Alteration

Within the Advising module, an alteration is considered to be a modification, override, or substitution that is made to an existing institutional or course requirement for an individual student. This process is performed by associating a Requirement Met by code with the referenced requirement.

Student alterations, which either modify the institutional requirements for a particular student or modify the course work reported to the Advising system, are maintained by placing rows in the Student Advising Alterations table. Each row is keyed by the student ID Number, aim label, and sequence number. These rows are applied only when the student ID Number, aim label, and sequence number match a row in the Requirements Tree during a student progress evaluation. The values stored in each row replace the existing values in the Requirements Tree and are then incorporated into the evaluation of the student's progress. This may include overrides to course credit, GPA, or quality points.

A student ID Number and aim are selected from the Student Aims table. The aim must have a requirement code defined in order for alterations to be applied. An advisor can then select a place within the Requirements Tree where an alteration is applied. This alteration may be in many forms: a course substitution, a modification of the requirement, marking the requirement as having been met by another course credit, or a waiver. A row is then entered into the Student Advising Alternations table in order to track the alteration and identify the position within the Requirements Tree to which the alteration is applied.

Course substitutions and waived requirements are entered through the Student Progress window, which resides over the Advising Progress Work File table. A course substitution is when one Advising Requirement Code is used to replace another and is entered into a row on the Student Advising Alterations table. This row is identified by the student ID Number, aim, and original requirement code. After a course substitution or waived requirement is entered, the Advising Progress Work File is reloaded in order to reflect the changes.