FAQs
This page will provide answers and solutions to common questions and issues encountered when creating or managing curriculum-related records in Paradigm.
NOTE:
Contact us if your questions or inquiries are not listed in this article.
Base Records Related
What is the best way to record or manage short Courses?
Manage Short Courses
The most efficient way to record short courses in Paradigm is by creating a new Base Course that is intentionally set as out of scope for reporting to TCSI. That means setting the field “Accredited” to NO, see Add a Base Course.
When processing the short Course Enrolments you should mark the students as being UPFRONT FEES on their Course Enrolment, and either leave their E490 field blank or set it to UPFRONT FEES, see Enrol Students in Courses or Scheduled Programs.
Enrolling into units is the same workflow as normal, see Student Enrolments.
Just note that you should not capture TCSI-related fields for students studying a short course. That means ignoring the contents of the Student TCSI Edit screen.
Contact us if you need more details.
How to calculate EFTSL
Calculate EFTSL
To calculate a study load (EFTSL) for a single unit, take the number of credit points for one year of a full-time load, and divide it by the number of credit points for the unit. For example, if the one-year load is worth 96 and a single unit is worth 12 credit points, the EFTSL is 0.125 which represents 12 divided by 96, or as a fraction, one-eighth.
This is based on a normal study year being comprised of two semesters, meaning the sum of EFTSL for all units within each semester is 0.5 in total. The student may study 4 units per semester, implying 8 units for the year, meaning that a single unit is now worth 0.125 EFTSL.
If your institution works on a trimester structure, then you may end up with an EFTSL count of more than 1. Technically, the trimester study mode is overloading above a normal study load. Similar overloading of EFTSL would occur in the event that a student was enrolled in units above the normal level, for example, accelerated learning.
How can I make the non-award Course a non-TCSI reportable Course?
Making a Non-Award Course a Non-TCSI Reportable
If you haven't created the Base Course record yet, make sure to set the following fields as recommended:
Accreditation Date - set this to No
Accreditation Date -leave this field blank or not set
Accreditation Date Due - leave this field blank or not set
Course Provider - set this to a non-TCSI reporting Provider
If the Base Course record is already created with the above fields not set properly, refer to the following steps:
Edit the Base Course record with the above fields set accordingly and save.
If there are already Unit Enrolments in the Course that are not meant to be reported to TCSI, load each Unit Enrolment record and click the "DELETE FROM TCSI" button, see Delete Unit Enrolment from TCSI but retain the record in Paradigm. That will fix the TCSI side of things. It will also cause the Unit Enrolment to be placed in read-only status. So go ahead and unlock the record and change the unit enrolment status back to the correct status, e.g. Enrolled. When you attempt to save the record this time it should not attempt to submit it back to TCSI
How to record administrative units (to track RPL/Credit) with 0.00 fees?
Administrative Units (to track RPL/Credit) with 0.00 Fees
The easiest way here is to use scheduled fees rather than fee rules. That would guarantee that the zero dollar amounts are applied without affecting your existing fee rule structure.
You may also want to reduce the admin burden by creating Scheduled Units with dates that span multiple academic years. That means you do not need to create new sets of scheduled units each calendar year for your block credit allocations. If you take this approach then there is a field called “Flexible Learning” that you should set to “Yes”. When a student is enrolled into a scheduled unit with flexible learning enabled, their unit enrolment will be created with the start date and end date of the course enrolment, rather than the scheduled unit. This means one scheduled unit can be repeatedly used across multiple academic years while still providing sensible dates for each student.
This approach does not have any substantive implications for TCSI reporting as you do not report block credit unit enrolments directly to TCSI.
We have deployed a new field labelled “Fee Exempt Unit” to the base unit and scheduled unit screens.
The field on the base unit acts as a default. Scheduled units created from that base unit via the Paradigm user interface will inherit the value of that field at the moment the new scheduled unit record is created.
The field on the scheduled unit record is the one that matters. Marking a scheduled unit as a “Fee Exempt Unit” will cause Paradigm to always assign a unit fee value of 0.00 when a student is enrolled in that scheduled unit. This will greatly simplify your preparations for creating new scheduled units that are dedicated to tracking RPL and credit allocations.
Can Paradigm offer ELICOS courses?
Paradigm Offering ELICOS Courses
Yes, we have added the capability to do a number of ELICOS functions in Paradigm.
To work with ELICOS in our system, you enrol your student into a single ELICOS course, and each level of English (Elementary, Pre Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate) is set up as a Unit Enrolment in Paradigm. Scheduled Units will run 12+ months (to accommodate rolling enrolments), with unit enrolment start and end dates modified by the staff, and also session enrolment locked down to unit enrolment start and end dates - but still involves minor staff interaction. There are extra options that appear on the unit enrolment action menu on the student summary screen to facilitate the different functions only available to ELICOS units.
If you want your site to be configured for ELICOS offerings, call us to discuss your requirements more or start the conversation by raising a ticket.
Course Outline Related
I have a Base Unit with different mode of deliveries, how I can structure it?
Course Outline: Base Unit for Online or On-Campus Mode of Delivery
If you have a Base Unit that can be offered in different modes of delivery, e.g. Online or On-Campus. To structure your Course Outline, refer to the instructions below:
Create a single Base Unit representing the core content and requirements of the course. If you already have an existing one, add it to your Course Outline as a Core or Elective Unit.
Establish separate Scheduled Units for each mode of delivery, such as Online, On-Campus, or Blended. Create or if you have already existing Scheduled Unit records, make sure that you have one Scheduled Unit for each mode of delivery.
Assign the appropriate session details and resources to each Scheduled Unit based on the corresponding mode of delivery, see Add Sessions.
By doing the above, when students access the Course Plan or select units, the Base Unit is their main option in the Course Plan, and you allow them to choose the desired mode of delivery by selecting the associated Scheduled Unit on the Sessions page.
In the example below, ComSci103 is displayed as a Core Unit on the main Course Plan page, it’s only when the student selects the session can they choose whether to apply the Online or On-Campus Scheduled Unit.
Troubleshooting
Do you encounter error messages or issues while trying to manage your curriculum-related records (Base Course, Base Units, Base Assessments, Course Outlines)? Proceed to the Troubleshooting section.
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