Create a Master Course Catalog for the School
Enable / Disable Master Catalog
Flesh the Contents of the Master Catalog
Before you begin preparing to import your master course catalog, take some time to think about the structuring. If you think the structuring through completely and name courses in a consistent manner, the course catalog will make sense and be easy for everyone to search and schedule.
Ultimately you will populate an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns and a row for each master course:
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Column Name |
Description / Instructions |
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Identifier |
This is a unique number/letter combination used to identify the course amongst other courses. We suggest you come up with a meaningful and consistent way of IDing master courses.
For example:
If courses are specific to a grade-level, you could come up with the convention "Grade Level-Course Abbreviation". So you would give a course called "1st Grade Mathematics" the Identified or "1-Math." "11th grade Biology" would be "11-Bio."
If you wanted to show progression in courses like Spanish, Spanish I, Spanish II, Spanish III, you could name them:
If your state or other governing body already has standard course identifiers, you can use those.
The convention can be anything you wish--letters only, numbers only, letters & numbers, with or without hyphens--Just try to make it meaningful and consistent so that searching the database will be an intuitive undertaking into the future.
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Title |
This is the full name of the course. These names will appear on report cards, transcripts, Teacher Daily Planner, Gradebook, and in the student/parent views for coursework and other academic information. If you want the names translated, enter a translation. |
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Description |
This is the generic description of the course. Note that once sections of the course are created with assigned teachers, each teacher will be able to provide their own course section description. |
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Credit Type |
Cross reference with graduation sets. Open up your graduation sets and determine which credit type the course fulfills.
To look at your graduation sets, go to the following quick nav path: Feature Administration>Graduation Sets>Click Graduation Set>Requirements.
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Credits |
Enter the number of credits a student earns by successfully completing the course. |
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Exclude From GPA |
If this is a course like "choir," it may be considered ungraded, or extracurricular. If it is you can optionally exclude it from GPA calculation of students enrolled in the course. |
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Exclude From Report Card |
If this is a course like "choir," it may be considered ungraded, or extracurricular. If it is you can optionally exclude it from inclusion on the report cards of students enrolled in the course. |
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Category |
Choose the category of course. Options include:
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AP
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College
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General
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Honors
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Regents
Note that this will tell the system how to calculate GPA for students who have completed the course. To check category mapping to GPA, go to the following quick nav path: Feature Administration> Grading>GPA Mapping
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State (or Other Government) / Common Core Master Catalog Courses
Note that some states have state-wide curriculum and host a database of state-approved courses with associated course numbers, credit count, descriptions, etc. You can use state master courses, but we recommend that for maintenance reasons you only input courses that you actually teach at your school rather than importing all possible courses approved by the state.
Ultimately you will be importing the catalog using an Excel spreadsheet import, so if the state database has a means of exporting some or all of the catalog to Excel, you'll be that much closer to the format needed for import.
Create Your Own Catalog Using Your Own Naming Convention & Credits
Alternatively, it is entirely normal for schools to leverage their own course catalog using their own naming convention. If you choose to create your own catalog, aim for consistency in naming and designating unique course IDs.
Import All Master Courses at One Time Using ExcelTM
Enter Master Courses Manually (Non-Import)
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