Introduction


1.    GENERAL INFORMATION

 This is the User Manual for the ITS Academic Structure. It is one of a series of user and technical manuals that is available for the ITS systems.

The reader is referred to Section 3 for an overview of this subsystem.

It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with the general operation of the menus and the keyboard. These matters are fully discussed in the“Operational Aspects of ITS Systems - Integrator 1" Manual.

The reader is reminded that the copyright of the ITS systems and documentation remains with ITS, and that users thereof are contractually prohibited from providing information contained therein to third parties, such as other educational institutions.


2.  OVERVIEW OF ACADEMIC STRUCTURE SYSTEM

The ITS Academic Structure consists of the following modules (menu option in brackets):

This manual consists of
Chapter 1 General
Chapter 2 Codes Menu
Chapter 3 Operational Menu
Chapter 4 Maintenance Menu
Chapter 5 Technical Aspects

2.1.  Academic Structure 

The Academic Structure plays a crucial role in the implementation of the ITS student system.  It must be in place
before any of the other sub=systems can work.  For example, the Academic Structure must be completed before
any students can be registered on the ITS registration sub-system.

This volume of the student manuals deals specifically with all aspects surrounding the Academic Structure. 
The manual also includes some suggestions on the procedures involved in managing the Academic Structure, 
for example, it provides suggested input forms for capturing new information.


3.  OVERVIEW OF STUDENT ACADEMIC STRUCTURE

3.1.  Academic Structure:  Overview
        3.1.1.  General

The proper functioning of the Student System, and indeed some of the other ITS Systems, depends, to a large
extent, on the proper installation of the Academic Structure.  If this is done well, the system will be easy to
implement and maintain; if not, there is a risk that the entire process may have to be repeated.  Extra thought
and care during implementation of the Academic Structure will be rewarded!

In the case of Technikons, NATED 151 largely defines the Academic Structure and this information will be
available to assist in the process.  Some elements must still be added, however.  In the case of Universities the
whole process must be gone through.  It must be stressed that the input of the structure is a big process, and
that the user could spend several months on this aspect alone.

In the rest of this Section the different parts of the Academic Structure will be discussed, and in the following
Sections the other main components of the Student Information System will be dealt with.

3.1.2.  Definition Of A Subject
 
The use of terms such as “course”, “study course”, “subject”, “module”, “credit”, etc., for the individual components
of the curriculum of a qualification can be confusing.  In this system, we simply use the term subject to identify
these components.

The system regards study material with identical contents and equivalent examination requirements as one
subject.

For example, English I and English II are regarded as two different subjects.  If the content of English IA and
English IB differs..  Similarly if they have different examinations, they are regarded as separate subjects.

If the students in English I are taught in more than one group, or if the sub-groups are formed for, say, tutorials,
 it is regarded as one subject only.  (The system can cope with different groups within a subject).

If English I forms part of the curriculum of, say, the BA degree, as well as a teaching diploma, and the respective
students attend the same lectures and write the same examinations, then English I is still regarded as one
subject only.  (The system deals with the aspects of curricula and possible different credit values at another level).

If English I is offered to both full-time and part-time students, or to students on different campuses, but they write
the same examination, it is still regarded as one subject.  (Such distinctions are handled by way of Offering
Types and Examination Groups).  Different subject fees may apply in such cases.

If the same subject content is offered on more than one occasion during the year, say in both semesters, only a
single subject must be defined on the system.  (The times at which the subject will be offered can be dealth with by
linking it to one or more Blocks.)

If a subject consists of more than one module, which must be completed before the subject is credited to a
student, these “modules” are identified as subjects and are identified by a particular subject type on the Academic
Structure.  The “related subject” indicator can then be used to indicate the relationship between the “parent” and
the “module” subjects.

3.1.3.  Formally Approved Qualifications
 
The relevant Education Department normally determines the qualifications that an institution may offer.  The
Qualification File in HEMIS (as well as the STATS Table 1.1) requires details of these, which implies that
some information must be kept at this level.

In many cases, the qualifications, as they are used in the institution, are identical to the officially approved
ones.  In the case of some general degrees, such as a BA or B.Com, an institution may, however, decide to
limit the allowable curriculum to certain subject packages. For instance, the Approved Qualification may be
B.Com, whilst the institution may define a B.Com (Accounting), a B.Com (Law) and a B.Com (General). 
For each of these internally defined qualifications a separate curriculum would also exist.

Within the system, the users will normally work with the internally defined qualification, which is merely
 called the “qualification”. The system does, however, keep record of “Approved Qualifications” and when
a new (internal) qualification is created, it must be linked to an existing, officially approved qualification.

3.1.4.  Qualifications
 
In this system, a Qualification, such as a BA degree, which is offered on both a full-time and part-time basis, is regarded
as a single qualification.  Offering Types full-time and part-time deal with the distinction.

Care must be taken in some cases.  A student may, for instance, indicate that she is enrolled for a BA (Music) degree. 
It could be that the student is merely following a number of music subjects within the normal BA curriculum.
 In this case the student is actually enrolled for a BA degree. Should BA (Music) have a curriculum of its own, however,
it should be regarded as a separate (internal) qualification.

3.1.5.   Curricula
 
All the subjects that are allowed for a particular Qualification form the curriculum for that qualification.  In some
cases the student must take all the subjects in the curriculum (a fixed curriculum) and in other cases the curriculum
could contain a great many subjects, of which only some are required for obtaining the qualification.

A student, who is allowed to enrol for a subject that may not be taken towards his / her qualification, is handled by means of a
special facility (see “Additional Subjects” in the “Registration Sub-system” Manual).

STATS subject credits are allocated to the combination of qualification and subject, making it possible for a subject
to carry different credits for different qualifications. SAQA credits or ECTS credits are not carried on the curriculum,
but can instead be entered where the Subject is created.

3.1.6.  Offering Types
 
Although Offering Types are created in the General System, under option {GCS-5}, they are discussed here as
they have special significance in terms of the Student System.

The concept of Offering Types deals with aspects such as:
Offering types should be created with care.  As a general rule, their numbers should be kept to a minimum in order
to avoid an unnecessarily complex academic structure and the necessity for special procedures to handle
students who are involved in more than one offering type.

They should, in the first instance, take care of the following three Statistical categories:

Normal:  counted fully for STATS student tables
Distance Education: counted as distance tuition for STATS
None:   not counted at all for STATS
Mixed: mixture of distance and contact education and counted as Distance tuition for STATS

A student, who is enrolled for an offering type “None”, will not be counted in any STATS tables.  The HEMIS
Course Registration File, however, reports on the attendance mode for students and this information is used
to determine the attendance mode.  Students enrolled for “Normal” or “Distance Education” Offering Types
will be counted fully and the correction for distance tuition, as required for Tables 2.19 to 2.22, will be applied
 to the FTE tables for the “Distance Education” and “Mixed” types  (see NASOP 02-100 (89/06) pp 70/71).

A student indicates the applicable offering type and qualification at enrolment.  She / he will normally be allowed
to enrol only for those subjects that are valid for this offering type, but exceptions are allowed.

If it is possible for a student to commute regularly between two campuses to attend classes, there is no need to
create a different offering type for each campus.  If, however, an individual student will attend classes on both
campuses only in very exceptional cases, then two offering types may be created to distinguish between
students from different campuses.

Similarly, if the full-time and part-time students typically form separate groups who attend separate classes, they
can be allocated to separate offering types.  If, on the other hand, these two groups regularly attend joint classes,
separate offering types should probably not be created.

In summary, students should normally not be involved in more than one offering type.

Possible examples of Offering Types could be:

Subsidy Type
                                         
01 Full-time Study: Main Campus         Normal
02 Part-time Study: Main Campus  Normal
03 Distance Tuition  Distance Education
04 Partnership Instruction       None
05 Non-formal Instruction  None
06 Combined Distance and Contact Mixed

                              
3.1.7.  Subject Blocks 

A subject that is offered more than once during an academic year will only have a single subject code.  Blocks
will be created under option {SCODE2-1} for each teaching period within the academic year.  Subjects are then
linked to the blocks in which they are offered.  For example, if MATH100 is offered in both semester 1 and
semester 2, then it will be linked to both blocks 1 and 2 under option {SACADO-12}.

Similarly a subject that is offered on a trimester basis can have three Subject-Block records.  It is also possible
to handle the case where the same subject is offered to some groups on a semester basis and to others on
an annual (year) basis.

At the time of registration a student will be allowed to register for subjects within any block that is active under
the system cycle option {SMNT-2b1}.

Under option {SCODE2-1}, Blocks can be created for examination only purposes. Subjects that have examinations
in these examination only blocks must also be linked to them.  For example, a year subject with a normal
examination in November and a Re-examination in February will be linked to two blocks; the year block for normal
registrations as well as the block for the re-examination in February. 

If different examinations in the same subject are written at the same time, for example students writing the normal
examination are joined by others writing aegrotat exams or re-exams, then only one record is required linking
the subject to its normal block.  The subject enrolment records of students will indicate which specific examination
each student wrote. 

Note:  It is possible to have multiple normal exam opportunities for one block.  This can be specified in option
{SCODE2-2b3}.  Students can be re-registered in batchrs via option {SSTUD4-22}

Possible exam opportunities could be:
 
Exam Type   Block    Sequence  Exam Year  Month
Normal Year  1 2002 11
Normal Year  2 2003 6
Normal Year  3 2003 11



3.1.8.  Qualification Blocks
 
The period of the year over which any qualification is offered is called the academic block of that qualification. 
Should all students attend the institution for a full year, all qualifications will be linked to the year block only.

In the case of those institutions that offer qualifications on a semester basis, two records will be created in order
to link the diploma to both semesters.  In the case of a short course that is offered several times during the year,
several records will be created.

It is, however, possible for a student, who is registering for a qualification in the year block, to take subjects from
the semester one and two blocks as well.  The system cycle records that are active at the time of registration
will determine the extent to which this will be allowed.  This is defined under option {SREG-1}.

A Student can also be registered for a qualification that stretches over more than a calendar year. The block
that is used for this period of study must be defined correctly in option  {GOPS-1b1}.  A typical example of
such an offering would be:

Exam Type   Block    Start Date End Date Census Date  End Service Date
2002     01 01-Jul-2002 30-Jun-2003  15 Jan-2003   30-Jun-2003

3.1.9.  Period Of Study
 
The valid study period codes for the system are entered under option {SCODE-30}.

The study period of a subject is the sequential year or semester in which the subject would normally (or ideally) be taken.  For instance, Physics II would normally be taken in the second year (period).

A three-year qualification wil,l therefore, have subjects that are spread over three periods of study.  (The period of study does not refer to the number of years that an individual student has been registered for a qualification, since this can be determined by looking at the actual study record.)

Whilst the codes for the period of study would normally be numbered from 1 onwards, it may sometimes also be useful to have alphabetical periods of study such a “Phase A”, “Phase B”, etc.

Only a certain number of periods of study will be valid for any qualification, e.g. there will not be a period 4 for a three-year qualification.  The valid combinations are carried in the academic structure under option {SACADO-5}. 

The linking of subjects to their periods of study, under option {SACADO-17}, is used to assist in the registration process when the “Generate on Commit” option is used.  The qualification, offering type and study period of the student is entered during registration.  All relevant subjects can then be displayed on the screen and changes made if required. 

This facility is particularly useful in the case of qualifications with fixed curricula, as it eliminates the laborious task of entering identical lists of subjects in respect of many students. It does not, however, preclude the inclusion or exclusion of any other subject in the curriculum for that qualification.

3.1.10.  Pre- And Co-Requisites; Substitutes
 
The system can handle four types of relationships between subjects:
If a subject has a pre-requisite, the student may normally enrol for that subject only if he has already passed the pre-requisite subject. In the case of a series of subjects that are pre-requisites for one another, such as Physics I, Physics II and Physics III, the pre-requisite for Physics III need only be indicated as Physics II, whilst the pre-requisite for Physics II would be Physics I.

Multiple pre-requisites are allowed, e.g. both CHEM101 and CHEM102 being pre-requisites for CHEM200.

A co-requisite is a subject that may be taken only on condition that another subject is being taken concurrently, or has already been passed.  It is important to note that co-requisites can create one-way or two-way relationships.  If Mathematics I is a co-requisite for Physics I, a student may take Physics I only if he takes Mathematics I concurrently.  He may, however, take Mathematics I without Physics I.  If the intention is that Physics I, should also be a co-requisite for Mathematics I, then this should be specified separately.  Multiple co-requisites are allowed.

A substitute is a subject that is equivalent to another subject as far as a pre-requisite is concerned.  If, for instance, a first year course in a modern language is a pre-requisite for the second year of linguistics, then the following structure could result:

                       Pre-requisite   for Linguistics II is French I
                       Substitute       for French I is German I

In this example, a student who wants to enrol for Linguistics II must have passed either French I or German I.

An exposure subject is one that the student must at least have been enrolled for previously before being allowed to commence with another subject.  This relationship is similar to a pre-requisite except that there is no need for the student to have passed the initial course: he need only have been registered for it.

Since there are typically some individual exceptions to the rules in respect of these relationships, the user can continue with the registration of a student, despite the fact that his subjects violate the specified requirements.

Example:  The following is a typical example of how pre-requisites may be specified with respect to semester subjects where the course content is split over the two semesters and where a student would register for both consecutive subjects at the beginning of the year.

Assume that CHEM301 and CHEM302 are the two consecutive 3rd year components, CHEM201 and CHEM202 are the two consecutive 2nd year components and CHEM101 and CHEM102 are the two consecutive 1st year components.


Requisite Subject  Involved Subject
C CHEM102 CHEM101
P CHEM201 CHEM102
P CHEM201 CHEM101
C CHEM202 CHEM201
P CHEM301 CHEM201
P CHEM301 CHEM202
C CHEM302 CHEM301

(The first record would preclude a student from registering for the second semester for subject CHEM102 unless s/he also registers for CHEM101 at the same time).

The system can deal with pre-requisites and substitutes on qualification level, e.g. the pre-requisite qualification for a BAHon degree is a BA degree. This information can be specified in option {SACADO-6}. 

The pre-requisite matric requirements before a student may commence his/her studies at an institution are specified in option {SACAD-4}.  A minimum symbol or subject grade can be specified as the entry requirement.  Substitutes for matric subjects may be set up in {SACAD-4b}.

3.1.11.  Exemption Subjects
 
When a student enters an institution, after having previously studied at another institution, he is sometimes granted exemption from some subjects on the basis of subjects passed at the other institution.

In this system, it is assumed that the student will be granted such exemption on the basis of an application and that the student may be exempted only from subjects in the curriculum for his qualification at this institution.  Various types of exemptions can be defined under option {SCODE-28} and each exemption will be linked to one of these types.

Whilst details of the subjects that he passed at the other institution may be entered in the Application and Biographical Subsystems, only the equivalent subjects for which exemption were granted at this institution should be entered on his study record, by registering these as exemption subjects.

Exemption subjects are entered in the study record of the student in the year that the exemption was granted.  They are identified as exemption subjects when the records are created and will, therefore, not cause these subjects to be taken into account for class lists or for the STATS FTE tables.

3.1.12.  Occasional Students
 
Occasional students or studies for non-degree purposes as it is also called, can be dealth with by this system.  The classification of degree and diploma types is expanded in this system to deal with the two additional types as required for the HEMIS Qualifications File (as well as the STATS Table 2.12).  The user must create the necessary Formal Qualification and ensure that the qualification type is correctly indicated as “Occasional”.  This will preclude it from being listed on STATS Table 1.1.

It is suggested that the user create two (or more) “occasional student” qualifications for pre- and post degree / diploma occasional students.  The subjects that may be taken on this basis must then be entered into the curriculum for these “occasional” qualifications.  These students will appear in the normal way on class lists and their qualification will be shown as “occasional”.  The credit for subjects taken by occasional students should be the same as the typical (or more correctly, the weighted average) credit for the subject.

(As an alternative to creating a large curriculum for these “occasional” qualifications, students can be registered for this qualification but do their subjects as “additional subjects”.  In this case, no curriculum needs to be created for these qualifications.)

3.1.13.  Qualification- And Subject Codes
 
The user must define codes in respect of all the subjects and qualifications in the system.  It would be useful if these codes resembled the actual name of the subject or qualification, as they are used in place of the full names on reports and printouts such as timetables.

It is important to keep in mind that the system regards these codes merely as names and does not derive any properties from them, as is done, for instance, with the subject codes, as defined in NATED151.

We would suggest that in the case of subjects the codes be structured to indicate the subject matter of the subject as well as the level of study.  Possible codes could be:

                       PHY101          Physics IA
                       HART001        History of Art I

The system is designed to transform all lower case characters to upper case, and would, therefore, regard the codes “Math103” and “MATH103” as the same.  Spaces and punctuation marks are significant and codes such as “ACC01” and “ACC.01”, or “CHE 101” and “CHE101” would, in both cases, be regarded as different codes.

3.1.14.  Class Groups
 
The students in a combination of Subject and Offering Type may be allocated to different groups.  The system can deal with groups for Class (Theoretical), Practical (Laboratory) and Tutorial purposes. There is no limit to the number of groups that can be created in any one of these three groups, and an individual student can be allocated to any combination of groups. The existence of class, practical, tutorial, independent learning and seminar contact in respect of a Subject / Offering Type combination is defined in the Academic Structure, and these groups can be scheduled individually in the Lecturing Timetable Sub-system. 

For each valid combination of Subject and Offering Type, the required number of Class Groups must be defined in the Academic Structure.  (Note that Offering Types deal with groups resulting from different campuses, full-time and part-time studies, etc.)

At registration, the system allocates every student to Group “A” of the Class, Practical, Exam and Tutorial groups (provided that such a group has been identified in option {SACADO-13}.  The default of Class Group “A” can be adjusted to any other valid group during registration and all groups can later be adjusted under a special updating option {SREGC-6 / 7}.  Alternatively, one can set the validations M1 and MM to check the class group allocation.  Please see the “Registration Subsystem” Manual for more detail.

The lecturing timetable operates at the level of these groups and class, practical and tutorial contact for each block in which a course is offered can be linked to rooms, timetable periods and lecturing staff.

Class Lists are produced separately for each Class Group and are addressed to the lecturer who is responsible for that group.


See Also:



History of Changes

Date System Version By Whom Job Description
01-Jun-2007 v01.0.0.0 Charlene van der Schyff t137175 New manual format.
12-May-2008 v01.0.0.0 Magda van der Westhuizen t149068 New Standards.
06-Nov-2008v01.0.0.0Magda van der Westhuizent15162Update manual:  Language Editing:  Juliet Gillies.
10-Apr-2015v04.0.0.0Magda van der Westhuizent205922Convert to INT4.0.