is a copy button in the top right
hand corner that allows you to copy an existing Requirement Group and make any
necessary amendments to create a new Requirement Group.
54
1.2 Requirement Group
55
Field
Requirement Group
*Effective Date
Examples
000000002
01/08/2011
*Requirement Usage
*Status
ADV
Active
*Reporting Sequence
1
*Academic Institution
Academic Career
GLSGW
Comment
System generated identifier
Set this to 1st August of the academic
year from which this Requirement
Group applies. This will be 01/08/2011
for all RGs associated with Plans for
new students starting in 2011. For RGs
associated with Programs, set Effective
Date to 01/01/1901. For Plans specific
to continuing students in September
2011, see AA Rule Building: Principles
and Practice, Effective Dates and
Requirement Terms.
Always leave as ADV
The main reason to change this to
“inactive” would be if there is something
wrong with the requirement. If a
program/plan stops being delivered, the
correct procedure is to insert a new
Academic Plan
Year
1
Requirement Group
Type
Normal
Progression on
the Plan
Description Fields
Pre-Condition
None
56
row
( ) with the appropriate
effective date and make the status
inactive as of that date. Previous rows
should remain active to keep correct
history.
The
default value of “1” can be
changed. Changing this value affects
the order in which details appear in the
advisement report so it is advisable to
ensure that the Requirement Group for
year 2 of a Plan shows as 2 in the
Reporting Sequence and for year 3
shows as 3 etc.
Can only ever be Glasgow.
Select the career using Look-up icon
( ) or type in appropriate code (UG,
PGT etc).
Select the Plan using Look-up or by
typing in the Plan Code.
Year of Plan confirms the rules against
which a student should be assessed.
This will be the standard description
when working on Plan rather than
Program rules.
See Naming Conventions in AA Rule
Building: Principles and Practice.
For Plan Requirement Groups, this
would normally be “None”. For Program
RGs, Academic Standing will be used to
prevent progress being checked before
a student has completed a minimum
number of credits. See Annual
Progress and Progression in AA Rule
Building: Principles and Practice.
1.3 Parameters
Parameters may be set for the Requirement Group overall (total number of credits
required, minimum GPA or minimum Grade Points per unit) or at the Requirement
level. In the example below, most fields are left blank on the Parameters page and
details appear in the Requirements. This is usually considered to be best practice.
57
Field
Minimum Units
Examples
120
Minimum Courses
Minimum GPA
Minimum Grade Points/Unit
*Course Ranking Scheme
Chronological
*Credit Include Mode
Choice Resolution Method
All Stats
Satisfy in
Sequential
Order
Display Control
Always Report
Partition Sharing
58
Comment
120 would be the normal value,
representing the normal
minimum number of credits for
one Term (academic year)
Usually blank at the RG level.
Usually blank at the RG level.
Usually blank at the RG level.
This field becomes important
when a student has done more
courses than necessary to
satisfy a requirement. The
default is “Chronological”. This
means that courses chosen to
meet a particular requirement
will be chosen in the order that
they were taken (Term 1, Term
2, Term 3 etc). This is fine a lot
of the time, but occasionally it
will be necessary to use “Grade
Points”. This means that the
courses that the student did best
in will be chosen first. It should
be used to satisfy requirements
such as “A GPA of 10 over the
best 80 credits”.
This should always be “All Stats”
This field is similar to “Course
Ranking Scheme”, but instead of
referring to courses, it refers to
the order of applying the
partitions (lines) in the
Requirement Group.
“Sequential” means that the
partitions will be applied in line
number order. “Investigate All
Combinations” should normally
be used when “Grade Points” is
set for the Course Ranking
Scheme.
This ensures the Requirement
Group is always reported
regardless of completion status.
Course Share Sets are selected
here to allow courses to be
shared between program and
plan rules to satisfy the
requirements of each. See
Annual Progress and
Progression in AA Rule Building:
Principles and Practice.
1.4 Detail
This page is used to select “Requirements” into the “Requirement Group”,
Field
*Line
*Group Line Type
Examples
0010
Requirement
Requirement
2 Zoology 1 –
Compulsory
59
Comment
This is auto-populated
At UoG this should always
be “Requirement”.
Select appropriate
Requirement from drop
down list. Add more rows,
as required, using the
.
1.5 Detail Parameters
There is nothing to be set on this page.
1.6 Plans Required
There is nothing to be set on this page.
1.7 Plans Appended
There is nothing to be set on this page.
2
Maintenance of Academic Requirement Groups
Academic Requirement Groups may change as Plan or Program rules change.
When a Requirement needs to be amended, the new version must be introduced
with a new Effective Date to allow the previous rules to be maintained in the original
Requirement Group for students who were in attendance when that Requirement
Group was current. Student terms are defined in the Program/Plan information.
To change the Effective Date, go to the Requirement tab (see 1.1 above) and add a
new row using the
( ) icon. Fields in the Requirement, Parameters, Line
Items, Line Item Parameters and Line Item Detail tabs can all be changed and
changes will be effective from the new date selected (default is the date on which
the new row is added).
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Job Aid SR3.12: Creating Equivalent Courses
Equivalent Course Groups are what the University would refer to as ‘mutually
exclusive’ courses with similar content such that a student cannot gain credit from
more than one of these courses. Equivalent Course Groups are set up to prevent
double counting in Curriculum Validation or even to prevent enrolment in two
equivalent courses. An example is Mathematics 1R and Mathematics 1X. A further
example may be Chemistry 1 and Science Fundamentals, which have similar content
and which are seen as equivalent for entry to Level 2 Biology Courses. However, for
progression purposes, these courses are NOT equivalent for entry to Level 2
Chemistry, therefore caution is advised when creating and utilising course
equivalencies, both via the process described in this Job Aid and also when creating
pre and co Requisites (Job Aid 3.11).
1.1 Creating an Equivalent Course Group
The process requires that you first create an Equivalent Course Group to which you
add Courses.
Curriculum Management > Course Catalog > Course Equivalencies
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Field
Equivalent Course Group
Examples
00002
Effective Date
01/01/1901
Status
Active/Inactive
Description
Level 1 Maths
Courses Sem 1
Lv1 MathS1
Short Description
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Comment
Generated by Campus
Solutions
Enter date equivalency is
effective from. If new enter
01/09/Year
Can make Groups inactive
which can be reactivated for
future use.
30 Character
Limited/Required Field.
Not compulsory/10 character
limited.
1.2 Link a Course to an Equivalent Course Group
Curriculum Management > Course Catalog > Course Catalog
Using the look-up icon, select the relevant Equivalent Course Group.
Remember to Save in order to link the Course to the Equivalent Course Group.
NB: Only one Equivalent Course Group can be linked to a Course. For the purposes
of this Job Aid, Mathematics 1X has also been linked to the Level 1 Maths Courses
Sem 1 Equivalent Course Group. (00002)
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1.3 Course Equivalencies
Curriculum Management > Course Catalog > Course Equivalencies
If you return to the Equivalent Course Group you will now be able to see which
Courses are comprised in the group via the Fetch Course Equivalencies button.
The various fields will be populated by Campus Solutions.
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Job Aid AA04: Course Share Sets
Course share sets are used to allow the same course to be used to satisfy both a
Program Requirement and a Plan Requirement. This means that year 1 Program
Requirements and year 1 Plan Requirements must both be in the year 1 Course
Share set. Similarly for years 2 – 5, as appropriate.
In addition, Progress rules are written as Program Requirements and these are
cumulative. For example:
Progress requirements for session 1: at least 80 credits;
Progress requirements for session 2: at least 160 credits.
This is achieved by putting ALL Program Requirement Groups (years 1 – 5) in the
same course share set.
1
Creating Course Share Sets
1.1 Define Course Share Sets
Academic Advisement → Academic Requirements → Define Course Share Sets→
Add a New Value
Leave Course Share Set number defaulted to 000000 and select Add. (The system
will generate a number automatically upon saving).
These entries appear when the course share set is
selected into the requirement group. Do not enter them
here.
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Field
Course Share Set
*Effective Date
Examples
000000002
01/01/1901
*Description
*Status
BSc LS 1
Active
Comment
System generated identifier
Course Share Sets must be
available for any advisement rules
to work properly. Setting the 1901
date means that they will always
apply to all Plans being built.
Keep the format as Program/Year
The main reason to change this to
“inactive” would be if there is
something wrong with the
requirement. If a program/plan
stops being delivered, the correct
procedure is to insert a new row
( ) with the appropriate effective
date and make the status inactive.
Previous rows should remain
active to keep correct history.
This field should always be empty
– not used at UoG. Requirement
Groups in Share Set are entered
via the Requirement Group Page –
see Requirement Group job aid.
Requirement
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Job Aid AA99: Rule Building Ancillary Tasks
When building AA rules, it is important to check they work in the expected manner.
The AA build process is usually iterative: build some rules, test, correct, build more
rules, test ….. This approach is usually more effective than building everything
before testing anything. To this end, those responsible for building plans need to be
able to perform tasks in a ‘non production’ database that they would not normally do
in the live system. This document identifies the minimal requirements that will allow
students to be admitted, enrolled on courses and awarded grades to check progress
against Advisement rules.
The full job aids for these tasks should be consulted for further details.
1
Create a Class for a Course
To be able to give a student grades to test the Advisement rules, they must first be
enrolled in classes. Courses should already exist in the database but, when testing,
classes may not have been created. This allows a class to be created on which to
enrol a student.
Main Menu/Curriculum Management/Schedule of Classes/Schedule New Course
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Field
Academic Institution
Term
Examples
GLSGW
2011
Subject Area
ARCH
Catalog Nbr
1###
Comment
Glasgow is the default.
Normally this information
will be entered prior to the
year in which it is live.
Once entered, course data
can be rolled forward from
one term (academic year
in CS terminology) to the
next.
Search for subject using
Look-up or type in subject
code.
Searching for courses
beginning with 1 and then
adding three hash
symbols (###) will bring
back all level-1 courses.
Select “Search”.
Select the course for which you intend to schedule classes.
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*indicates a required field.
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Field
*Session (meaning
teaching period in UoG
terms)
Examples
Semester 2
*Class Section
ADM
*Component
ADM
*Class Type
Enrollment
*Associated Class
1
*Campus
Main
*Location
Main
*Academic Organisation
School of ….etc
*Holiday Schedule
*Instruction Mode
GLSGW
P
Primary Instr Selection
Class Topic
ADM
Leave blank
Equivalent Course Group
Leave blank
Class Attributes
Leave blank
Comment
Use Look-up or enter session code.
Once this field is populated, the
Start/End dates will appear on the
right of the screen below Class Nbr.
Enter ADM as the Class Section; no
need to add other sections to check
AA rules. Normally all components
of a course -lectures, tutorials, labs would be entered here.
Select ADM. This will allow a class
to be scheduled on which a student
can be enrolled and results entered
to allow Advisement rules to be
checked.
Choose ‘Enrollment’ (as the admin
section is the only Class Type
created in this instance).
Pre-populated as 1 from Course
information.
Pre-populated from Course
information.
Pre-populated from Course
information.
Pre-populated from the Course
information.
Always Glasgow
In person instruction (unless class is
offered as distance-learning, private
study etc.)
Pre-populated.
Not required for the purpose of
enrolling a student to check AA rules.
Not required for the purpose of
enrolling a student to check AA rules.
Not required for the purpose of
enrolling a student to check AA rules.
Once the above fields have been completed, this should allow a student to be
enrolled on Archaeology 1A. NB This is not the normal Class Scheduling
process.
2
Quick Admit a Student
To check advisement rules in the system an Advisement Report is run against a
student on the appropriate Program/Plan. This process explains the minimum
information required to allow a student to be admitted and subsequently enrolled with
grades awarded for the purpose of checking AA Advisement rules.
Main Menu/Records and Enrollment/Enroll Students/Quick Admit a Student
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Field
ID
Examples
NEW
Academic
Institution
Academic Career
GLSGW
Term
2011
Undergraduate
Comment
System will allocate ID once details are
saved on the following screens.
Glasgow set as default
Select the career using Look-up icon or type
in appropriate code (UG, PGT etc).
Assume for AA purposes, student is
admitted for term 2011.
Select Add.
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The following are the only fields required to create a student in the database.
Field
Student No will be automatically
allocated when all required fields
have been completed.
Effective Date
First Name
Last Name
*Date of Birth
Examples
Comment
Default is today’s
date
Name your own
student
As above
In format
dd/mm/year
Leave as default.
Select Program/Plan tab.
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Required field
Field
Academic Program
Primary
Academic Plan
Examples
2105 BSc (Life
Sciences)
C300-2105 (Zoology)
Admit Term
Residency
2011
Comment
Enter code or use Look-up.
Select the Plan you are
building to allow the correct
Advisement report to be run
for the student.
Select 2011 as year of entry.
Select Residency as it’s a
mandatory field. The table
below will appear.
Select Residency to complete the following mandatory fields.
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Field
*Effective Term
*Residency
Examples
2011
01
Comment
Select 2011
Enter code or use Look-up.
The fields in the first column
under Residency Details will
be automatically populated.
Completion of the above fields should allow the record to be saved. An Advisement
Report can now be run for this student by following the instructions in section 4
below. At this stage, the Plan requirements will be displayed but until results are
entered, it will not be possible to check that the rules are working as intended.
3
Quick Enroll a Student
Enrolling a student by entering the minimum information required to allow grades to
be entered and Advisement rules to be checked.
Main Menu/Records and Enrollment/Enroll Students/Quick Enrol a Student
Enter ID of student you have just added to the database. Academic Career and
Academic Institution will be automatically populated. Term information must be
entered, either using the Look-up facility or entering a term code.
Select Add.
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Select a course for which a class has been created, either using Look-up.
As classes have been set up with a minimum of information at this stage, there are
no related events (lab, tutorial, seminar) for which the student must enrol. Before
submitting the enrolment request (using Submit button in top Right hand corner),
select the tab ‘General Overrides.
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Check the Appointment and Action Date boxes. This is necessary because there
has not been an enrolment period specified for this class and we are trying to enroll a
student some months in advance of the relevant session. Once submitted (using
Submit button on top right hand corner), the enrolment should be accepted and can
be saved by selecting the Save button on the bottom left of the screen.
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4
Award a Grade for a Course
Main Menu/Records and Enrollment/Enroll Students/Quick Enrol a Student
Field
*Action
Examples
Add Grd
Class Nbr
Cope from line
above.
Comment
Select new action to allow grade to be
entered.
Select Units and Grade tab and a Lookup list of possible grades will appear.
Select the Units and Grade tab. Then use the Look-up icon that appears against the
blank box under the Grade Input column. A list of possible grades will appear. Once
the required grade is selected, it will appear in the student’s record.
The screen below shows the grade selected from the Look-up table. If correct, submit
the grade.
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Save the result.
Other Actions available on this page include Change Grade, Remove Grade, Drop
Course. A course cannot be dropped while a grade is attached so the grade has to
be removed first.
Changing grades may be required as part of the checking of advisement rules.
4
Run an Advisement Report
To check results against the rules of the Plan, you must first create an advising report
for the student you have admitted and enrolled in courses.
Main Menu/Academic Advisement/Student Advisement/Request Advisement Report
Select Add a New Value and enter ID of your student. Select ADV as Report Type
and click on Add button.
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Click on Process Request.
This will take you to Plan rules showing your student’s results and if they satisfy any
of the Requirements of the Plan. In the example below, results have been entered
for two level-1 Biology courses which together allow the student to satisfy the Biology
Requirement of this Plan. No other Requirement is satisfied at this stage.
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5
Term-activate a Student
When students complete a year of study, they will be assessed against the rules of
their Plan to determine if they are qualified to progress. If they have failed an aspect
of their Plan, they may not be permitted to progress and enrol for classes for the next
year until they consult an adviser. If their record has fallen short of the minimum
requirements for Progress, as published in the University Calendar, they may be
referred to a Progress Committee either immediately or after resits.
As this system of moving students to the next year of their Plan is not yet in operation
(until all the Advisement rules are in place), we need to manually term-activate
students for each new session and ensure that they are eligible to enrol for classes.
Main Menu/Records and Enrolment/Student Term Information/Term Activate a
Student. Select ‘Find an Existing Value’ and enter ID or whatever information is
available on the student.
Choose the student you wish to enrol.
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Add a new row by selecting the (
) icon to enter new sessions for which you wish
to term-activate the student (normally an automatic process of academic audit based
on Advisement rules).
Field
*Term
Examples
2012
Eligible to Enrol
Checked
Comment
Select the next appropriate term for
the second year of the Plan. While
in this screen, it might be helpful to
add terms for the third and final
years of the Plan (if it is a 4-year
Plan)
This box must be checked if student
is to be enrolled on classes. It
should happen automatically once
new term is added.
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