Degree Audit User Training | Restrictions

Building Restrictions

Restrictions prevent courses from counting toward part or all of the degree plan, including specific scopes, subsets of requirements, and/or options within a requirement. There are two types of restrictions: independent restrictions (which are not connected to any particular requirement), and dependent restrictions (which exist within, and are directly tied to, a particular requirement).

Jump to >> Copying Restrictions | Independent Restrictions | Special Processing | Degree Plan | Scope | Subset | Requirement | Option

Copying Restrictions

The copy function allows you to copy coursework requirements, restrictions, totals, and GPA requirements from one catalog and degree plan to another in Prod Setup.

Users can copy any requirement type from:

1. Major degree plan to another major degree plan
2. Minor/certificate to another minor/certificate
3. Major degree plan to minor/certificate (Scope will automatically be set to minor/certificate, no matter what scope type the major has)

Users can copy any restriction type from major degree plan to major degree plan. Minors and certificates don’t have independent restrictions and therefore cannot receive them.

Access: To access the copy function, click on any requirement or restriction and go to the top of the metadata page:

Select a catalog and degree plan, then click on copy (Note that a catalog must always be selected). A successful copy will take users to the requirements/restrictions listing page for the new rule. The new rule may need to be re-sequenced and then migrated to Live.

Users will receive an error message that the copy was unsuccessful if no coursework requirement was found for the requirements being copied.

Limitations:

1. You cannot copy subset restrictions.
2. When copying branched requirements, only the parent requirement can be copied. The branches will have to be created manually.

Independent Restrictions:

Independent restrictions are useful for reducing applicable coursework absolutely, leading to more efficient processing. Use them to reduce the list of courses available for the degree plan.

Common metadata elements appear on the add restriction page.

Scope:

Scope for restrictions is less important than for requirements. Most restrictions will be scoped as administrative because they are administrative actions.

Description:

You are allowed 250 characters to describe the intent of the restriction. If the restriction is a degree plan or special processing restriction, then this will display on the audit results. Therefore, it is a good idea to make it as clear as possible for the student who might be viewing the description of the restriction.

Administrative Notes:

This field can be used to add further information for administrators about the intent of the restriction. These notes do not appear on the completed audit.

Usage Details:

In this section you will set how you would like to restrict the courses from the course list you plug into it.

Allow Up To:

In this field you can set the allowable number of units from the restriction from none (complete restriction) to a specific number of allowable courses or hours.

Alert When:

In this field you can elect to have the system alert the student if they are close to limit that is set forth in this restriction. If this is left with zero as a value, then the restriction will appear on the audit only when a course has been excluded.

Apply Limit to each field of study defined/Split college into multiple options:

This check box should be checked if you are using an hour limit for courses in a specific college and do not want to break out the fields of study in their own restriction. This will allow you to place in the course list the four character school code from the academic unit relations file and the limit will then only be applied to each field of study within that school.

Exclude Classes with Schedule Same-as Relations:

This check box will exclude sections of courses that are in a schedule same-as relations from this limit. Only courses that are not in these relations will be applied to the limit.

Keep Grades Over D:

This check box will count all courses towards the requirement, if it is not checked, then courses that have a grade of D will be excluded.

Special Processing Restrictions:

If you would like to create a special processing restriction, it is suggested that you contact the Office of the Registrar before doing so.

 

Degree Plan Restrictions:

A degree plan restriction is the most encompassing restriction that can be placed. These will remove classes from being processed from the entire degree plan at the level it exists at.

You are allowed up to twenty course lists to restrict per degree plan restriction. Each one will be processed in the order they are placed in the course list field preferencing courses in reverse chronological order (keeping new courses and removing older courses).

You also have the option to exclude courses from the restriction, and have up to 10 course lists that can exclude courses from this one restriction. An example of the exclusion list would be if you want to code a restriction that prohibits students from taking X number of hours pass/fail you can then exclude courses that are only offered on the pass/fail basis from counting toward this restriction.

Scope Restrictions:

A scope restriction is used to restrict courses from counting toward a specific scope. You can select any number of scopes to apply the restriction to. A good use of the scope restriction is if you have grade requirements for everything that is not core that is higher than D-. You can set up a scope restriction to not allow those grades to count for anything other than the core.

Since scope restrictions are not independent restrictions, no listing of coursework excluded due to this restriction will appear at the top of the audit. Particularly for Administrative scope restrictions, the effects on an audit may be difficult to detect. For example, many GPA requirements are Administrative in scope. If you include Administrative scope on a restriction of D-grades, the restriction will discretely exclude such courses from the calculation, displaying an incorrect GPA on the audit with no trace of the error apparent to the users. For this reason, you are strongly cautioned against including Administrative in scope restrictions.

You are allowed up to twenty course lists to restrict per scope restriction. Each one will be processed in the order they are placed in the course list field preferencing courses in reverse chronological order (keeping new courses and removing older courses).

You are allowed up to ten course lists to be excluded from this restriction. It is best use is for those courses that may always meet the restriction and should be excluded out right because of the nature of the course.

Subset Restrictions:

If you would like to place a restriction around or on a group of requirements, then a subset restriction is the restriction type for you. As with all the other restrictions you are allowed up to twenty course lists to use in the restriction.

When you create your restriction, you will be able to apply it to a maximum of twenty requirements. When you know the requirement ID's that you would like to process within this restriction, you will need to input them into the fields titled “Restriction will apply to the following subset of requirements:”

Subset restrictions are best utilized as stronger restrictions for specific requirements. For example, if you have a grading requirement for a scope, but want for one or two requirements to have higher grades, you can accomplish this via the subset restriction.

Dependent Restrictions:

The counterparts to the independent restrictions listed above are the two dependent restrictions that are processed within a requirement. If you need to further restrict the courses towards a requirement you can use either the Requirement Restriction or the Option Restriction.

Requirement Restriction:

The requirement restriction will be scoped at the same level as the requirement you are building and is uniquely connected to the requirement making it dependent on the requirement itself to process. These restrictions will remove courses from the requirement once it is processed and will only affect the single requirement and no other requirements.

Option Restriction:

An option restriction will be scoped at the same level as the requirement you are building and is uniquely connected to not only the requirement, but also the single option. It will remove any courses listed in the course lists that are being restricted from this option with in the requirement.