This lesson will cover how to manually Create/Edit a Course in the scheduling section of Illuminate Student Information.
NOTE: Editing course details has major implications for GPAs and transcripts and should be handled with extreme CAUTION.
Some changes to course attributes happen immediately e.g., Course Name while others require calculations to be performed. Recalculations are triggered when a student grade change has been detected. The following course attributes require a grade change to be detected in order for GPAs, Requirement Checks, and Transcripts to be impacted: Credits, Max Credits, Equivalent Courses, Non-Academic, Weighed Course Points.
Where to Start
1. Click on Scheduling .
2. Under Course Management, select Course Details.
Select Create New Course.
On this page you will enter any applicable Course Detail information. This is broken down by section below. Be sure to click Save often.
General Information
State Course Id: This field is used for state reporting purposes. Refer to the official state documentation to determine the correct ID
Is Active: This option is used to inactive old courses that will no longer be offered at a district. Once a course is inactivated it will no longer be available for scheduling purposes however it WILL still be available for historical entry of student transfer grades.
Non Existent: This option is actually non existent in Illuminate too, please ignore it.
Is Non-Academic: This option allows courses to be set as non-academic which is helpful when setting up GPA options if an academic only GPA is desired.
Exclude from State Reporting: Set this option to no for any course that you do not want reported to the state. This is often used on place holder type courses such as Homeroom at the secondary level.
Transcript and GPA:
DEFAULT: Will default back to always show on MS or HS transcript, depending on what grade the course was taken under. So say for example, in this course, if the student takes this course in 8th grade and this course is DEFAULT, the MS transcript will show this course and not on the HS transcript.
ALWAYS: This option is used when they want that course to ALWAYS show on High School Transcripts, GPA, Grad Checks only. This does not apply to middle school transcript. This option generally is used for scenarios where a student is currently enrolled at a MS and takes this course. Because they want this course to show on a HS transcript and not the MS transcript, checking this option will make it appear on the HS transcript.
NEVER: This option means that this course will NEVER show up any transcript (HS or MS). We've had scenarios before where a student takes a course, but the client doesn't want the course to show up at all on any transcript. This is used for just that purpose. Some examples of when we have seen this option used is for courses called Homeroom, Free Period, and Attendance. Grades are not not typically given in these courses and are used for scheduling purposes therefore they should not be seen in the "in progress" section of a transcript.
Hide Middle/Jr HS Credits Yes / No: This option is to be used in conjunction with the "Always Include on HS Transcript" to control how credits should be handled and displayed. When "Always Include on HS Transcript" is true then the user has the ability to turn off credits for those courses if and when the grades are coming from a middle school grade level. Some examples of when we have seen this option used is for displaying prerequisites that have been met while at junior high but should not impact GPA/Grad Requirements at the high school.
Course Requirements
Equivalent Course: When determining course equivalencies, use the *Equivalent Course* field to make this link. If two or more courses are equivalent (ie. they simply are the same course through history), they fall into one of two buckets:
1. The master course: This is the course that is to remain going forward, being taught currently, etc. Only one course can be nominated as the master course.
2. All child course(s): This list of course(s) are considered the child courses to #1. So think of these courses as the ones that are retiring/retired, no longer used, etc.
To flag the equivalency pattern, you must start by editing the *child* course(s). Once within the Details page, simply choose the master course (#1) from the drop down list for the *Equivalent Course* field. If more child courses need to be made, please edit those courses to point to #1 as well.
Note: Equivalent Course information applies to Grad Requirements and is used in the transcript/GPA repeat course logic only. All other attributes on the each course such as CTE, NCLB, etc. need to be applied to both courses.
Term Covered: This feature is no longer supported by Illuminate and should not be used.
Level: This feature can be used to indicate that some courses are considered to be a higher level than others. Once level rules are set, requirement checks can be configured to allow only X number of credits per category.
Scheduling Information
The information in this section applies to master schedule creation.
Number of Periods: This field is not supported at this time for any feature in the scheduling process - do not use.
Term Length: These fields can both be set as the district default and should be set to what works for the majority of use cases however, sites have the option to override what has been indicated at the district level. To edit term length by a specific site: login at a site level, go to Scheduling > Course Details, and select Filter "District Courses" and it'll list all district courses with site affiliations at the site you chose. Then edit any of the courses and you'll see the "Term Length" and "Term Offered" dropdown. Changing that selection will change it at the current site only, and the district course will remain as-is.
If you select a district course that has multiple site affiliations and you'd like to change term length per site without toggling between sites, you can login at the district level, within Course Details search for that particular course, and press "Edit" in the table. At the top of that page, select "Course Site Affiliations" from the sub-nav. There you'll see a dropdown for each site's term length for that course, and you can edit the selection.
Term Offered: Similar to Term Length the default can be set the district and sites have the option to override when the courses will be offered at the section creation level.
Min Capacity: This field is not supported at this time for any feature in the scheduling process - do not use.
Max Capacity: This indicates the maximum seat capacity allowed for the course at the district level. Sites have the option to override the max capacity at the section level.
Average Capacity: This field is not supported at this time for any feature in the scheduling process - do not use.
School Type: Indicating the site type is helpful when sorting a district level course list.
Session Type: This field is used to indicate if courses can be offered during the normal or summer session.
Is Special Ed: Set this field to yes for any courses that are designed to service students in special education. During the master schedule process the report titled Master Schedule list will allow users to easily filter for courses that apply to special education.
Is Intervention: Set this field to yes for any courses that are designed to be used for intervention. The schedule report titled Rosters per Classroom will have an indicator of intervention courses.
Curriculum Information
ALL fields in the Curriculum Information section are used for state reporting however not every field will be populated fore every course. See state specific guidelines. Any options that are not available in the dropdowns can be added in Code Management.
Credit Information
Credits: Indicates the number of credits that will be applied for all non failing grades during grading periods indicated to be final grades. Note for a yearlong course worth 10 credits where students will receive final grades twice (one grade for S1 and another grade for S2) the credits will be 5.
Max Credit: Indicate the number of credits allowed when a course is continually taken. Once a student receives over the maximum number of credit indicted for the course or any course listed as Equivalent Courses repeat logic will be triggered and will drop the lowest grade and credits associated to the course. Max credits will NOT be set for all courses. Often Max Credits are not applied to courses such as PE, Journalism, Band, etc. as students can take the course as repeatedly. Max Credits are often set for courses such as English 9, Algebra 1, etc. as these courses cannot be taken multiple times for credit.
Variable Credit: This feature allows for courses to be indicated as variable and the credits applied at final grading period is determined by the teacher or registrar. Setting a course as variable nulls any credit value that has been set in the credit field and the variable settings will take precedence. This option should only be used at for courses specifically affiliated to sites that offer variable credits (typically continuation and alternative education settings) and should not be set on courses that will be used at comprehensive high schools.
Variable Credit Low: Indicate the lowest credit that can be given for an individual grading period.
Variable Credit High: Indicate the highest credit that can be given for an individual grading period.
For Michigan clients only: College Credit: The amount of credit hours associated with the course can now be documented in this field. It will allow reporting a number from 0 to 10 to represent the number of credits assigned to each post-secondary (college) level course the student attempted.
Applicable Grades
Grades with a check mark are the grades that users will be allowed to give students for the course. If the grade needed is not listed here manage the master Grade List found in the Setup section of the Grades module.
Points
Course Weight: If a course is flagged as Honors, AP, or College Prep an indicator will reflect on the transcript.
Course Weighted? If the yes option is selected users will be able to set up weighted GPAs. The actual points that will be applied are specific to each GPA calculation that will be created. Any grades that should receive extra weight need to be indicated with a checkmark
Attendance
Since ADA is based off where a student is scheduled for the majority of their day attendance programs can be set at the course level for exceptons to what was set at the site level. Note in the majority of cases courses should NOT ever be set to the Regular Education Attendance program set as this is already the default for sites. Each course has the ability to have ADA reporting disabled.
This section will need to be setup in order to use the Civil Rights Prebuilt Report. Click HERE for details.
You must add a Grade Level(s) to a course. Click the Course Grade Levels tab > Select a Grade Level from the dropdown menu > Click Add.
You must add a Course Site Affiliations to a course. Click Course Site Affiliations > Select the site from the dropdown menu > Select Add > The site will populate below in the list, you can adjust capacity if needed, then click Save Capacities.
To remove a site, select Remove to the right of the site name.
Course Teacher Affiliations need to be managed at the site level. Click Course Teacher Affiliations > Select a teacher(s) > Click Add. Teachers will show in a list below.
To remove, select the red X next to the teacher's name.
Follow the 'Where to Start' step above.
1. Under Search Courses, select whatever criteria you wish to find a specific course and press Search, OR just click Search to find all.
2. To View details click the eye icon. To Edit the course, click the pencil/paper icon.