Question on length of term set up and credits

Nathan Ong

Hello!

It is our first year implementing BB and in setting up courses, something came up:

Say we have a class that is two semesters long and worth 10 units total. For the most part, most students take this course year-long, but on occasion there may be exceptions where a student switches to another class the second semester.

So there are two scenarios I'm seeing:

• A class set up as 2 semesters long and 10 credits. If the student withdraws halfway through the year, but got final grades for Semester 1, would they be awarded 5 credits?
• Or should the setup be that the class gets split up into two courses for the first and second semester (being named the same thing), to accommodate for these exceptions?

Most of the courses are explicitly 1 or 2 semester long (electives may be 1 semester, ELA/Math are 2 semesters that distinctly get split up as ELA 9A-9B, Math 8A-8B for example; switching wouldn't happen for these). In this particular case we have science and history courses set up as 2 semesters long, but I primarily am wondering if there will be any issue with having it as that and having students change courses halfway.

Would it be more efficient just to have every course split up into 2-part semester courses (even if they have the same name for history and science courses)? Or would withdrawing and final grade posting + credit awarding reconcile those few exceptions?

Thanks!

Geoffrey Goodfellow

Hi, @Nathan Ong. I believe most of us have a single course that spans multiple academic terms. The credits are automatically divided by term on the transcript. This provides the fewest courses in your catalog, streamlines course requests, and reduces the amount of scheduling. The default behavior for a student that takes only one semester of a year-long class is that they are awarded half the credits.

There is an option when you setup a course on the grading tab to “specify credit awarded by term” to change this behavior, but I don't think it is needed in your situation. Unmarked: The system will divide the total credits evenly between each term the course runs (Ex: a full year, 2 term course, worth 1.00 total credit will award .50 credits per term for a student). Marked: The system will award credit based on how the credit is distributed on the course offering. The school determines when credit should be awarded; for example, credit may only be awarded at the successful conclusion of a course, so a full year, two-term course worth one credit will award the entire credit on a passing end of term grade at the end of the second semester.

Hope that helps!

Geoffrey

Brian Gray

@Nathan Ong - @Geoffrey Goodfellow covered most of what I was going to say. There is a quirk you should be aware of. (This quirk is either exactly what you want or it is completely wrong - depending on your school's policies.)

If you use the default behavior (credits distributed across terms), students will earn that term's credit only if they earn a passing grade in that term. We have three terms, and most classes are 1 credit. If we used the default settings, when a student fails the fall term but passes the other terms, she earns 0.6667 credits. If that's what your school wants, you're all set.

Our policy is that the student earns the full credit for passing the year (without regard to a failure in one term). So we use the Award Credit Per Term option, and put the full credit in the spring term.

In your case, when you have a student who drops a full year course halfway through, you could withdraw the student from the course at the end of the first semester, and enter it as a transfer grade. The Transfer Grade screen allows you to specify all of the details - including term grades, credits attempted and credits earned.

Nathan Ong

@Geoffrey Goodfellow Thank you! Yes, that's helpful knowing the default behavior as well as that credit marking option.

Nathan Ong

@Brian Gray That makes sense. Thanks for the transfer grade option as well, that seems it'll be handy.