Degree Audit User Training | Course Lists

Course list metadata

Each course list must have a title. It is a good idea to have a short but clear title. Additional details may be provided in the description. The most common practice is to list the course, or set of courses, that are in the course list in the title and then give a brief summary of what the course list is used for in the description. You are required to provide a title for the course list before you are allowed to continue, but the description is optional. The title appears with the course list ID on the requirement/restriction page.

Creating a copy of a course list copies all of the metadata from the original course list, while newly added course lists lack any of this metadata.

Filters/sequences

When you add or edit a filter, you will be presented with multiple fields to populate.

Filter Position:

This notates the position of the filter within the course list. This is important in processing the courses because the first filter position will be checked against the student's record first. As you add more filters to the course list, you will be able to adjust the position of the course by adjusting this number.

Course Title: (Reset)

This field is populated with topic titles after they have been entered and the filter saved. To reset an unnumbered topic title, click "Reset."

Field of Study:

This corresponds to the code of three or fewer characters used to denote the field of study (FOS). Course number is not required to fill in this field. Specifying this field while leaving all others blank will match any coursework under that FOS to this filter.

Note: Filters do not recognize FOS values to be offered in a future semester. You will need to add an effective semester range (such as 20159-99999) in order to reference such FOS values. This range may be removed after the semester begins.

Course Number:

This combined with a FOS designates a course. If this field is populated, FOS may not be blank. For example, if you are looking to count E 316K, then you will need to provide the FOS E and the course number 316K in their respective fields.

Topic Number:

This combined with a FOS and course number designates a numbered topic. If this field is populated, FOS and course number may not be blank.

Look up unnumbered topic

This link opens a window to the title picker, a live snapshot of topic titles attached to the FOS and course number provided. These titles are taken from the topic title inventory. Once you select a title, it will populate the course title.

Section CCYYS / Unique:

These fields together pinpoint an exact section of a course. This is the most restrictive type of filter in a course list--it will only accept the exact section as a match. Course type must be provided if a section is specified.

Note: Due to the extremely strict nature of these fields--including ignoring any alias coursework--it is strongly advised that you use these filters only for override course lists or for tracking a section that previously did not satisfy a requirement (for example, when a flag is retroactively added to an already-completed section).

Course Type:

This corresponds to the type of course you are looking for. Leave this blank to capture all course types. Valid course types are:

 

• Advanced Standing
• Classroom Extension
• Online Extension
• Study Abroad
• Credit by Exam
• Transfer-CBE/Misc
• Transfer-Pending
• In-Residence
• Transfer

Transfer Work: -- Look up transferred work

This link opens a window to the transfer work picker. If the student has any transfer work, it should appear here. Click the title to pull it into the filter. This is more restrictive than simply selecting "Transfer" for course type within the filter and is preferably used for overrides. More information about this can be found on the override page of this manual.

CCYYS Begin / End:

This allows you to put a range on the course being sought. For example, a class may have carried a flag indiscriminately for a period between fall 2012 and spring 2015. In this case, you can restrict the filter to only find instances of that course between 20129 and 20152.

Semester Taken:

Used to restrict the course being sought to one term of the academic year: spring, summer, or fall. This may be useful if, for example, you want to prevent transfer courses in a specific semester from counting.

Course Level:

This identifies the level of coursework and can be used to capture any instance of coursework at that level. It should not be used in conjunction with a full course offering (HIS 350L), but paired with generic information like the school code or the FOS. This is helpful in totals requirements; for example, a degree plan may require that a student complete 15 hours of upper-division coursework in the given FOS.

Except in Pharmacy and Law, the valid course levels are:

 

• Lower division – last two digits are between 01 and 19
• Upper division – last two digits are between 20 and 79
• Graduate level – last two digits are between 80 and 99

Core Code:

This field is used to identify the three-digit core codes that are used by all public schools in the state of Texas. Valid core codes can be found at the Texas General Education Core Web Center.

Flag #1 / Flag #2 / Flag #3:

These fields will search for courses carrying one (or more) of the curriculum flags instated by the University effective fall 2012. Each pull down menu carries the six flags. Valid flag options are:

 

• Ethics (E)
• Cultural diversity (CD)
• Global cultures (GC)
• Independent inquiry (II)
• Quantitative reasoning (QR)
• Writing (Wr)

Requirement Flag (Obsolete):

This refers to the flag system prior to fall 2012. It can be used to manage –W courses and other courses that meet some requirements. The most common is the writing option since the substantial writing component was supported up to the summer of 2012. Valid options are:

 

• Writing – courses that carried the substantial writing component
• US history – courses flagged by the Office of the Registrar that meet the US history requirement
• Texas history – courses flagged by the Office of the Registrar that meet the Texas history requirement

Enrollment Status:

This field refers to the enrollment status of the student when the course was taken. It does not refer to the status of the course itself. It may be used to prevent courses from counting if the student was concurrently enrolled in classes. Valid selections are:

 

• UT – student is enrolled only at UT (note: this includes Extension courses); if you do not allow courses from Extension while the student is enrolled at UT, select this option along with the appropriate course type
• Elsewhere – any transfer course, concurrent or not
• Concurrent – transfer courses taken in a semester in which the student is also enrolled at UT

Enrollment College:

This field uses the four-character school codes from the Academic Unit Relations file. It can be used to ensure that a student takes a course while enrolled in a certain school or college. For example, if you do not want to count coursework taken while a student was enrolled outside of your school or college, you can add this filter to prevent those courses from counting.

Enrollment college is identified on the degree audit with each course on the student's record. Please refer to the school code table at the top of this page for a list of valid school codes.

Grade:

This field restricts the filter to only seek a single assigned grade, and will not capture grades above that which is entered. When a specific grade is entered, a course will not get picked up in the audit until a grade has been assigned.

There is one grade filter that is more advanced: the "#" symbol indicates a grade has not yet been received for a course from a previous semester. This filter can be utilized as a degree plan restriction to prevent courses from counting toward a particular requirement (or requirements), if the student has not yet received a grade for a course. Once the grade shows up on the student's record, the course should then pull in as expected.

Grade Range Lo / Hi:

This field allows you to enter an applicable range of letter grades. For requirements, this can be used to capture only the lowest grade and above; for restrictions, this can be used to kick out any grade below the threshold. However, if a grade of C is excluded from the grade range, the course will not get picked up in the audit until a grade has been assigned.

School:

This field uses the four-character school codes from the Academic Unit Relations file. You can use this to manage courses offered by an entire college or school. Because this corresponds to and reads the Academic Unit Relations file, as new fields of study are added or moved, this field will pick up those changes based on the effective semester change. For example, if Economics was moved from Liberal Arts to Business in the fall of 2005, then any reference to COLA would include ECO up through and including 20056, and any reference to BUSD would include ECO starting in 20059.

Minor:

This check box is to force the course list into counting the FOS that is used for a student's minor. These should not be checked when any course-identifying information, such as FOS, is included. The minor is automatically pulled in through either the student's profile or the FOS selected in an audit request. Do not check this box for catalogs 2016-2018 and later.

Course Age Limit:

This field uses years for units and can be used to exclude any coursework taken beyond the limit you enter. This is used by graduate schools to exclude coursework over seven years old from counting towards the degree.

Max Hours:

This option limits the number of hours that can count for this particular filter. For example, if a student takes a nine-hour course and only three are needed to count, entering 3 into this field along with the course will only allow three of those hours to count in this filter. The max hours function only applies to course seeking requirements and independent restrictions.

Filters

Each filter or sequence can contain any number of the options listed above. This will allow you to manage every course that is offered or has been offered by a college down to the specific unique and semester of one course. The more options you select, the stricter the selection will be. If you are experiencing course issues, your first trouble shooting spot should be the course list and see if you have coded something wrong.

Course relations and alias coursework

Courses within filters have certain course relations evaluated for potential aliases. This can be helpful in reducing the length of course lists when a single course can be used to stand in for one or more other courses. Below is a list of supported course relations and how they can be used in alias coursework checking:

Inventory same as

Noted with a Same As Statement in the course inventory. Bound by the effective dates in the inventory. These relations are not maintained by Degree Audit.

Replacement

Noted as a duplicate in the Degree Plan Statement for the course(s) in question. Also carries a "prior to" comment. These are not bound by effective dates; once a replacement, always a replacement. These relations are maintained by Degree Audit. You are encouraged to update your course lists with the newest course.

Schedule same as

One-time, one-semester relation between two (or more) sections of courses from differing FOSes that are not already inventory same as. They are not supported by the inventory, but exist in the course schedule with a "meets with" statement. These courses are aliases of one another only for the semester(s) in which they were schedule same as. Note that this will not work if the section of the course is identified in the filter using CCYYS/unique.

Duplicates and room-shares are not evaluated for alias coursework.

Override Course List

Override course lists behave like regular course lists. One special feature is that they can be assigned to EIDs; assigning an EID to an override course list will prevent you from using that course list in any requirement for any other student. More information on overrides can be found on the Overrides page of this manual.