1. Preliminary Considerations
Before you begin configuring course selections, ensure that you have a clear roadmap. This foundational planning will guide all your subsequent actions.
Key Planning Steps:
- Identify Next Year’s Course Offerings: Determine which core and elective courses will be available. Core courses are typically mandatory classes (e.g., English 9, World History I) that every student in a given grade level must take, while electives offer more choice.
- Determine Grade-Level Eligibility: Confirm which courses are open to which grade levels. For example, a course might be restricted solely to 11th and 12th graders.
- Pre-Loaded Courses vs. Student-Selected Courses: Decide which courses will be automatically added to student records before the selection window opens and which courses students will add themselves.
- Identify Special-Case Courses: Some courses, like Study Hall or Lunch, may not be chosen by students and should be added after they finalize their selections.
By clarifying these points upfront, you’ll ensure that the settings you configure later align with your school’s academic vision.
2. Advancing Student Grade Levels
Properly advancing grade levels ensures that the system displays only appropriate courses to each student. To advance grade levels, review Advancing Student Grade.
3. Configuring Course Parameters
Key Fields to Configure (Scheduling > Courses):
- Scheduling Priority: Assign a “1” to core courses and higher numbers for electives to help organize and prioritize scheduling tasks. Note: This field has no effect on what a student sees or can pick during online selection. It is used by the Load Into Courses multi-action, where a lower number means higher priority. It is always applied as a tiebreak, but it only outranks the number of available sections when the Priority Then Section Count option is checked. See Loading Student Into Course.
- Default Section Capacity: Set a default maximum number of students for new sections.
- Student Selection Section:
- Minimum & Maximum Grade Level: Enter the numeric range of allowed grade levels. For example, 9 to 9 for a 9th-grade-only course, or 9 to 12 for a course open to all high schoolers.
- Hiding Courses: Leave min and max fields blank if you don’t want a course to appear in online selections. Note: A blank minimum or maximum grade level is not treated as unrestricted. It excludes every student, which is why the course disappears. Note: A blank grade level does not hide a course a student has already selected. That selection stays visible and cannot be unselected, which is the behavior described in Locking Pre-Loaded Selections below.
- Locking Pre-Loaded Selections: Assign courses to students first, then remove their grade-level eligibility so that they appear but cannot be changed.
By configuring these parameters, students see only relevant courses, and administrators maintain full control over eligibility and requirements.
4. Setting Departmental Scheduling Rules
Departments can have their own rules that shape how students pick courses within that academic area.
Accessing Department Settings (Scheduling > Departments):
- Rank Selections: Allow students to rank their choices to manage popular electives. Note: This setting only controls whether the Rank column is displayed in the CMS Widget - Course Selection (Tree), and the widget’s Show Ranking property must be enabled as well. It does not on its own stop a student from reusing the same rank. That is controlled by the widget’s Ranking Type property.
- Max Courses Per Student: Limit how many courses a student may select in a given department. This value must be greater than 0. Note: A department left at 0 shows no courses at all in online selection. This is the most common reason a department’s courses do not appear to students. Note: This value also sets the range of the Rank drop-down, so a department at 0 offers no ranks to choose.
- Is Activity Department?: Typically set to “No” for academic departments. Note: This field has no effect on course selection. It is used to filter course sections elsewhere in Campus.
These department-level settings help maintain balance and coherence in a student’s course load.
5. Pre-Loading Course Selections
Pre-loading ensures that certain mandatory courses are already on a student’s schedule before they begin selecting electives.
Two Approaches:
- By Students: Select a group of students and add required courses to all of them at once by going to Scheduling > Students > Multi-action > Selections (Add). Note: Selections (Add) only checks whether the student already has a selection for that course. It does not enforce grade level, course capacity, department maximums, prerequisites, or the selection end dates, so it can be used to place a course on a student who could not have chosen it. Note: The restriction check on that screen is a preview that colors failing students. It does not stop the save.
- By Courses First: Navigate to Scheduling > Courses > Details > Selections to add students to each course as needed.
Locking pre-loaded selections (by removing their eligibility ranges) prevents changes, ensuring mandatory courses remain fixed.
6. Establishing End Dates for Selections
Two critical end dates provide a structured schedule for the selection process:
- Student Online Selection End Date: Set at the student level, it determines how long each student can make changes. Without a valid end date, students cannot select courses.
- Course Online Selection End Date: Found in Admin > Maintenance > School Info, this date closes the selection window for the entire school division.
Note: Both dates have to be open to make selections through the CMS interface. Both dates must contain an actual date. If either one is blank, selection is closed. A blank date is not treated as unlimited. Note: The end date itself is inclusive, so a student can still make selections on the end date. Note: The CMS Widget - Course Selection (Grid) checks both dates before it will allow any selection. The CMS Widget - Course Selection (Tree) uses the student date to enable or disable the form, while the division date controls whether courses the student has not yet selected are offered. Because of this, a student whose own date is open but whose division date has passed sees an enabled form that offers no new courses.
7. Adding and Dropping Selections
Administrators can modify course selections through the administrative interface. Navigate to Scheduling > Courses/Students > Details > Selections to add and drop course selections.
8. Configure Course Selections in CMS Portal
To enable users to select courses through the Student, Parent, or Advisor Portal, add the CMS Widget - Course Selection (Tree) as the main selection interface, and optionally the CMS Widget - Course Selection (Grid) for the grid-style add view, to the appropriate portals.