We would like to see the ability to designate a set of courses as equivalent to one another. For our school, this capability would provide several enhancements to our ability to manage our programs and courses as follows:
1. Course Credit and Number Changes
Recently, we changed a number of courses from 2 to 3 credits and decided to change the course number and in some cases minor aspects of the course content. In a few cases, the course numbers were changes to a new 6 character format (from 5 characters) without changing the number of credits. We would like to be able to designate these courses as equivalent so that a student can take either course and still meet the requirement on their degree audit.
2. GPA Calculation
In the past, when a student failed a required course and then later retook the course and passed, their previous failure was negated in the calculation of their GPA. We hope that a course equivalent capability would allow us to negate a failed course in the GPA calculation, for example NT111 Synoptic Gospels, when the student later passes an equivalent course, such as BIB 252 The Gospels.
3. Campus and DE Course Equivalence
For many of the courses at our school there is a DE option but we have traditionally given DE courses a different course number, adding an "E" to the end of the course number to distinguish campus and and DE courses (for example, THS 101 and THS 101E). These courses are equivalent and we would like to be able to designate this equivalence so that a student can take either course and still meet the requirement on their degree audit.
Also, sometimes when a campus student fails a class in the the fall or spring semester, they will retake the DE version of the course in the summer so that they don't fall behind in their program. Currently for this scenario, when the student takes THS101E in the summer, this would NOT be applied as a retake of the previously failed THS 101 in their GPA calculation.
Suggestion for Implementation
Course course equivalence be implemented by adding an additional level that sits below "Course Groups", perhaps called "Equivalent Courses" in the "Degrees" section of the Academics tab. These Equivalent Courses could be used for both Degree Audits and GPA calculation / retake(s) management and would not necessarily adversely affect the current implementation of the Degree Audit that schools have adopted.
I hope that this feature can be implemented quite soon!
Thanks,
Kerry
