A small set of forms are used to identify people as students and manage the information that describes their progress through programs and degrees. The main record that describes students, thier student record, is defined each term they are enrolled. This allows a historical record of changes in degree programs or status to be retained, as well as information on academic progress that is also stored there.
When creating a new student, verify that their biographical information has been entered on the Person form. This information is critical to track and report on student information.
Student
Each term, all students who need to register must have a current Student record defined. The form copies data forward from prior terms when possile (see details on the Student form), so this typically only requires verifying their information:
- Campus - The student's Campus is checked against section campus during registration to help verify that a student's schedule sections are on their home campus. Fees (other than tuition and course fees) are also recorded on the student's account with this campus during fee assessment.
- Rate, Mealplan, Dormitory - These are used during fee assessment to determine what rate to assess tuition at, and whether specific fees should be assessed (a meal plan, and dormitory fee respectively). Note that some Rate codes only apply to sections and should not be assigned to students.
- Degree and Major - The combination of these two fields identifies the degree program the student is in, which is displayed below Major. Not all combinations of Degree and Major are valid degree programs. Degree is also used to determine level (certificate, associate, etc) for the purpose of calculating class (freshman, sophomore, etc).
- Program Term - The term a student was admitted to the indicated degree program. Degree program definitions periodically change; this value is used to identify when program definition should apply to this student. For newly admitted students this will be the same as their admission term.
- Admitted, Student Type - The term a student was admitted to the college, and what type of student they represent. Student Type changes automatically, from new or returning to continuing for example.
- Advisor - The advisor assigned to this student. Only people identified as Instructors can be assigned as advisors.
- Standing, Honors - Calculated at the end of each term after GPA has been determined. Standing is automatically copied forward from the previous term and is used to determine whether a student is able to register for classes. If the calculated Standing prevents registration, an Override can be specified.
Holds
If there's any reason why a student shouldn't be able to register or obtain an official transcript, a Hold can be created to prevent these activities from occurring.
Test Scores
Entrance test and placement test scores should be recorded when available. These scores can be used to satisfy pre-requisite requirements during registration (these equivalencies are defined on the Test Equivalents form).
Student Cohort
If a student is being tracked as part of one or more cohort groups, they can be associated with those groups using the Student Cohort form. Various data extraction and reporting tools can use this information to select groups of students.
