Overview
Courses in Infinite Campus are created with a variety of specific settings based on how the course will be used. For example, if a course is going to be used year long it will have different settings than a course that will be used for a quarter or semester. These courses are not interchangeable. It is important to understand how courses are designed in order to use the correct courses when scheduling in Infinite Campus.
Use the steps and supports below to learn about how courses are designed to ensure you are scheduling correctly in Infinite Campus.
Course Number
Course Numbers are unique identifiers for courses within Infinite Campus. Courses belong to a specific course catalog in Infinite Campus. The first number in the course number identifies which course catalog that is. For example, all courses in the DSST Course Catalog begin with the number "7". Additionally, all courses in the DPS Course Catalog begin with the number "0".
The only way to access courses from another catalog is to have your individual account's assigned course catalog changed. If you need to pull a course from another catalog you can put in a DSST Help Desk ticket at helpdesk@scienceandtech.org. Be sure to include what course you need and which course catalog that course belongs to.
Course Name
It's important to understand that course names and class names are different. Course Names are developed to align with academic program guidelines, and CDE requirements, as well as for network alignment. Class Names are what terms schools use at the school level to refer to their classes. While oftentimes these will be the same (mostly for core classes) there will be deviations which is okay. Course Names and Class Names do not need to be identical.
Course Names not only indicate what the course is but also provide course length information as well. The DSST Courses will often include length indicators.
| (S) | This indicates that the courses are semester-long and can be used during either S1 or S2. It is not semester specific. |
| (S1) | This indicates that the courses are semester-long and can only be used during the first semester. |
| (S2) | This indicates that the courses are semester-long and can only be used during the second semester. |
| (Q) | This indicates that the courses are a quarter long and can be used during any quarter of the year. It is not quarter specific. |
| (Q1), (Q2), (Q3), (Q4) | This indicates that the courses are a quarter long and can only be used during the quarter indicated. |
| None | No course indicator in the course title means that the course is a year-long course. These are typically only at the MS level. |
The length indicators on the courses MATTER. They determine where grading tasks are put and what term there should be final grades. The term indicated in the title is the only term for which a course should be used.
Grading Tasks
Grading Tasks for a course are what appears on a student's transcripts like "Final" for a class. This is what teachers are posting to at the end of a term such as a quarter or a semester.
DSST will have the following Grading Tasks beginning in the 2023-2024 school year.
- Progress: Used throughout the school year to track grades for students. These will be used for progress reports.
- Final: Used at the end of the course and this will be the grade on the student's transcripts.
Term Mask
A "Term Mask" identifies which term a grading task is assigned. For example, if there is a year-long course your "Progress" Grading Task should have term masks during Quarters 1, 2, 3, and 4. However, a "Final" Grading Task should only have a term mask in Quarter 2 and Quarter 4.
Term Masks are selected based on the design of the course which is why it is so important to pay attention to aspects of the course when scheduling. If you select a Q1 course and schedule it during Q2 teachers will not be able to post grades accurately since the "Final" Grading Task won't have a Quarter 2 Term Mask.
In the image below there is a trimester course that is designed to be used in any trimester. You will see the "Final" Grading Task has T1, T2, and T3 Term Masks. This means that a teacher will be able to post to "Final" in any of the trimesters.
Term GPA
Depending upon the length of courses there may be a "Term GPA" which outlines how many credits each part of a class is worth. For example, if you have a year-long course split into a semester one and semester two course each "Term GPA" would be 5. A year-long course is worth 10 credits and in this case, each semester would be worth 5 credits.
Credit
Credit Value is very important to how courses are designed and how they should be used. While credits aren't assigned at the MS level they are still important to pay attention to when scheduling.
| Full Year | Semester | Quarter |
| 10 credits | 5 credits | 2.5 credits |
The credit value of a course will indicate how the course was designed and for what purpose. For example, if a course is 10 credits it's designed to be a full-year course.
You can see the credit value of a course in Infinite Campus in a few places and it is often labeled as "GPA Weight". See the images below for where to find that in the school's course list or when adding a course.
Credit Type
Credit Type indicates where the credit values are allocated such as English, Science, Electives, etc. This all correlates to the graduation requirements for the state of Colorado as well as the requirements of DPS. Currently, students are required to have 240 total credits to graduate but there are specific content area requirements as well.
You can see what "credit type" a course has in the "Course Information" as shown below.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.