Configuring CBE
Configure CBE on the Competency Based Education Settings page.
The general settings are where you turn CBE on, create a display name, determine what to include in registration checking, and decide where CBE category levels can be edited.
This is where you turn CBE on to allow your school to use its features.
This is where you can change the Display Name from the default "CBE". This is what CBE will be called in many labels and page titles. (In the documentation, we'll still call it CBE.)
During the registration process, the system can include in-progress CBE courses when it's checking for prerequisites, corequisites, and prohibited courses. It can include corequisites from the previous term in the search, too. Select the checkboxes if you want to include search attributes. This setting applies to CBE courses only. It does not affect settings for traditional courses.
Decide whether users can change the maximum level available from within a catalog course, a section, or a student's course history. (You create the categories and levels on the CBE Category Definitions page.)
You can make competencies optional or, instead, required by default for course completion. (Then, as you assign competencies to courses and sections, you can accept or override the default.) By default, all CBEs added to a catalog course or section are marked as Not Required. They can be changed to Required after they're added.
You can decide whether CBE elements (competencies) have grades, credits, and hours. You also decide whether grades, credits, and hours roll up from the CBE elements to the student's course grade. (For grades, you're setting the defaults for newly created courses and sections, but users can change the settings for individual courses, sections, and student course history records.)
Should competencies have their own grades, credits, and hours? That depends on how your school wants to use competencies. You can use competencies as mere badges, or you can fully integrate them with grades, credits, and hours.
You can set up CBE so that competencies are merely like badges—acknowledgements of skills achieved. In that case, the competencies themselves don't have credits or hours.
In this setup, competencies might or might not have grades, but the grades aren't connected in any way to the section grade, to GPA, or to any other calculation in a student's record.
To use CBE this way, don't opt in to grading, credits, and hours on CBE.
If you want competencies fully integrated, with each CBE competency getting a grade, hours, and/or credits, then select those options on the Competency Based Education (CBE) Settings page.
Note
If grades, hours, and/or credits are selected here, they'll automatically appear with competencies in grade reports.
However, to show a competency's grades, credits, and/or hours in transcripts, select Show supplemental CBE page at the end.
If you opt in to grades, you then select whether the grades "roll up"; that is, whether they're used to calculate the section grade. Likewise with credits and hours.
Roll Up
The student's grade, credits, and/or hours for the section (as seen in the student's course history) result from the student's grade, credits, and/or hours in each of the required CBE elements.
If you decide to use the roll up grading method, then you must also use credits to ensure the system can calculate the grades correctly.
Roll Down
The instructor grades the course, and each required CBE element is automatically assigned that same grade.
Individual CBE elements won't have hours and/or credits assigned to them. They're assigned only to the student course record for the section.
Selection | Result or Example |
|---|---|
Allow Grading on CBE | CBE elements (competencies) can be graded. Now select whether grades roll up or down. (If this checkbox is cleared, then by default, competencies can't be graded.) |
Grades roll up | If the student earns an A on Competency 1, a B on Competency 2, and a C on Competency 3 (and those competencies are required), then the student's section grade is a B, the average of the 3 competencies. |
Grades roll down | If the student earns a C+ in the course, they automatically earn a C+ on each of the required competencies, too. |
Use credits on CBE elements | Competencies can get credits. Now select whether credits roll up or, instead, are defined on the section. (If this checkbox is cleared, then by default, competencies don't get credits.) |
Credits roll up | If the student earns 1 credit on Competency 1, and 1 credit on Competency 2, and 1 credit on Competency 3 (and those competencies are required), then the student's section earns 3 credits. |
Credits are defined on the section | The CBE credits are not related to the course credits. |
Use hours on CBE elements | Competencies can get hours. Now select whether hours roll up or, instead, are defined on the section. (If this checkbox is cleared, then by default, competencies don't get credits.) |
Hours roll up | If the student earns 1 hour on Competency A, and 1 hour on Competency B, and 1 hour on Competency C (and those competencies are required), then the student's section earns 3 hours. |
Hours are defined on the section | The CBE hours are not related to the course hours. |
You can have competencies show on transcripts in either or both of these ways or not at all:
With their assigned course section
In a list at the end of the transcript (with the competency's grades, credits, and/or hours, if any)
On the Registration Administration hub, click the Hub options.
Select Settings and then Competency Based Education (CBE) settings. The Competency Based Education Settings page opens.
Click the anchor link for General CBE Settings.
Click the Edit this Section button.
Select the Enable CBE checkbox.
In the Display Name field, edit the display name if you want it changed from the default "CBE". This will be what Competency Based Education is called in many labels and page titles. (In documentation, we'll still call it CBE.)
Select checkboxes for either, both, or neither of these:
Include in-progress CBE courses in prerequisite / corequisite / prohibited checking
Include previous term in corequisite checking
Under Allow the Category Level to Be Edited in These Places, select checkboxes to determine where users can edit the maximum category level available.
Catalog courses
Course sections
Student course history records (that is, an individual student's course)
Under Default Settings for Each Element, select a radio button to determine whether by default any competencies assigned are Required or Optional to complete the course they're assigned to.
To abandon your changes without saving, click the Cancel button. Otherwise, click the Save this section button.
On the Registration Administration hub, click the Hub options.
Select Settings and then Competency Based Education (CBE) settings. The Competency Based Education Settings page opens.
In the CBE Default Settings for Grades, Credits, Hours, and Transcripts section, click the Edit this section button.
Under Grading Method, select checkboxes for any, all, or none of these checkboxes that you want applied to required CBE elements for courses.
Under Grading Method, for any checkbox you selected, select a radio button to have the grades (or credits or hours) roll up from the CBE elements to the course or the other roll down from the course to the CBE element. (Credits and hours don't roll down to a section; they're defined on the section definition.)
If you want CBE elements to show on transcripts, select either or both of these checkboxes:
Show elements associated with a course below each course printed on the transcript
(Competencies appear with their course section. A competency's grades, credits, and hours don't appear.)
Show elements on a supplemental page at the end of the transcript
(Competencies appear in a list at the end. A competency's grades, credits, and/or hours show.)
To abandon your changes without saving, click the Cancel button. Otherwise, click the Save this section button.