Building Advisement Rules in Campus Solutions Prin and Prac

81 Pages·2013·2.95 MB·English

University of Glasgow

Building Advisement Rules in Campus Solutions
Principles and Practice

Eleanor Waugh
Arthur Whittaker

Version 1.0

5/11/2010
Contents

1 Introduction 3
2 Building of Plan Rules 4
3 Naming Conventions 5
4 Annual Progress and Progression 7
5 Equivalent Courses 7
6 Allowing Courses to satisfy more than one Requirement 8
7 Dealing with Simultaneous Grades and GPA Requirements 12
8 Assessing students for the award of Merit or Distinction 16
9 Effective Dates and Requirement Terms 17
10 Testing 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

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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.
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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.
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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 (non-
hons) 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 Plan Plan Similarly for
BSc Maths Statistics all Plans
1 BSc 1 CSS BSc 1 CSS BSc 1 associated
BSc 2 CSS CSS with the
BSc 3 CSS BSc
BSc 4 CSS
2 BSc 1 CSS BSc 2 CSS BSc 2
BSc 2 CSS CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
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3 BSc 1 CSS BSc 3 CSS BSc 3
BSc 2 CSS CSS
BSc 3 CSS
BSc 4 CSS
4 BSc 1 CSS BSc 4 CSS BSc 4
BSc 2 CSS CSS
BSc 3 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
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Figure 2 - Requirement Line Item Parameters for ‘Maximum 80 credits’

Figure 3 - Partition Sharing of Line Items in a Requirement
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