Course Details

once you've created and added courses, you can click on any course name to open it and access a variety of customization options in addition to the pre defined settings in course templates, you'll find configurable options across several tabs each tab contains menu sections that you can click on or scroll through instructions at the top of each section provide helpful guidance for configuration this section of the guide will walk you through all the available options in the course details tab details in the details section of the course, certain fields like the location, academic session, and course code are fixed from the initial course setup you can then customize additional details, such as the course name, description, hours, credits, capacity, passing mark, attendance thresholds, publish the course so students can view it on the student portal and more note make sure the passing mark is set above 0% if it’s left at 0%, any grade will be treated as a passing mark status in the status section, you can mark the course as 'complete' when it's finished this action finalizes the course, updates student marks, grants credits, and ensures the course appears on the student’s transcript additionally, under the more actions tab, you can 'lock' the course this option is useful for roles like the registrar when auditing the course, as it prevents any changes while reviewing and finalizing course details before completion instructors in the instructors section, you can add new instructors to a course when adding an instructor, you’ll need to specify the level of access you want to grant them the new instructor pop up includes an explanation of each access level and what it allows the instructor to do you can add multiple instructors, each with different access levels as needed schedule in the schedule section of the course details, you can set up a weekly schedule by adding dates, times, attendance hours, and resources for the course you can also input identifiers, which are unique labels or tags used to track or categorize different aspects of the course, such as session numbers or department codes, often used for reporting once the schedule is created, you can generate schedules for students and staff additionally, the schedule can serve as a template for adding attendance events for the course note in order to use the schedule for taking attendance, you must first add it to attendance events (discussed below) the schedule itself simply creates a timetable for the course within the academic session adding resources for course scheduling you can customize resources for your courses by going to institution config / resources / add new resource resources can include things like materials, equipment, or facilities needed for your courses customizing and adding resources helps ensure that all necessary items are properly tracked and assigned to the right courses, streamlining your course management process fees when creating or editing a course, you can manage fees in the fees section fees set here will be applied to enrolled students based on their fee class you can create different fee classes for domestic and international students, and the correct fee class will be assigned automatically based on whether a student is marked as an international student in their profile to add a fee, click new course fee , then select the fee class, revenue account, description, amount, and select any applicable taxes you can add multiple fee items within each fee class, with default accounts available for tuition, registration fees, materials, and other, ensuring all course related fees are properly structured prerequisites you can set prerequisites for your courses to prevent students from enrolling if they have not completed the required prerequisite course to add a prerequisite, click new prerequisite , then select a course from the list of course templates —only courses listed as templates will be available additionally, enforce prerequisites must be enabled in institution account / courses / defaults for prerequisites to be enforced during enrollment grading schema the grading schema in ampeducator allows you to define how different components of a course contribute to a student’s final grade each grade type can be assigned a specific weight, and you can configure them based on your grading requirements the schema can be customized to match your institution’s grading policies, ensuring that each grade component is accurately reflected in the final course grade once set up, the grading schema will automatically calculate and assign grades based on the criteria you’ve defined be sure that the total of all the grade components adds up to 100% to ensure accurate grade calculations adding a grade to a course to add a new grade item to a course, go to course / grading schema and click new course grade a modal will open where you can configure all the details of the grade item fields in the new course grade modal name enter the title of the grade item (e g , midterm test or weekly discussions ) grade description optionally add details or instructions about the grade item grade group if you have configured grade groups, you can assign this grade to one of them otherwise, leave as none grade type choose how the grade will be measured options include percentage, letter grade, fixed/out of, pass/fail, complete/incomplete, or custom grade weight % enter the percentage value this grade item contributes to the overall course grade (must total 100% across all items) passing % the minimum percentage required to pass this item, if applicable with multiple use this option if you plan to create multiple identical grade items that are not linked to a specific activity for example, if you want to set up several in class quizzes where you’ll manually enter the grades, you can use this feature to quickly generate them if you enable with multiple on a linked type (such as a specific test or assignment), it will duplicate that exact item (e g , 10 copies of test 1 ), which usually isn’t useful for linked grade items (tests, assignments, evaluations, etc ), it’s better to create a grade group and add the items individually take best when using with multiple , you can also choose to count only the best results (e g , best 4 of 6 quizzes) publish type choose when grades become visible to students always – grades are published automatically once entered by date – grades are released on a set date manually – grades remain hidden until you publish them grade link type select how the grade item connects to other course activities options include assignment, attendance, discussion, evaluation, test, or external lti tool depending on your selection, additional fields may appear for detailed setup instructions, see the lms section of this guide with rubric turn on if you want to attach a rubric once enabled, a dropdown appears with available rubrics from your course details /#rubrics or rubrics docid\ yf3xn9kkfc4t3gvixm5ss bank when all fields are set, click add to include the new grade in your course grading schema grade groups grade groups in ampeducator allow instructors to organize their grade items into categories, making it easier to manage and track student performance this feature is especially useful for courses that have multiple types of assessments, such as tests, assignments, and evaluations grade groups help you organize these items into logical categories, set weighted values, and track the overall performance of students within each group to create a new grade group, go to course details / grading schema / more actions / new course grade group a modal will open where you can configure the group details group name enter a descriptive title for the group (e g , assignments or quizzes ) group weight % the percentage of the total course grade that this group contributes with take best turn this on if you want only the best results within the group to count toward the final grade once enabled, the take best field appears, where you can enter the number of top items to include (e g , take best 4 out of 6 assignments) when viewing the grading schema, the grade group title (e g , tests ) appears as a header, with all of the items in that group listed underneath in the example below, the tests group carries a total weight of 25% of the course grade, while each individual test shows its relative weight inside the group once a grade group is created, you can add individual grade items (e g , specific tests or assignments) to the group each grade item can be given a weight that contributes to the total group weight the weight of all grade items within a group must total the group’s overall weight, ensuring the total percentages align absolute weight the percentage of the total course grade that the item contributes relative weight the percentage of the group’s total weight you also have the option to configure the take best feature within a group this feature allows you to specify that only the best scores (e g , top 4 out of 5) will be counted towards the final grade for that group once set up, grade groups are displayed in the gradebook , showing both individual grades and group totals video walkthrough course grade groups grading scale in the grading scale section, configure the relationship between letter grades, percentages, and grade point averages (gpa) for the course you can disable any letter grade you don’t use for the course each letter grade represents a range between the mark assigned and the letter above it for example, if a = 85% (3 7 gpa) and a+ = 90% (4 0 gpa), any mark between 85 89% would be assigned an a (3 7 gpa) once updated, recalculate the course totals to apply the changes to existing student grades you can further customize the grade range and how grades are rounded in the next section, 'custom grading scales ' custom grading scales in the 'custom scales' section, you can create your own grading scales you have the flexibility to choose whether you want grades to round to the closest value, round up, or round down rubrics use this section to attach rubrics to the current course you can create a new rubric or pull one from the rubrics bank rubrics added here are available when grading assignments, discussions, and evaluations and course grades with grade link type none add a new rubric click new rubric to configure a rubric that will be available to link to grade items the add new course rubric window opens—give the rubric a name, add an optional description, choose a level scale, pick a scale type (sequential, equal division, custom, or none / feedback only), and set the number of criteria select add rubric to continue you’ll land on edit course rubric use details to adjust levels, scale type, enable levels with range , set the number of criteria, and turn on criteria weights in design , edit level names and descriptions (and points/ranges when supported), rename criteria and set weights, and enter the descriptions in each cell for a deeper walkthrough of every option (level scales, scale types, ranges, and weights) and how they affect the grid, see rubrics docid\ yf3xn9kkfc4t3gvixm5ss add an existing rubric to add an existing rubric from the bank, click the more actions dropdown and select add rubric from existing in the add existing rubric window, choose the rubric from the rubric dropdown and click add rubric the edit course rubric modal then opens so you can make course specific adjustments (rename, change levels/criteria, switch scale type , enable levels with range or criteria weights , and update the design grid) changes here apply only to this course copy the original in the rubrics bank is unchanged click save to attach it to the course it will appear in the course list and can be edited for this course without affecting the original in rubrics docid\ yf3xn9kkfc4t3gvixm5ss average grade distribution the average grade distribution provides a visual representation of how students' grades are spread across different ranges in your course this chart helps you quickly assess the overall performance of your class by showing the percentage of students falling into each grade bracket it includes key metrics like the average grade, median, and standard deviation, offering valuable insights into the overall performance, variability, and trends within the course this can help you identify areas where students may need additional support or where the class is excelling attendance events the attendance events section allows you to manage and track attendance for your course if you’ve already set up a course schedule, you can easily add the attendance events by using the more actions menu if you haven’t set up a schedule or need to manually input attendance events, simply click the new events button to add them this opens the add attendance events window where you can enter details such as the date, start and end time, identifier, and attendance hours multiple events if you select add multiple events , you can create recurring sessions that take place on multiple days of the week at the same time you can also choose to skip configured holidays within the date range assigning instructors or students additional options include assigning the event to an instructor or a specific student when selected, a dropdown list will appear to choose from instructors or enrolled students you can also restrict an event to a specific instructor if needed with collaboration you can link an event with a collaboration (zoom, google meet, or ms teams) selecting with collaboration opens additional fields where you can set the provider, contact details, and an attendance threshold in minutes this section is crucial for recording student attendance, as events must be created in order to take attendance for the course