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 student enrollments (Adds, Drops, and Withdrawals).
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Feed Timing
The feed is sent to myCourses once each morning at 4:00am. Any changes made through out the day will not be reflected on myCourses until the next 4:00am information feed is supplied to us.
The feed for a quarter runs from the seventh week of the prior quarter through the last day of final exams. The exception is that both Summer and Fall quarter courses are generated on the seventh week of Spring Quarter to allow faculty to work on their Fall offerings over the summer if desired.
Feed Dates
Following the table, the impact of each milestone is explained.
Quarter |
Code |
Courses Generated |
Student Enrollments |
Student Access |
Classes Begin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fall |
2121 |
May 24, 2012 |
August 6, 2012 |
August 27, 2012 |
September 3, 2012 |
Winter |
2122 |
October 15, 2012 |
November 5, 2012 |
November 19, 2012 |
November 26, 2102 |
Spring |
2123 |
January 21, 2013 |
February 4, 2013 |
February 25, 2013 |
March 4, 2013 |
Summer |
2124 |
April 15, 2013 |
May 6, 2013 |
May 21, 2013 |
May 28, 2013 |
Fall |
2131 |
April 15, 2013 |
- |
August 19, 2013 |
August 26, 2013 |
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 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. An active RIT Account generally requires the Instructor to have an active contract with RIT and they must be in the Human Resources records.
Access is not available on the day their RIT Account is created due to the timing of the information feed, their new account and course 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 must have an active RIT Account for their enrollment to be supplied to myCourses. Instructors may see enrollments on SIS that are not reflected on myCourses due to this requirement. New activations will be supplied to myCourses with the next daily feed.
- Students will not be able to see their courses listed on myCourses until they have been granted access, which is the next milestone date.
Student Access
Students are granted access to courses one week before the start date of the course. Prior to this date students will not see the course listed on myCourses.
This early access is to give the students time to acquaint themselves with the course, or have access to important information in advance. Instructors should not be giving work in advance of the start date of the course.
Classes Begin
This is the official start date of classes for the academic quarter.
Using dates outside the standard term / Early Access
Student access to courses is governed by the dates in the Registrar's records. If a course needs to work outside the dates of the standard term listed above, the scheduling officer for the academic department will need to adjust the dates 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. For example if you set the start date of a course in the Registrar's records to March 8th, the course will open to students on myCourses on March 1st.
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 listed in the Feed Dates above you will need to contact Academic Technology Support for assistance.
Instructors can confirm the date students will have access to their course 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 restrict course access based on the set end date, courses will remain available to students on myCourses unless the instructor 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.
An instructor may set a course as inactive:
- Enter the course they wish to make inactive.
- Select "Edit Course" on the navigation bar.
- Select the "Course Offering Information" link. This may be easier to find in the listing if you select Name at the top of the listing instead of Category.
- On the next page they will find a check box entitled "Course is active," uncheck this option.
- Click Save to make your change active.
When a course is inactive, students will not be able to access the course and it will not appear on their My Courses listing.
Keep your students informed
If you choose to make your course inactive at the start of the quarter to work on it, please take a moment to send out an email to your class to inform the students of your change to the course and when they can expect it to be active again.
Inactive courses are not listed for students in the My Courses listing. This leads to many calls to support from students thinking a course has disappeared or that there is an enrollment issue.
We appreciate you taking a moment to respect your students and keep them informed.
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 situation does occur the user should have a role of Student or Instructor in the course and the instructor, not the user, can contact Academic Technology Support to address the issue.