Requirements

Diploma managers can use Requirements to add requisites to Diplomas or Areas of Study that a student will need to complete.

To add or edit Requirements for a specific diploma or area of study:

  1. Select Academics.

  2. In the Grades menu, select Grading setup.

  3. Select Diploma to modify Diploma Requirements, or select Area of study to modify Area of Study Requirements.

  4. Select the name of the Diploma or Area of study to see a list of requirements.

For more information about setting up diplomas, see the help topic Diplomas.

Diploma features are only accessible to users who have been set up with Blackbaud ID (BBID). For more information on BBID settings, see the help topic Blackbaud ID Authentication for Education Management.

In order to access these features, a school administrator will need to assign theDiploma Manager role to an employee.

  1. Select Core.

  2. Select Security.

  3. Select Roles.

  4. Find the Diploma Manager (Application type) role in the list.

  5. Select the ellipsis (...) at the start of the row.

  6. Select Manage role.

  7. Select Members and then Add. Any employees you add to the Diploma Manager role will have access to Diploma and Area of Study features in Academics.

For more information, see the help topic Security roles (Old Version).

  1. From the persona menu, select Academics.

  2. Select Grades, then choose Grading setup.

  3. Select Diploma.

  4. Select the name of the Diploma.

  5. Select + Add to add a new requirement.

  6. In the Requirement details area, enter the following information:

    • Requirement name: The name of the requirement. This will appear in the Requirement name column.

    • Requirement group: Requirement groups allow you to visually organize requirements on student academic profiles. Examples of requirement group names could be "Math," "Lab Science," or "English Literature." Requirement groups are for visual organization purposes and do not affect the way in which requirements are counted toward a diploma.

    • General Elective Requirement: Select this option to create a General Elective Requirement, which functions as a catch-all for credits that don't fulfill other requirements. There can be only one General Elective Requirement per diploma or area of study).

      During the diploma audit process on a student's academic profile, if you exempt a number of credits from another requirement, the same number will be added onto the total credits needed for the General Elective Requirement.

      Optional: If you create a General Elective Requirement, you can enter a number for Maximum credits needed. This will limit the number of credits that can be applied toward the requirement.

      Because a General Elective requirement serves as a catch-all for credits not applied toward other requirements, it is a best practice to give your General Elective Requirement the highest Process order number so that it processes last.

    • Minimum credits needed: The number of credits needed to complete this requirement.

    • Process order: This determines the order in which a course will fulfill a requirement. The smaller the Process order number, the earlier it will be processed.

  7. On the left side of the Add requirement window, select Courses. In this step, you will add courses that can fulfill the Requirement. There are two ways to do this:

    • + Add course: A new blank row will appear. You can then search for the name of a course and select it, and it will be added as one of the options for fulfilling this requirement. Select + Add course as many times as needed to add more rows. Select the Remove icon to remove a course from the list.

    • + Bulk add courses: Using the Courses menu options and search bar, find the courses you would like to add as requirements and select the box beside them.

    With either method, you can select how the course will satisfy requirements for the school. You have the following options:

    • All requirements: The course can be used to fulfill this requirement and will still be allowed to fulfill other requirements in a diploma.

    • This requirement and requirements inside this Diploma: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill any other requirement that is part of a major, minor, or concentration. The course can still be used to fulfill other requirements for the diploma. Also, if the course is fulfilling a requirement for a major, minor, or concentration on this diploma, it cannot be used to fulfill this requirement.

    • This requirement and requirements outside this Diploma: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it can still be used to fulfill a requirement that is part of a major, minor, or concentration on this diploma. The course cannot be used to fulfill other requirements for the diploma. Also, if the course is fulfilling another requirement within the diploma, it cannot be used to fulfill this requirement.

    • Only this requirement: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill any other requirements. If the course is already, fulfilling another requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill this one.

    If a student is pursuing multiple diplomas, requirements will be processed independently for each diploma. The requirement settings you choose for one diploma will not affect any other diploma.

    Optional: You can also choose a Group for each course you add in this step. Groups allow institutions to force students to complete a requirement with a specific set of courses.

    For example, if your institution has a Foreign Language requirement and a student needs to complete two courses in the same language, you can create a Group called Foreign Language to ensure that if a student takes one Spanish course, they will need to take another Spanish course to complete the requirement.

    Either select an existing Group or create a new one by selecting + New. Enter a Group name and Group abbreviation, then Save.

    Group settings in the Courses area are separate from the Requirement groups in the Requirement details area, which are strictly for the purpose of visually organizing requirements on student academic profiles.

  8. Optional: On the left side of the window, select Group settings. Here you can specify how the included groups can be used to complete the requirement.

    The Groups tab is not available unless you have set a Group for at least one Course via the Course selector tab.

    Choose from the following settings:

    • Requirements are fulfilled when:

      • the included groups are complete

      • the specified number of groups is complete: If you select this option, you will be prompted to specify the number of groups that need to be completed.

    • Credits to complete for each group:

      • same for all groups: Specify the number of credits that needs to be completed for all groups.

      • specific to each group Set different credit requirements for each group type.

        • If this is selected, you also have the ability to select which groups each group cannot be grouped with.

  9. Select Save.

  1. From the persona menu, select Academics.

  2. Select Grades, then choose Grading setup.

  3. Select Area of study.

  4. Select the name of an existing Major, Minor, or Concentration.

  5. Select + Add to add a new requirement.

  6. In the Requirement details area, enter the following information:

    • Requirement name: The name of the requirement. This will appear in the Requirement name column.

    • Requirement group: Requirement groups allow you to visually organize requirements on student academic profiles. Examples of requirement group names could be "Math," "Lab Science," or "English Literature." Requirement groups are for visual organization purposes and do not affect the way in which requirements are counted toward an area of study.

    • General Elective Requirement: Select this option to indicate that credit exemptions from other requirements can be applied toward this requirement. The general elective requirement can be thought of as a holding area for credits that other requirements go to when they need to borrow credits if they are exempting courses.

      If you create a General Elective Requirement, enter a number for Maximum credits needed. This will limit the number of credits that can be applied toward the requirement.

      Because a General Elective requirement serves as a catch-all for credits not applied toward other requirements, it is a best practice to give your General Elective Requirement the highest Process order number so that it processes last.

    • Minimum credits needed: The number of credits needed to complete this requirement.

    • Process order: This determines the order in which a course will fulfill a requirement. The smaller the Process order number, the earlier it will be processed.

  7. On the left side of the Add requirement window, select Courses. In this step, you will add courses that can fulfill the Requirement. There are two ways to do this:

    • + Add course: A new blank row will appear. You can then search for the name of a course and select it, and it will be added as one of the options for fulfilling this requirement. Select + Add course as many times as needed to add more rows. Select the Remove icon to remove a course from the list.

    • + Bulk add courses: Using the Courses menu options and search bar, find the courses you would like to add as requirements and select the box beside them.

    With either method, you can select how the course will satisfy requirements for the school. You have the following options:

    • All requirements: The course can be used to fulfill this requirement and will still be allowed to fulfill other requirements in an area of study.

    • This requirement and requirements inside this Major/Minor/Concentration: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill any other requirement outside this area of study. The course can still be used to fulfill requirements within this area of study. If the course is fulfilling another requirement outside this area of study, it cannot be used to fulfill this one.

    • This requirement and requirements outside this Major/Minor/Concentration: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it can still be used to fulfill a requirement that is part of a different major/minor/concentration or the diploma itself. The course cannot be used to fulfill other requirements for this major. Also, if the course is fulfilling another requirement within this major, it cannot be used to fulfill this requirement.

    • Only this requirement: If this course is used to fulfill this requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill any other requirements. If the course is already, fulfilling another requirement, it cannot be used to fulfill this one.

    Optional: You can also choose a Group for each course you add in this step. Groups allow institutions to force students to complete a requirement with a specific set of courses.

    For example, if your institution has a Foreign Language requirement and a student needs to complete two courses in the same language, you can create a Group called Foreign Language to ensure that if a student takes one Spanish course, they will need to take another Spanish course to complete the requirement.

    Either select an existing Group or create a new one by selecting + New. Enter a Group name and Group abbreviation, then Save.

    Group settings in the Courses area are separate from the Requirement groups in the Requirement details area, which are strictly for the purpose of visually organizing requirements on student academic profiles.

  8. Optional: On the left side of the window, select Group settings. Here you can specify how the included groups can be used to complete the requirement.

    The Groups tab is not available unless you have set a Group for at least one Course via the Course selector tab.

    Choose from the following settings:

    • Requirements are fulfilled when:

      • the included groups are complete

      • the specified number of groups is complete: If you select this option, you will be prompted to specify the number of groups that need to be completed.

    • Credits to complete for each group:

      • same for all groups: Specify the number of credits that needs to be completed for all groups.

      • specific to each group Set different credit requirements for each group type.

        • If this is selected, you also have the ability to select which groups each group cannot be grouped with.

  9. Select Save.

Any time changes are made to an individual degree or to a student's grades and credits, you will need to process the changes to update the student's progress toward fulfilling the requirements. This can be done with the following steps:

  1. From the persona menu, select Academics.

  2. Use People Finder to search for the student.

  3. Select the student's name to open their Academic Profile.

  4. Select Requirements.

    Only the Degree Manager, the student's advisor, and the student have access to the Requirements tab.

  5. Select the context menu  beside the Degree and then choose Process.

  6. Credit counts and progress bars will be updated at the top of the Requirements tab.

Multiple factors are at play when your school processes completed course credits to fulfill requirements. This is the basic outline:

  1. First, courses are ordered by the scores the student received. For example, if a student received a C in English 101 and an A in English 306, then English 306 will be picked first to fulfill a requirement ...

  2. Then, the courses are applied toward requirements according to the Process order of the requirements. For example, the courses will count toward the requirement with Process Order 1, then Process Order 2, then Process Order 3, and so on ...

  3. Within each requirement, the courses will be applied toward the requirement according to the rules you set for the requirement.

A student must earn full credit in a course in order for that credit to count toward requirements for a diploma. If your school awards partial credit, this will not count as a completion and the partial credit(s) will not count toward the requirements.

For a diploma with an elective requirement, “Credit overage from <requirement name>” will display the number of credits applied toward the elective from another requirement. For example, if a student earns 4 Physical Education credits but only needs 3 Physical Education credits to graduate, the Electives grid will show a row that says “Credit overage from Physical Education” and indicates 1.00 Credits have been applied toward the elective requirement.

You can control the order in which degree requirements display on student records using View order. Please note that the View order is not related to the Process order.

  1. While looking at the requirement list for a degree, open the context menu beside a requirement and select Change view order.

  2. Under View order position, enter a number. Lower numbers will appear earlier on the list.

  3. Select Save.

  1. Select the context menu for the requirement you want to edit.

    You can also select the name of the requirement to make edits to the requirement.

  2. Select Edit.

  3. Make changes as needed.

  4. Select Save.

  1. Select the content menu for the requirement you want to copy.

  2. Select Copy.

  3. Enter in the following information:

    • Type

    • Name

    • Minimum credits needed

    • Maximum credits needed

    • Process order

  4. Select Save when finished.

  1. Select the content menu for the requirement you want to delete.

  2. Select Delete.

  3. Select Yes to confirm.