Overview

Objective

The article teaches how to create a course outline in Paradigm.

Completing this article will provide competency in the following tasks:

• Add core and elective units to a course plan.
• Add pre-requisite, co-requisites, disallowed and Substitute rules to a course outline.
• Create a enrolment portal for staff or students to enrol into units.

Assumptions

• A base understanding of the terms used in the Australian tertiary education industry
• Understands to structure of the course including core units, electives, pre-requisites, co-requisites required to complete the course to meet the accredited requirements.

Key terms and concepts

Course plan for enrolment allows staff of various levels to enrol students in to units or will allow students enrol themselves into units

Course plan is specific to the course.

To set up the Course plan / Constraints table the following information will be required.

The scope and structure of the course with including the units required to complete the course (included also are units pre-requisites, co-requisites, core units, electives, substitute units, previous versions of units, as accreditation changes, majors, minors, planned unit schedules)

Each rules will require its own line within the rules table, for example if a unit has 3 perquisites the unit will have 4 lines within the rules table (one for the original unit to be placed into the course plan and one for each prerequisite unit)

Please note that you will be able to create 3 grids to distinguish electives and critical units, instead of one grid

Implications

• The Course Plan method will require initial setup of a course plan with restrictions, co-requisites, prerequisites, majors, minors, core units, electives, scope and structure of the course.

           By setting up the enrolment in this manner students may, if required, enrol themselves to units.

• Units may only be selected if the student meets the requirement previously setup in the system and if the unit is on offer for the time period specified
• Alternatively staff, with the designated access level may enrol student either via the course plan or via the Student >Course enrolment> Units page.
• This method may be used to bypass course rules and will enrol students into any unit regardless of restrictions, co-requisites, prerequisites, majors, minors, and time period as any date ranges can be selected.

          It is suggested that only higher level staff enrol students in this manner.

Workflow

How to Add core and elective units to a course plan

1. Click on the Course Tab within the side menu
2. Click on the Search option in the Side menu
3. Enter their the Course Id or Course name into the search fields
4. For a current course ensure the Course Status is Active, for a non current course change the Course status to Archived
5. Click on the Search Course Button
6. This will return a list of students that meet the searched criteria
7. To reduce the returned options in this box  above the returned results start typing the Course name. This will reduce the number of results. 
8. Click on the blue hyper link on the left side of the required record.
9. The Course record has now been loaded. 
10. Click on the Outline button in the Side menu
11. Scroll half way down the page and click on the Add Constraint button.
12. Search for the unit to be added by either Unit code or Unit name. The list of units will appear below the constraints table.
13. To add the unit click the add unit icon  next to the unit name. The internal system id code will appear in the details box below.
14. Select the constraint type from the drop down menu- Core Unit, Elective etc
15. Add a display code - eg D2
16. Add  description - eg Core Units, Semester 1, Electives. This is what will appear at the beginning of the grid placement line 
17. Click on the save Outline Constraints button

To add another unit, click on the add constraint button to clear the details previously entered. Add all of the units before adding any constraints as it will make the task easier to complete.

Please note that if you add more columns to the grid, it would be harder to view the course outline grid on mobile devices

How to Add Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, Disallowed and Substitute rules to a course outline

1. Locate the Unit that the constraint is tied to and click on the add as a unit icon    on the right hand side.
2. Locate the constraining unit (pre-requisite, co-requisite etc) and click on the add constraint Icon   on the right hand side.
3. Select the Constraint type from the drop down menu
4. Click on the Save outline constraint button

To add more constraints to the Rules table click on the add constraint button to clear the details previously entered.

How to delete a Course Outline rule

1. Click on the Courses tab on the side menu
2. Click on the search option in the Side menu
3. In the box labelled Course id enter the id of the course. 
4. Click Search Course button. This will return you the course matching your search criteria. 
5. Click on the Outline option in the side menu
6. Scroll down and locate the rule to be deleted
7. Click on the delete  button next to the constraint / rule to be deleted

How to Sort Columns on the Course Outline Screen 

1. Click on the 'Courses' tab on the side menu
2. Click on the search
3. In the box labelled Course id enter the id of the course, then press the Search Course button.This will return you the course matching your search criteria. 
4. Click on the 'Outline' on the side menu.
5. To sort a column by Constraint, click on the arrow next to the Constraint column heading and sort the column. 

How to Add descriptive text to Course outline rule

Please note that if you would like to have different descriptive texts for the rules, you have to make sure that your rules have different rows.The descriptive texts are course rule specific and different courses with the same units could have different descriptive label.

1. Click on the Courses tab on the side menu
2. Click on the Search option in the Side menu
3. In the box labelled Course id enter the id of the course, then press the Search Course button. This will return you the course matching your search criteria. 
4. Click on the Outline  option in the side menu
5. Click on the edit constraint icon 
6. Add a descriptive text in the Description field
7. Click on the Save outline Constraint button

How to Edit the Label Text in the Course outline

1. Click on the System tab on the side menu
2. Click on the Edit Form Labels 
3. In the box labelled Label id enter the id of the label ex: plan
4. Click on the Search Labels button. This will return a label matching your search criteria
5. Click on the label ID and change the Label text as required
6. Click on the Save Label Button

How to Edit the Label Text grid labels

1. Click on the System tab on the side menu
2. Click on the Edit Form Labels option in the Side menu
3. In the box labelled Label id enter the id of the label ex: plan
4. Click on the Search Labels button. This will return you the label matching your search criteria
5. Click on the label ID and change the Label text as required. eg student_Course_plan_tableY or student_course_plan_tableZ
6. Click on the  Save Label button

Further reading

This section of the KB contains links to any further related information that would be helpful for the purpose  understanding this topic.