How to Add a Course Profile

Owned by Fitsjba (Unlicensed)
Aug 01, 2023
3 min read

Introduction

The add new Course Profile feature allows the user to create a new course profile in eTRACS for fulfilling the course planning purposes (Course Planner). However, this step should only be taken after you have ascertained that this course does not already exist in the system. You can confirm this by doing a search in the Course Profile Search Page. Course duplication will cause potential serious problems when managing the courses, instructors, etc. in the future.

Since a user can also create a new course in eTRACS before the course has been inputted in SIMS, there is a plan that the updates of all course information will be synchronized between SIMS and eTRACS in both directions to ensure data integrity.

 

All information in Course Profiles is accessible to any eTRACS users; however, users with higher authority within their respective academic units may be able to add new course profiles. 

 

How to Add New Course Profile 

  1. Navigate to the menu dropdown under Course Mgmt > Course Profiles.

  2. Click  .

  3. This will take you to the Add New Course Profile pop-up modal.

Add New Course Profile 

There are few steps to add a new course profile

  1. Do a Course Search before adding any new course to see whether the course you want to add already exists. Or if the course you want to add is a child course, then you can search for the parent course to inherit the course information to the new child course to be added (not ready yet).

  2. Add Course Details to add some essential course information including course academic career, course division, course subject, course number, course units, effective term, end term, course titles and etc. You have to add one primary academic unit to the new course to be added.

  3. Add Course Components to complete the course profile, each course profile requires one primary component. Multiple components can be added at the same time but only one can be set as primary.

 

  • Assume the new course proposal has been submitted but has not been approved by the Senate yet due to the timing and steps of approval processes.

  • You may add new course for all subjects and any course number, validation of the course number is applied and it should be with maximum 4 numbers in 6 digits e.g. 8888cx.

  • Each course profile must have one primary academic unit, but you can add more than one academic unit as non-primary.

  • When you are adding a new course profile, the record status should always be 'Active'.

  • The workload value of a course's primary component will be based on the course unit value by these rules: for course unit = 3 - 6 or 100, workload value  = 1.0; for course unit < 3, workload value = 0.5

  • You can add multiple course components at once when you are adding a new course profile, but only one component can be set as primary.

 

Fields to be inputted in Step 2

Description

Academic Career

Academic level of the offered course (e.g. Undergraduate, Graduate, etc.).

Course Division

Lower Division, Upper Division, Graduate.

Course Subject

The subject abbreviation of the course (e.g. CMPT for computing science).

Course Number

Course number consists of 6 digits with 4 numeric characters in maximum .

Course Unit

Units of the course (e.g. 2,3,4,etc.).

WQB Designation

WQB designation - "W", "Q", "B-Hum", "B-Sci", "B-Soc".

Effective Term

The first term that the course will be offered - pull down menu of all terms.

End Term

The last term that the course will be offered - pull down menu of all terms.

Campus

The campus of the course that will be offered, multiple select is allowed.

Course Title Short

Short title of the course.

Course Title Long

Long title of the course.

Course Description

Description of the course.

Academic Unit

The Academic Unit that the course belongs to.

Primary

To indicate whether the academic unit selected is primary for the course.

Record Status

The record status refers to when the effective start and end date of a course.

  • Active:  Course that is currently effective

  • Past: Course that is no longer effective 

  • Archive: Previous course record that has no course offerings attached

Fields to be inputted in Step 3

Description

Component Type

Select a component type for this course (e.g. Capstone, Lecture, Laboratory, Seminar). You can select more than one component type. 

Primary 

Designate one component type as the Primary, which will determine what type of offering gets created by default in the Course Planner. 

Required/Optional?

To indicate whether this component type is required or optional.

Delivery Mode

To indicate the default delivery mode for this component type. Also a default setting for the Course Planner. 

Grading Basis

To indicate the default grading basis for this component type. 

Instructional Contact Hours

Contact hours for this component type.

Workload Value

Determine the workload value for this component type, which will get automatically assigned to instructors of this course and impact their TTR. 

Resources

Any additional notes for this component type (e.g. classroom size requirements, equipment needed).

Record Status

Active by default.

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