Changes in Program Structure

[Former Member]

Hello Everyone,

First question: Our client has 4 different colleges and 16 different programs of study for undergraduate studies. Thus, at the beginning, we have 16 different program plans stated. But it is foreseen that (with former experiences) there are goning to be some changes in the program plans. For example a student (stu. X) entered school in 2006. He/She has to complete 140 CRH and is still a student. Another student (stu. Y) entered the school in 2009 and because of the change in courses and total credits he/she has to complete 130 CRH.

Second question: In order to make things more difficult, a course(course A) which was offered in the second semester (we assume that total studying time is 8 semesters - 4 years) is replaced by another course (course B). In the old curriculum course A was offered in the second semester but now in the seventh semester, in the old curriculum course B was offered in seventh semester but now in second semester. Stu. X had completed the course A but because of replacement, we don't know yet how to handle the situation. (actually it is not that difficult to solve a single problem for just one student and for just one course)

It is strongly forseen that we are going to be facing situations like this even more difficult ones. So we need to find a way to manage the changes in curriculum and assigning those different curriculums to different students. We thought of creating different SC objects but we assume that we are going to have 2 or 3 different curriculums for each program of study which means we can have 30-40 different SC objects - when we are considering the whole university.

I would really appreciate if you can help me with these problems.

King Regards,

Kerem

[Dmoreira · Accepted solution]

Hi Kerem,

For your first question, I would suggest that you handle the change in the requirements in different years with different Requirement Catalogs assigned to the students. Depending of the year the students enters the university, the requirement catalog is assigned with the requisites that corresponds to that year. And then you will be able to run the Degree Audits to check different requirements for different sets of students. And if requirements change (is it that way? a student may enter a program with some requirements, and then the university change them??), you can later assign another requiremente catalog, or change the ones assigned.

In your second question, if the changes in the content of the program are not very important, I would reccomend you to use the validity date of the Module Objects to delimit the ones that does not apply anymore, and to add new ones or change data such as credits, etc. In the case the Program has important changes, it is reccomended to create a new SC.

In the case a student has taken a module A, and then a module B is required because of a change in the requirements for the student, maybe you can create some custom relationship between that modules that may tell the system that those modules are equivalent. You wuill need to check that relationship when you run an audit, or a report you may use to check student requirements.

Hope it helps.

Diego

[former_member182585]

Dear Diego and Kerem,

I have little query about the first issue. I believe requirement catalogs for degree audit are for checking the requirements" whether one(student) has met or not" and it might not suite the current problem. The changes in total CRH for SC might also comes with deletion and addition of new modules (future requirements). In that case you have to create or delete modules which might result in chaos if you keep the current SC with different requirement profiles.

Its better to create new Programs of study suffixing year initials and do bookings as usual. I would recommend you to use the validity date for SC under changes.

For second query, create relationships between Course A and Second & Seventh sem. Repeat the same thing for course B too. Now you can see both courses are available in Second and Seventh sems.

In this case If Std X has been reached to Seventh sem and since he has already cleared Course A, in appraisal process assign the status as complete (use the same marks/credits he has got in second sem). Due to current changes he has to go for course B, which he is supposed to do in Second sem and pending for him. Book him in this course and ask to appear (repetion allowed) in exams for this.

For courses starting from 2009 onwards I would recommend you to create new SC with changes.

Regards

Vinod Kumar

[Former Member]

Dear Diego and Vinod,

Thanks for your responses, both are very helpfull.

Diego, our considerations were nearly same with your comments, so we can think of that we are on the right way. I want to ask another question. We want to attach a requirement catalog to every student each, so we think that we can manage exceptions per student more easily. But we also want to assign to the student every course he/she must complete succesfully in order to complete his/her graduation. Is it sensible to load the requirement catalog with each course a student must complete, in order to perform our audits (degree, graduation, vs.) ?

Vinod, we had thought creating new SC's for the changes in the programs. But we are unsure about creating new SC. Because the changes in the program may not be so big or important some time. A change can be a replacement of a course or just even an addition or deletion of a course in a semester which will affect total credits just - 3, for example. Is it sensible to create new SC's for even those kinds of small changes?

Best Regards,

Kerem

[Dmoreira]

Kerem, if, as you said, the changes in the programs won't be so important, handle them delimiting Module relationship once the module is not valid anymore, and add new relastionships to new valid modules when changes appear. And that way, you can check the requirementes of the students with different requirement catalogs, without adding a new SC.

Regarding the question about the assignment of a Req. Catalog with each course a Student must complete, of course is it possible, but I don't think it will be reccomended, as the maintenance of the Req. Catalogs and the students will be too complicated. I guess you will have different requirements for different group of students, and not for every student. You can create Req. Catalogs for the group of students that have same requirements. And then, if there is any special change in reqs. for just one student, you can mantain it directly to that student. But I don't think it will be useful to have as many reqs. catalogs as courses a student books...

Good luck.

Diego

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

Diego,

Thanks a lot. I realised that my second question was shaped in a false way but you answered how I expected. I appreciate it.

King Regards,

Kerem