Vendor Documentation
myCourses is driven by an information feed from the Registrar's office. This feed handles the creation of credit-bearing courses, instructor assignments, and all student enrollments (Adds, Drops, and Withdrawals).
Feed Timing
The feed is sent to myCourses once each morning at 4:00am Monday-Saturday. Any changes through the day will not be reflected on myCourses until the next feed, so in most cases these changes will appear the following day. No feeds are run on Sunday due to maintenance requirements so any changes made on Saturday will not be reflected on myCourses until the following Monday.
Feed Dates
Quarter |
Code |
Courses Generated |
Student Enrollments |
Student Access |
Classes Begin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fall |
20101 |
April 20, 2010 |
July 18, 2010 |
August 30, 2010 |
September 6, 2010 |
Winter |
20102 |
October 18, 2010 |
November 1, 2010 |
November 22, 2010 |
November 29, 2010 |
Spring |
20103 |
January 24, 2011 |
February 7, 2011 |
February 28, 2011 |
March 7, 2010 |
Summer |
20104 |
April 18, 2011 |
May 2, 2011 |
May 30, 2011 |
June 6, 2011 |
Fall |
20111 |
April 18, 2011 |
|
|
|
Courses Generated
Credit-bearing courses are generated on myCourses the seventh week of the preceding quarter. Fall quarter courses are generated one quarter in advance with the Summer offerings for the convenience of the instructors. Courses listings, course titles, and faculty assignments are all dependent on the information entered in to the registrar's records by the scheduling officers of the academic department.
Instructors will only see a course listed if they have an active RIT Account and they have been properly assigned to the course in the Registrar's records by the scheduling officer of the academic department. Access is not available on the day their RIT Account is created due to the timing of the information feed, their account and assignments will be added to myCourses with the next run of the feed.
Student Enrollments
Student enrollments are sent to myCourses on the Monday following the generation of the first billing. These billing dates are always available on the Finance and Administration website at: http://finweb.rit.edu/sfs/billing/billingdates.html
Students will not see their courses listed on myCourses until they have been granted access.
Student Access
Students are granted access to courses one week before the start date of the course. If there is a campus holiday and the institute is closed student access may be granted the next available business day after the holiday. This is to give the students time to acquaint themselves with the course, or have access to important information in advance.
Classes Begin
This is the official start date of classes for the academic quarter.
Granting Early Access to Courses
Student access to courses is governed by the start date in the Registrar's records. If a course needs to open prior to the official start date of the quarter the scheduling officer for the academic department may adjust the start date on the course in the Registrar's records. Please note that students will be granted access to the course one week prior to the start date of record as noted above.
As long as the start date falls after the Student Enrollments date for the quarter, the entire process is automated and no further intervention is required. If a course needs to open prior to the Student Enrollments date please contact Online Learning for assistance.
Instructors can confirm the date students will have access to their course right on myCourses. In a course select "Edit Course" on the navigation bar then select the "Course Offering Information" link. There you will see the Start Date listed for the course.
Ending Course Access
Currently myCourses does not honor the end date on courses, they always remain available to students on myCourses unless the professor manually makes the course inactive. In the My Courses listing students will see a statement of "Course ended" followed by the date, but the course link will remain active and students may enter the course.
The professor may set a course as inactive by entering their course, selecting "Edit Course" on the navigation bar then selecting the "Course Offering Information" link. There they will find a check box entitled "Course is active," uncheck the option and save the change to the course. When a course is inactive students will not be able to access the course and it will not appear on their My Courses listing.
Authority of the feed for user access and roles
The information feed from the Registrar's Office is the authoritative source for course access and it will override access or roles that an instructor manually assigns in a course if it has conflicting information.
This will primarily be reflected in situations where an instructor wishes to add a student to a course and finds they are removed each time the feed runs due to a student having a drop on their record for the course.
If a student needs access to a course:
- For an Incomplete
- Auditing it
- As a Grader
- As a Graduate Assistant
- As a Note Taker
- As a Teaching Assistant
They should not enroll in the course and drop it.
If this does occur the and the user should have a role of Student or Instructor in the course the instructor, not the user, can contact The Wallace Center to address the issue. We can automate an override process with the feed. Unfortunately the feed only allows us to address those two Roles, Student and Instructor. If the user should have a different role in the course the only option is for the instructor to add the user back each morning manually through the Classlist.