Reuse and Priority in Advising Trees
Tip
Reuse means allowing a course to mark more than one requirement as met. Some schools call it Double-Counting or Double-Dipping.
A course might appear in several advising trees and meet several requirements in any student's plan. For example, let's imagine Math 257, Math for Hotel Management. It satisfies all the following requirements:
Logistics Concentration in Hospitality Major: Math 257
Hospitality Major: any 200-level math course
Business Administration Minor: any business math course
General Education (GENED) or core curriculum: any 3-or-more-credit math course
Math Literacy: any applied math course
So if a student has all those requirements in their aims, will each instance be marked as met when the Compute Student Progress process runs? That depends on your policies about reusing a course to satisfy multiple requirements. Some schools call it double-counting or double-dipping.
Note
Of course, double-counting doesn't mean counting the credit hours more than once! Rather, it means allowing a course to satisfy various qualitative requirements at once.
Deciding Policies
Your school decides which requirements are marked as met when a course appears multiple times in a student's aims. In the example of Math 257, if a student has all those aims, you could say it meets the requirement for the concentration but no others. Or it could be all but GENED, or it could be any other combination.
It's good to think through your requirement reuse policies. You can map it out on paper and consider the implications. You can start with a series of questions like the following:
Does our school allow a course to satisfy multiple aims for a student—never, always, or sometimes?
Can a course meet every type of requirement (major, minor, concentration, and GENED, for example), or are some combinations not allowed?
Is there a numerical constraint, such as a course can meet 3 requirements but not 4 or more?
Is the policy different for various programs or departments?
The scenarios below can help you think about policies and how they're implemented.
Where You Implement the Policies
You implement your policy on the following pages:
Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions: Assign default Priority and Reuse values for each course (and cumulative course) ARC. Priority tells the Compute Student Progress process the sequence of the instances of the ARC to check. Reuse tells the process whether the next instance in the sequence can be marked as met.
Tip
From here forward in this topic, when we mention course ARCs, we mean cumulative course ARCs, too.
Tip
You can actually set default Priority values of course and cumulative course types on the Advising Requirement Types page. That can save you a step when you create ARCs.
Advising Trees: Adjust Priority and Reuse as needed for each instance of an ARC in the trees. This allows you to specify which instances of an ARC a course can be double-counted.
Student Aims: The ARC may appear in several of a student's aims. If there are conflicts, you can use alterations to adjust the Priority and Reuse of an instance for the individual student. You can also use the alteration to manually mark a requirement as met or to block the process from marking it as met.
Note
There are actually two priority fields: Priority 1 and Priority 2. Think of Priority 2 as a decimal place for Priority 1. So if Priority 1 = 5, and Priority 2 = 3, it's like a priority of 5.3. You can use Priority 1 and leave Priority 2 blank unless you need it for more complex reuse chains. In this topic, we'll usually say merely Priority, and you'll know it includes Priority 1 and Priority 2.
A Working Strategy
There are many possible scenarios of combinations of reuse and priority, so you might not be able to think of them all from the start. But most schools' policies can work by starting with a simple strategy and adding complexity only when necessary. Let's consider three possibilities for reuse: never, always, and sometimes.
Reuse never allowed
Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page: Set each course ARC thus:
Priority: 5
Reuse Allowed: No
Advising Trees page: Keep the defaults (Priority: 5, Reuse: No)
Reuse allowed for all requirements
Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page: Set each course ARC thus:
Priority: 5
Reuse Allowed: Yes
Advising Trees page: Keep the defaults (Priority: 5, Reuse: Yes)
Reuse allowed for some requirements
Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page: Set each course ARC thus:
Priority: 5
Reuse Allowed: Yes
Advising Trees page: Adjust reuse and priority on individual ARCs as needed using the Manage Reuse and Priority for ARC feature.
Setting the default priority as 5 gives you the most flexibility. ARCs that aren't reused won't need to be changed, and only some of the ARCs that are used will need a change.
The "Close Requirements When Met" Setting
This setting on the Advising Settings page plays a key role in reuse.
If On, then the system skips already-met requirements and moves to the next priority. Thus, more requirements are likely to be marked as met.
If Off, the system processes each requirement whether it's already met or not. After processing, if Allow Reuse is Yes, it moves to the next priority. If Allow Reuse is No, it stops.
Most of the following scenarios feature Math 257. If the student completes it with a satisfactory grade, it would meet the requirements in multiple instances in a student's aims—if you allow it to be reused.
Math 257 appears in these locations on the advising trees:
Math Literacy: (any applied math course)
Business Administration Minor: (any business math course)
Logistics Concentration in the Hospitality Major: (any 200-level math course)
Major: Hospitality (Math 257)
GENED: (any 3-credit math course)
Now let's run through various policies and example scenarios. We'll name the policy and the scenario, and we'll explain how to set the reuse and priority fields for the course ARCS.
In this policy, a course may mark only one requirement as met. Make sure your priority order selects the requirement you want met.
Scenario A.1: You want Math 257 to meet the concentration requirement if a student has it. After that, your priorities are major, minor, math literacy, and GENED.
On the Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page, for each course ARC:
Set Allow Reuse to No (unselected).
Set Priority to 5.
On the Advising Trees page
Keep Allow Reuse as No (unselected) on each instance of Math 257.
Set Priority to each instance as follows:
Concentration: 1
Major: 3
Minor: 5
Math Literacy: 7
GENED: 9
Results: If the student doesn't have the major, it moves to minor, and so on. It searches through the priorities in order, and as soon as it finds one the student has, it marks that one as met, and it stops. The remaining instances with lower priorities are not marked as met.
If the student has the concentration, the system marks it as met, and the others are not met.
If the student doesn't have the concentration, it moves to major and marks it as met. The others are not met.
If the student doesn't have the concentration or the major, it moves to minor, and so on. It searches through the priorities in order, and as soon as it finds one the student has, it marks that one as met, and it stops. The remaining instances with lower priorities are not marked as met.
In this policy, a course may mark every instance of a requirement as met. Allow Reuse is Yes in every instance, and Priority doesn't matter.
Scenario B: You want Math 257 to mark as met all the requirements it satisfies.
On the Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page, for each course ARC:
Set Allow Reuse to Yes (selected).
Set Priority to 5. (Because you're allowing all reuse, priority doesn't matter, but this is a good default in case you ever need to change the policy.)
On the Advising Trees page
Keep Allow Reuse to Yes (selected) on each instance of Math 257.
Keep Priority in each instance as it is.
Results: Any and all of a student's aims that Math 257 satisfies are marked as met.
Many schools use this policy. It involves setting the Priority to make a chain of sequence of reuse, and then setting Allow Reuse to No just before the search arrives at the requirements you don't want met by the course.
For this policy, we can set the defaults:
On the Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page, for each course ARC:
Set Allow Reuse to Yes (selected).
Set Priority to 5.
These defaults on the Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page are a good starting point. But for each scenario, we'll adjust Allow Reuse and Priority as needed on the Advising Trees page.
Scenario C.1: Allow Reuse for All Except GENED
On the Advising Trees page, change Priority and Allow Reuse as needed like this:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Math Literacy | 1 | Yes |
Minor | 3 | Yes |
Concentration | 5 | Yes |
Major | 7 | No |
GENED | 9 | No |
Results:
If a student has multiple instances of requirements satisfied by Math 257—including the major, they'll all be marked as met except GENED.
If the student doesn't have the major, GENED is marked as met.
Scenario C.2: Allow Reuse for All Except GENED; If Concentration, Don't Allow for Major
On the Advising Trees page, change Priority and Allow Reuse as needed like this:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Math Literacy | 1 | Yes |
Minor | 3 | Yes |
Concentration | 5 | No |
Major | 7 | No |
GENED | 9 | No |
Results:
If a student has multiple instances of requirements satisfied by Math 257—including the major but not the concentration, they'll all be marked as met but GENED.
If the student has the concentration requirement, it and any requirements with a higher priority are marked as met, but the major is not. and the GENED is not.
If the student doesn't have the concentration but does have the major, all except GENED are marked as met.
If the student doesn't have the major or the concentration, GENED is marked as met.
Scenario C.3: Allow Reuse for Math Literacy and One Other with Concentration As the Priority
On the Advising Trees page, change Priority and Allow Reuse as needed like this:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Math Literacy | 1 | Yes |
Minor | 5 | No |
Concentration | 3 | No |
Major | 7 | No |
GENED | 9 | No |
Results:
If a student has Math Literacy, it's marked as met.
Whether or not the student has Math Literacy, the next priority that the student has is also marked as met, in this priority sequence: Concentration, Minor, Major, GENED.
The maximum number of requirements met is 2: Math Literacy and 1 other.
Scenarios C.4: Limited Reuse with Competing Restrictions
Let's use a different example for this scenario.
All students need at least 3 science courses: 1 Life Science, 1 Physical Science, and 1 General Science (which includes all the Life and Physical science courses).
Chem 101 meets the Physical science and the General requirements.
Chem 101 is required for Chemistry majors and minors and for Biology majors and minors.
On the Advising Requirement Code (ARC) page, as usual for policies that allow reuse:
Set Allow Reuse to Yes (selected).
Set Priority to 5. (Because you're allowing all reuse, priority doesn't matter, but this is a good default in case you ever need to change the policy.)
Scenario C.4.a: Allow [Major and Minor] and [Physical or General]
On the Advising Trees page, change Priority and Allow Reuse as needed like this:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Chemistry Major | 1 | Yes |
Biology Minor | 3 | Yes |
Physical Science | 5 | No |
General Science | 7 | No |
Results:
Major, minor, and Physical Science are marked as met if the student has them.
If the Physical Science is already met by another course (and the "Close requirements when met" setting is On), the General Science requirement is marked as met.
Scenario C.4.b: Allow [Major or Minor] and [Physical or General]
Two sets of either/or requirements will make us get creative.
On the Advising Trees page, change Priority and Allow Reuse as needed like this:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Chemistry Major | 5 | No |
Biology Minor | 7 | No |
Physical Science | 1 | Yes |
General Science | 3 | Yes |
Results:
Physical Science is marked as met unless it's already marked as met and the "Close requirements when met" setting is On. In that case, General is marked as met.
If the student needs both Physical and General, Chem 101 can't fill both (because they need 3 total courses), so you'll need to do a Bypass Alteration on Chem 101 in the General Science requirement for the student.
Chemistry major is marked as met.
Biology minor is not marked as met, but Chem 101 is required for it, so you'll need to do a Waiver Alteration for Chem 101 in the student's minor.
Tip
Generally speaking, most students aren't in two programs with conflicting requirements, so a setup like this probably won't make you create too many alterations. But if it gets overwhelming, you can adjust your policy—at least for the departments involved.
Scenarios C.5: Can You Predict the Results?
Let's see if you can predict the results for some new scenarios.
Imagine a course ARC Art 300 in the following trees:
Art Minor
Design Major
GENED
On the Advising Trees page, the Priority and Allow Reuse are as follows:
Instances in Trees | Priority | Allow Reuse |
|---|---|---|
Art Minor | 3 | Yes |
Design Major | 5 | No |
GENED | 7 | Yes |
Predict: Which requirements will be marked as met in each of the following scenarios?
Answers are below.
The student has all 3 instances.
The student has all 3 instances, but Major has an alteration with Bypass selected.
The student has all 3 instances, but Major is already marked as met, and the "Close requirements when met" setting is On.
The student has Minor and GENED.
The student has Major and GENED.
The student has all 3 instances.
Minor: Marked as met because it's the highest priority.
Major: Marked as met because it's the next priority, and the priority above it (Minor) allows reuse.
GENED: Not marked as met because the priority above it (Major) doesn't allow reuse.
The student has all 3 instances, but Major has an alteration with Bypass selected.
Minor: Marked as met because it's the highest priority.
Major: Not marked as met because the Bypass alteration hides it from the process.
GENED: Marked as met because it's the next priority that's not hidden from the process, and the unhidden priority above it (Minor) allows reuse.
The student has all 3 instances, but Major is already marked as met, and the "Close requirements when met" setting is On.
Minor: Marked as met because it's the highest priority.
Major: Already marked as met.
GENED: Marked as met because the process ignores the Major, so GENED is the next priority, and the unignored priority above it (Minor) allows reuse.
The student has only Minor and GENED.
Minor: Marked as met because it's the highest priority.
GENED: Marked as met because it's the next priority, and the priority above it (Minor) allows reuse.
The student has only Major and GENED.
Major: Marked as met because it's the highest priority.
GENED: Not marked as met because the priority above it (Major) doesn't allow reuse.
Tip
But you can use an alteration to manually mark this as met.
Here's an outline of the steps to implementing your reuse or "double-counting" policies.
Decide your policies.
Set the "Close requirement when met" setting.
Set the defaults for reuse and priority on ARCs.
Find the ARCs that have multiple instances on advising trees, and adjust their reuse and priority as needed.
Create alterations as needed for conflicting requirements.
Detailed instructions follow.
From the Advising Administration hub, click the Hub options drop-down.
Select Definitions and then Advising Requirement Types. The Advising Requirement Types page opens.
On the row for Course, click the Actions drop-down, and select Edit. The Edit pop-up opens.
In Priority, enter 5.
Click the Update button. The priority is saved, and will be the default for new ARCs created.
Repeat the steps for the Cumulative Course type.
From the Advising Administration hub, click the Hub options drop-down.
Select Tree building and then Advising requirement codes. The Advising Requirement Code (ARC) Definitions page opens.
Filter the list to the course and cumulative course requirements:
In the Advising Requirements filter, select the checkbox for Type.
In the field, start typing the word "course", and select both the Course and Cumulative Course options.
Click the Apply button. The list narrows to courses (including cumulative courses).
On the row for an ARC, click the Actions button, and select Edit. The Edit Advising Requirement Code Definition pop-up opens.
In the Priority 1 field, enter a number 0–9. We recommend entering 5 for every ARC. (Later, on the Advising Trees page, you can adjust the priority for individual instances of each ARC as needed.)
Tip
By default, the Priority is inherited from the ARCs type as set on the Advising Requirement Types page. So you could set the priority of all Advsing Requirement Types to 5. That will save you this step with each ARC.
For the Allow Reuse checkbox:
If your school allows at least some reuse, select the Allow Reuse checkbox for each ARC. (Later, on the Advising Trees page, you can deselect Allow Reuse as necessary for individual instances of each ARC.)
If your school does not allow reuse at all, make sure Allow Reuse is unselected.
Click the Update button. Your changes are saved, and the Edit pop-up closes.
From the Advising Administration hub, click Hub options.
Click Tree building, and select Advising trees. the Advising Trees page opens.
Use the filter to select the academic year you're working on:
Select the Year checkbox.
In the field, begin typing the year, and select it from the list.
Click Apply. The Advising Trees panel populates.
Click on a course ARC in the tree. The details appear in the panel on the right.
Click the Options link. The panel scrolls down to show the Allow Reuse checkbox and the Priority fields.
Click the Manage Reuse and Priority for ARC link. The Manage Reuse and Priority pop-up opens listing the ARC's instances in the trees.
On each row, adjust the Priority and Allow Reuse as needed.
Tip
Reminders:
Priority 2 is like a decimal place for Priority 1. So if Priority 1 = 5, and Priority 2 = 3, it's like a priority of 5.3.
Select Allow Reuse on a row if you want reuse allowed on the next priority requirement in a student's trees. Deselect it on a row where you don't want reuse on the next priority requirement in a student's trees.
Click the Update button. Your changes are saved, and the pop-up closes.
From the Advising Administration hub, click the Hub options drop-down, and select Advisees and then Student Aims. The Student Aims page opens.
In the Student / ID field, begin typing a name or ID number, and select a student from the list.
Click Apply. The Student Aims panel populates.
Click on the aim that needs an alteration. The aim is selected.
If you need only the Priority changed for an instance of the requirement for this student:
Click the Actions drop-down, and select Reuse and Priority. The Reuse and Priority pop-up opens.
Click the Edit Priority button. The Priority fields become editable.
Edit one or more Priority fields.
In the Bypass drop-downs, select Yes or No.
Click the Yes, alter requirements button. Your changes are saved, and the pop-up closes. You can select another aim or use the filter to find a different student.
If you need a more comprehensive alteration:
Click the Actions drop-down, and select Create alteration. The Create Alteration panel opens.
In Met By, begin typing the Requirement Met By type, and select an option from the list.
Fill in other fields as needed.
In Met, select an option.
Example 1: The reuse and priority chain wouldn't mark this aim as met, but you want it marked as met. Select the Met option.
Example 2: The reuse and priority chain would mark this aim as met, but you want it unmet. Select the Bypass option.
Click the Save button. Your changes are saved, and you can select another aim or use the filter to find a different student.
No. The course's grades, credits, and hours count only once in the student's record.
No. Reuse is for courses and cumulative courses only. Although you may be able to select a Reuse checkbox for another type of requirement, it won't have any function. (Some people have asked whether when they assign reuse to a group, it will apply to all the courses in the group. No, it won't. And it won't mean anything to the group.)
Yes. 0 is the highest priority. 9 is the lowest.
Priority 2 is like the decimal place for Priority 1. So if you want an ARC to have a priority of 5, give it a 5 in Priority 1 and blank or 0 in Priority 2. If you want it to have a priority of 5.3, give it a 5 in Priority 1 and a 3 in Priority 2.
Priority 2 is available in case Priority 1 isn't fine-grained enough for your sequences.
Several reasons. First, we wanted the chain to break after Major, so we put other locations before it. Second, we prioritized Concentration ahead of Major because Concentration requires Math 257, but Major is satisfied with any 200-level course.
It depends on the "Close requirements when met" setting on the Advising Settings page. (In Desktop it's called "When met, then met".)
If On, then the system skips the already-met requirement and moves to the next priority. Thus, more requirements are likely to be marked as met.
If Off, the system processes the requirement again. If Allow Reuse is Yes, it moves to the next priority. If Allow Reuse is No, it stops.
Use alterations to handle the exceptions.
Tip
It's better to have false negatives—when the system fails to mark some requirements as met—than to have false positives. It's easier to catch and fix the false negatives than to catch the situation where requirements appear to be met but aren't.
The Edit pop-up asks whether you want to apply the change to existing trees. If you say yes, the instances of that ARC in existing trees will have the new values. If you say no, the new values won't apply to existing trees, but only as defaults when new trees are created.