Table of Contents
Overview
Displaying Terms
Creating Semester Names
Creating Terms
Editing Terms
Creating Parts of Term
Date Exceptions
Conversion Dates
Part of Term Contain Filters
Related Articles
Overview
PATHS:
Academic Scheduling > Settings > Terms
Curriculum Management > Settings > Terms
Academic terms, sometimes known as “sessions”, “semesters” or "quarters", help define academic course sections that are offered for a period of time.
Terms have a start date and an end date that normally correspond to the range of dates associated with the planned section offerings.
It is possible that a section will have a start and end date that does not match the term dates. It is also possible for term dates to overlap with other terms and sections from other terms.
With just a couple exceptions, defining terms and dates works the same in both Academic Scheduling and Curriculum Management.
Date Exceptions and Conversion Dates only apply to Academic Scheduling.
Displaying Terms
- “Current Active Term” refers to the term that is the current term of an institution. For example, if today is June 26, 2020, and the institution’s summer term is from June 1 - August 1, then the Current Active Term would be the summer of 2020. It is possible to manually configure the Current Active Term to be different; however, this will auto-update weekly (auto-update set to occur between Sunday and Monday each week) to be the term that encompasses the current date.
- “Current Scheduling Term” refers to the term that the institution is currently preparing its class scheduling for. For example, if today is June 26, 2021, and this institution is planning the schedule for Spring 2022, then the Current Scheduling Term would be Spring 2022.
Creating Semester Names
For Integrated Schools | Additional Note for Banner Schools | For Non-Integrated Schools
For Integrated Schools
If your Coursedog environment is integrated with your SIS, then semester names will be automatically defined for you and you will not need to configure them as shown below. In other words: integrated schools can almost always ignore this option. The simple test is to leave these undefined and if the semester names show up nicely in Coursedog, then your integration is handling it for you.
Your Coursedog data engineer can determine whether the integration is sending "term.displayName" along with "term.semester" and whether it is important to edit these fields. Sometimes an SIS doesn't contain semester names and is only able to send numbers like 7 or 4. Simply click on “Semester Names” and add them in.
If you are also a Curriculum and Catalog customer, not defining these manually shouldn’t have a negative impact on Curriculum or Catalog.
Additional Note for Banner Schools
For Banner schools, the "semester" equals the month the term starts.
So January = 1, February = 2, March =3 and so on.
For Non-Integrated Schools
If your school isn’t integrated, you can input values here that mirror your school’s terminology.
Click into “Semester Names”.
Click “+ Add Semester” to add a semester.
Type the name of the semester (this will be auto-saved).
Repeat for additional semester names.
Creating Terms
Overview
Terms define the specific dates for which institutions schedule their course sections. For example, Fall could begin on 08/01/2019 and end on 11/10/2019.
Integrated schools should only create terms in their SIS (those terms will be pulled into Coursedog via your nightly merge).
Consequently, the directions outlined below only apply to non-integrated (CSV-based) schools.
How to Do It
Step 1: To create a new term, navigate to Scheduling > Settings > Terms and click the “+ Add Term” button in the top right corner.
Step 2:
Select the semester.
See "Semester Names" above for notes on creating a semester name for this step.
Step 3:
Select the year in which the term will take place.
Different schools/SISs present the year in different ways.
It could be a single year (e.g. 2024), a code (e.g. SU2024), a range (e.g. 2023-24 or 2023-2024), etc.
Generally speaking when presented as a single year (e.g. 2024), the year usually refers to the end of the academic year, so if it's the 2023-2024 academic year, the "year" listed here would be 2024.
Step 4:
Enter a start and end date for the term (e.g. when classes begin and end).
Terms can be renamed to match institutions' academic calendar vernacular in the “Display Name” field (details below under Step 5)..
Step 5 (Optional): Input information for the rest of the optional fields, as needed.
Effective Start Date
The first date when this term becomes effective.
This can be the exact same as the Start Date designated above but isn’t always (this varies from school to school).
For some schools, for example, the Effective Start Date occurs before the actual start date of the term. A fall term might always have an Effective Start Date of August 1, for example, but the actual Start Date of the term might be September 15.
Effective End Date
The last date when this term is effective.
This will have no impact unless an admin has configured “Enable Effective End Date Filters” to “Yes”.
Census Date
This field is most commonly used by PeopleSoft schools.
It’s a read-only field that displays a field that exists in PeopleSoft.
It doesn’t drive any downstream functionality.
Exam Period Start Date
The date when the exam period begins for this term.
Exam Period End Date
The date when the exam period ends for this term.
Display Name
Input how you would like for this term to appear in your UI.
Term Code
The “Term Code” field is meant to be filled in with the term's SIS Key associated with course offerings for this term (this field should match the term code used in your SIS).
Phase
If you have configured/setup phases, you can select the phase that currently applies from the dropdown menu.
This is a Coursedog-only field and can be edited by any customer regardless of integration status.
Historical
This is a Coursedog-only field and can be edited by any customer regardless of integration status.
Terms should be marked as historical if you do not want users to be able to access data (scheduling data, revisions) for those terms in Coursedog.
Scheduling customers typically mark anything more than two years old as historical. Curriculum customers often go farther back and mark anything five years or older as historical.
You can learn more about what it means for a term to be historical in the following articles:
Step 6: Click “Add New Term”.
Editing Terms
Overview | Integrated Schools | How to Do It
Overview
Non-integrated schools can edit all Term settings in Coursedog.
Integrated schools have some editing limitations (outlined below).
Integrated Schools
Check out the integration specs for your SIS to see which Term fields are integrated and, thus, should not be edited in Coursedog.
Any edits to an integrated field will be overwritten with SIS data following the next nightly merge.
Any non-integrated term field can be Coursedog-only.
Phase and Historical are always Coursedog-only.
If you wish to leverage any unused fields as Coursedog-only fields, discuss this with your Coursedog contact (Project Manager or CSM) to make sure your merge settings are set correctly to persist any Coursedog-only data.
How to Do It
Navigate to Scheduling > Settings > Terms.
Click to open the term you wish to edit.
Make the necessary changes (changes are saved automatically).
Creating Parts of Term
Overview
Within terms, you can assign parts of term with different start and end dates. Any section assigned to this part of term will have corresponding start and end dates, which take precedence over the start and end dates of the term itself. Parts of terms should be pulled in via your integration.
How to Do It
To create a part of term, simply select a term from the list in the terms tab and click "+ add part of term" at the end of the form:
Date Exceptions
Overview
This applies to Academic Scheduling only.
PATH: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Terms > *Select Specific Term* > ”Date Exceptions”
Date Exceptions are used to define date ranges where academic meetings are cancelled.
This is commonly used during holiday periods.
Academic meetings within the Date Exception range will not be sent to events, allowing rooms booked during that time to appear available. In other words, all academic meetings that occur during a Date Exception will NOT show up in events.
Date Exceptions should be set prior to the start of any scheduling for a given term.
If you add a Date Exception after scheduling starts, this will prevent newly created class meetings from showing up in Events on the date of the exception. However, this will not retroactively remove any class meetings for that date that were scheduled prior to the Date Exception being added.
Editing Date Exceptions
In order to edit Date Exceptions, “Edit Date Exceptions” permissions must be set to “Allow.”
You can change those permissions here: Academic Scheduling > Settings > Roles > *select Role* > Institution Settings
Date Exception Filters
You can add filters to a Date Exception.
The Date Exception will then apply only to the sections that meet the filter criteria.
Integration Note
Date Exception information is stored on the term, so if you are using Coursedog in an integrated environment, you must specify Date Exceptions as a field that is "Coursedog" owned, otherwise they will be overwritten by SIS data during nightly merges.
Conversion Dates
Overview | Example | Adding Conversion Dates | Related RBAC Permissions | Integration Note
Overview
Conversion Dates should be set prior to the start of any scheduling for a given term. Otherwise, they will not function as intended.
Conversion Dates are used to move all academic meetings from the original scheduled day to a “converted” day, and as a result, canceling all prior academic meetings on the original day.
Example
If the original date is November 18th and the converted date is November 21st: All academic meetings scheduled for November 18th will instead occur on November 21st.
Although conversion dates can only be configured in Academic Scheduling, the impact of conversion dates on academic meetings will be reflected in the Events calendar.
In the previous example, the Events calendar would not show any Academic Events for November 18th and would indicate those Academic Events are now occurring on November 21st.
Adding Conversion Dates
Navigate to Academic Scheduling > Settings > Terms > (Select Term) > Conversion Dates.
Click “+ Add Conversion Date”.
Input a name for the Conversion Date that makes it easy to identify/understand.
In the “Original Date” field, input the date classes would normally be held.
In the “Converted Date” field, input the date classes are being moved to.
Click “+Add Filter” to have this conversion date only apply to sections that meet the criteria defined in the filter.
Related RBAC Permissions
In order to edit Conversion Dates, the “Edit Term Conversion Dates” permission must be set to “Allow”.
You can change those permissions at Academic Scheduling > Settings > Roles > (select Role) > Institution Settings.
Integration Note
Conversion Dates information is stored on the term, so if you are using Coursedog in an integrated environment, you must specify Conversion Dates as a field that is "Coursedog" owned, otherwise they will be overwritten by SIS data.
Conversion Dates sync with events when data is updated. When the integration is turned on for the relevant term, and data is flowing, Conversion Dates will populate in events.
Part of Term Contain Filters
Overview | Integration Considerations | Part Of Term Filters | Date Exception & Conversion Date Filters
Overview
Users can filter in Academic Scheduling with a "contains" filter when filtering the part of term of a section.
The "contains" filter will check against the "partOfTerm.displayName" field, allowing users to execute a text filter against that value.
Integration Considerations
The “part of term” field is integrated for PeopleSoft, so the Source of Truth should remain “Always Institution” for PeopleSoft schools. If you believe an exception needs to be made, please discuss with your Coursedog Representative (Project Manager or CSM).
Other SISs can use part of term filters so long as it is set up as a field-specific exception (where “Source of Truth” = “Always Coursedog”) at Admin > Merge Settings > Type-Specific Settings > Terms.
This will need to be added as a custom exception.
The label should be “Parts Of Term - Filters”, and the path should be partsOfTerm.filters.
If you aren’t sure how to set up a custom exception, go here.
Part Of Term Filters
Each part-of-term object (as defined in Settings → Terms) supports custom filters. These filters define which sections are allowed to be used this part-of-term. The list of fields by which a user can filter is a hardcoded list of pre-built section fields that are currently supported for use in part of term filtering.
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