About the degree audit

To keep students on track to graduate, Campus Cafe tracks their completion of degree requirements.

You can create different degree requirements for each of your majors (academic programs), including minors. You can also maker different requirements for students depending on which academic catalog they are following to account for the fact your curriculum may change over but you want to “teach out” students who started under a former curriculum.

To help you review progress in batch, you can generate degree audits for a group of students using the Student Finder.

You can also run a reverse degree audit to see the requirements outstanding for a group of students, helping you plan your future class offerings and seat capacities.

For students considering a change of major, the degree audit is also used to present a “what if” showing how their past and current classes may fulfill the requirements of a different major.

Prerequisites

• Create academic degrees (e.g. certificate, bachelor’s, etc.) and associate them with degree levels (e.g. undergraduate, graduate, etc.)

• Create majors which may be majors, minors or certificate programs. Majors should lead to a credential such as a certificate, bachelors, etc.

• Create courses required to complete the academic program in the course catalog. For all aspects of the degree audit to function, all course codes must have a consistent length of subject codes. For example, having the course codes MT100 and COM303 will not function because MT and COM are different character lengths.

Required permissions

Degree audit behavior

To accommodate your institution’s business processes, Campus Cafe lets you change how the degree audit behaves.

For best results, we recommend you review and set these options prior to building out degree requirements.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter the ProgramID.

3. Next to the resulting ProgramID, click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value enter the desired option.

5. Click Save.

Credits required to graduate

The degree audit displays the total number of credits required to graduate. The source of this number comes from one of three options and is controlled by custom control DACREDSRCE.

• If this custom control has a value of Y the Degree Audit footer’s Required Catalog Credits value will come from the Credits to Graduate box on the Major Detail box. (Admin > Major Maintenance > Edit the Major)

• If this custom control is N there is a special requirement 999 in the Degree Audit Requirement Table to allow the credits to graduate to be expressed per audit (catalog) semester. This is useful if the number of credits to graduate has changed over the years. This requirement would not be processed as a normal requirement in the Degree Audit but exists for informational purposes only. The level of the 999 requirement is 1. To employ this method, set the control to N and also create a Level 1 requirement with the requirement number 999 and tied to the desired semester and major.

• If this custom control is N and no 999 sequence exists, the degree audit adds up the requirement credits to determine credits required to graduate.

Which degree levels to consider

In general, the degree audit considers only course enrollments with a degree level corresponding to the degree level for the student's current degree. For example, a graduate student who previously attended your institution may have course enrollments with degree levels of undergraduate and graduate. By default, Campus Cafe will only consider the graduate enrollments when running a degree audit for the student’s graduate program.

This can be overridden to allow class enrollments from other levels. (Note that degree levels are not the same as degree audit requirement levels.)

To configure the Campus Cafe to consider multiple degree levels, set Custom Control DA_LEVELS, Sequence 1, Parameter 1 to ‘Y’.

When setting up requirements:

• In a requirement set where not all requirements can be met by additional degree levels each sequence that can be met needs to be updated. The Master Requirement (sequence 0) should not have levels specified and also should not contain any requirement.

• In a requirement set in which all requirements can be met by the same additional  level/levels, each sequence should have the level specified. In this situation, the master record may also contain a requirement and if it does, requires additional degree levels specified.

•  A stand-alone requirement, where only a master requirement is necessary, should have any additional levels specified in the master requirement.  

Each individual requirement, which can be met by levels other than the students current degree must have those levels specified under Degree Level(s) for that requirement. 

The level must be specified within each sequence that the level override is valid for, specifying in the master requirement alone (sequence 0), does not make alternate levels valid for other sequences in the requirement set and will result in unpredictable results when part of a multiple requirement set.   

The levels are keyed in degree level(s) field with field with a space between each additional level as below.   

If an enrollment should be met by level 1 and 5 enrollments, this field should contain ‘1 5’. Therefore regardless of whether the current degree is a level 1 or 5, the requirement would look at enrollments of either of these levels as well as the students’ current degree level. For example, If you have a student whose current degree level is 2, and has a level 2 enrollment that meets the requirement, it would be satisfied since the students current degree level is assumed to satisfy any requirements for the degree audit. 

Audit (Catalog) year

The degree audit finds the student’s current degree row and retrieves the student's degree audit (catalog) semester and major. 

Requirements for the most recent semester equal to or prior to the audit semester will be fetched and shown on the student's degree audit. For example, if the student’s major is ACC (accounting) and the degree audit semester is 202010 (fall 2019), and the latest requirements set for ACC is 201610 (fall 2015) the degree audit will use fall 2015 to evaluate the degree requirements. In other words, you only need to create a new requirement set if the curriculum changes. 

However, note that if if a single new requirement with a new semester is created, the system will view that one change as the entire curriculum for the major. For example, your general education program requires 6 credits in advanced spaceship engineering in the audit (catalog) year fall 2015. The next year, the institution changes the requirement to 3 credits of basic spaceship engineering and 3 credits of advanced spaceship engineering. You create a new requirement to hold the 3 credits of basic spaceship engineering and a new requirement to hold the 3 (down from 6) credits of advanced spaceship engineering tied to the fall 2016 semester. Campus Cafe will now view these two requirements as the student's entire curriculum if the student's audit (catalog) semester is fall 2016 or later.

Categories

Categories are broad buckets of requirements. For example, a degree may have major requirements, general education requirements and free electives.

Create category

1. Go to Admin > STParm.

2. In Parameter Code enter RPCTSR.

3. In Parameter Value enter a code for the group (the categories will show on the degree audit in alphabetical or numerical order of these codes). For example, you may enter an M for major requirements; G for general education requirements and X for electives.

4. Click Add.

5. In Description enter the description to show on the degree audit. For example, Major Requirements, General Education or Free Electives.

6. Click Save.

7. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Requirements

Requirements are the top-most requirements for the degree. For example, a specific course may be required or the student may be able to select from a basket of courses to fulfill the requirement.

Create requirement

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click Add Record.

Major: The academic program for which this is a requirement.

Semester: The degree audit semester to which the requirements apply. When a degree audit is run, Campus Cafe looks at the audit semester on the student’s current degree. If an exact match for the degree audit semester is not found then the next highest semester found is used. The semester must be active in Registration Control for it to appear.

Requirement Number: This indicates all requirements with this number are part of a requirement set. Each set has a sequence number of 0 defined as the “master requirement” and can also have 998 additional sequence numbers as necessary to complete the requirement set. Up to 999 requirement sets can be entered.

Sequence Number: The sequence number is used to distinguish between the master requirement for the set (sequence number = 0) and the actual requirements for that set (sequence number > 0). The sequence number can also provide default processing order for the set as well.

Requirement: This is the code for the requirement set.  If Level 1 this would be a course number. If level 2, it would be a subject code.  If level 3, it would be a code for a group you created, if 4, it would be electives. 

Level Group: This indicates the type of match that will satisfy a requirement. The level is specified in master requirement (sequence number=0).  The remaining records in the set (requirement number = master record requirement number and sequence number > 0) detail the course information that if met will satisfy the requirements. 

• Level 1: specific course requirement. For example, the student must take and pass English 101.

• Level 2: course enrollments fitting into a program based on the course’s subject. For example, any biology course.

• Level 3: course enrollments in an arbitrary group For example, the group HUM requires HUM101, HUM102 and HUM198.

• Level 4: free electives – any passing grade enrollment not used by another prior requirement. This is essentially a catch all.

This level is not to be confused with the degree level found in the degree and enrollment.

Credits: This field is used in the master requirement to indicate how many credits are needed to meet the requirement. For all other records in the requirement set this field should contain 0. This field’s value will not be used if the Course Counting Custom Control DA_CRSCOUN-1-1 is set to Y. If set to Y, the degree audit will count courses rather than credits.

Category Sort: Choose the category under which to display the requirement. If no category sort is chosen, requirements appear on the degree audit in level/requirement order. This sort does not apply to the processing of requirements, only the order they appear on the printed degree audit.

Description: This description is printed in the requirement section of the degree audit as long as it is not hidden.

Course Sort: Not in use

Hide Flag: Select to hide the requirement

Entirety: Checking this box allows a quasi-“OR” determination on Level 2 (Program) and Level 3 (Group) requirements. This means that the requirement’s non-zero sequence numbers must be met in their entirety before the Master Requirement (sequence number zero) is deemed met. Partial fulfillment of an entirety flagged requirement will result in the partial satisfier being displayed in the Degree Audit but the “Is Met” label being set to “No”.

For example, a school requires that a student take 6 credits of a foreign language and each language class is 3 credits. The school also requires that all 6 credits must be in the same language. For the requirement, sequence number zero would be set to 6 credits. Sequence number 2 would be be FRN with 6 credits required; Sequence number 2 would be be ITL with 6 credits required; Sequence number 3 would be be SPA with 6 credits required. For all sequence numbers the entirety box is checked.

Lower Course Restriction: Courses with numbers equal to or greater than this number will fulfill the requirement.

Upper Course Restriction: Courses with numbers equal to or less than than this number will fulfill the requirement.

Minimum Quality Points: The minimum Quality Point associated with grade for an enrollment to satisfy the requirement. These are entered on the requirements, not the master record as the minimum may be different for separate requirements. Grades are associated with quality points on the Quality Points Table.

Scheduled Semester: Not in use

Degree Level: The degree level associated with the student's current degree is used as a default to determine which enrollments are included on the degree audit. By default, all enrollments of the students’ current degree level are available to meet the requirement. Additional enrollment levels can be included by entering the level/levels with a comma in between levels. If an enrollment should be met by level 1 and 5 enrollments, this field should contain ‘1,5’. Therefore regardless of whether the current degree is a level 1 or 5, the requirement would look at enrollments of either of these levels as well as the students current degree level. For example, If you have a student whose current degree level is 2, and has a level 2 enrollment that meets the requirement, it would be satisfied since the student's current degree level is assumed to satisfy any requirements for the degree audit. Any enrollment which could be used to satisfy the requirement because of a degree level specification, but cannot be used because of other constraints not met such as minimum grade, will appear in the taken but not used section of the degree audit.

Total Courses: Input the number of courses needed to satisfy the requirement. This field’s value will only be used if the Course Counting Custom Control DA_CRSCOUN-1-1 is set to Y.

Allow Reuse: Courses used in this requirement may fulfill other requirements.

No Transfers: Check to exclude transfer courses from meeting the requirement.

Order Number: This field provides requirement processing order. Lower numbers are processed first. A zero means process last.  It enables the user to specify the processing order, within level 1, and for all other levels as a whole. Requirements are processed as first by all level 1 requirements.  The level 1 requirements are then put in process number order (lowest to highest with 0 meaning last).  For all requirements with the same process order number, the requirements are processed in requirement number then sequence number order.  All other requirements (levels 2-4) are sorted by process order.   This enables a requirement in a higher level to be processed before a lower level requirement.  If the process order is the same requirements are processed in level, requirement and sequence number order.

Sequential Order: This integer field is used to order Level 1 requirements for use in the Predictive Scheduling of the batch reverse degree audit.

Course Type 1-4: The Course Type limit logic applies to Level 2 and 3 requirements and allows a filter to be placed on enrollments by course type before accepting the enrollment for requirement satisfaction. For example, if a course is flagged as type “W” for workshop, affected requirements can be configured to limit only 1 enrollment of type “W” for fulfillment purposes. Extra enrollments of the filtered type are ignored and treated as unused. The course type limits are sub-requirement specific, so they are not put into the master requirement (sequence 0). Course types are set on the Course screen under the Codes tab in the Course Degree Audit Limit Type drop down.

Type Count 1-4: The maximum number of courses of the specified type to accept for the requirement.

Overall Type Limit:

Sched Sub Sem 1-6: Not in use

Example requirement setups

When a requirement is specified, there are implied AND and ORS depending on the specification.

Implied OR Example 1

The below example means the student must complete any of the four courses that add up to 6 credits so there is an implied OR.

Implied OR Example 2

This below example means the student must complete 9 credits from the group of courses that have any of the four prefixes listed, so there is an implied OR.

For this example to work all course subject codes (HU, SO, PH, MG) must be the same length. (In the example they are all two characters long.) In addition, all the numerical values of the courses (e.g. 100, 203, 401, etc.) must be the same length. Lengths are defined using custom control WEBCRPLEN 

Implied OR Example 3

The below example means the student must complete 12 credits from any courses that exist in any of the 4 groups listed, so there is an implied OR.

Implied AND

The below example assumes that BIO 101 and BIO 102 are both 3-credit courses. The below requirement requires 6 credits therefore there is an implied AND because students must take both classes to fulfill the requirement to reach 6 credits.

Copy requirements

Campus Cafe provides the ability to copy requirements from one catalog year to another.

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click Copy Requirements.

5. In Source Major select the major to copy (Note: to copy all majors, do not select a major and instead use the Copy All Majors Button)

6. In Source Semester select the semester to copy from.

7. In Req # optionally enter the requirement number to copy; leave blank to copy all requirements.

8. In Cat Sort optionally enter the category to copy; leave blank to copy all requirements.

9. In Destination Major select the major to copy the requirements to.

10. In Destination Semester select the semester to copy the requirements to.

11. In Req # optionally enter the requirement number to copy the requirements to; leave blank to copy all requirements.

12. In Cat Sort optionally enter the category to copy the requirements to ; leave blank to copy all requirements,

13. Click Copy,

Delete requirement

1. G to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Next to the requirement(s) to delete, select the box.

4. Click Delete Selected.

Groups

Requirements set to level 3 will select from a defined basket of courses. An example may include a general education category for which the courses that fulfill the requirement do not follow a pattern.

Create a group

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Groups.

3. Click New Record.

• Grouping: Enter the Requirement code

• Semester: The degree audit semester to which the requirements apply. When a degree audit is run, Campus Cafe looks at the audit semester on the student’s current degree. If an exact match for the degree audit semester is not found then the next highest semester found is used. The semester must be active in Registration Control for it to appear.

• Description: This description is printed in on the degree audit.

• Course Number: Enter the course code exactly as it appears in the catalog

Copy groups

Campus Cafe provides the ability to copy a group from one catalog year to another. The copy works by single group only and does not support copying multiple groups at once.

To copy all groups or select requirements

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Groups.

3. Click Copy Group.

4. In Source Group enter the group to copy.

5. In Source Semester select the semester to copy from.

6. In Source Group enter the group to copy the group to.

7. In Destination Group enter the group to copy to (typically the same as the source).

8. In Destination Semester drop down select the semester to copy to.

9. Click Submit.

Delete group

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Groups.

3. Next to the group(s) to delete, select the box.

4. Click Delete Selected.

Cross references

If two courses are equivalent, you can specify each course individually during the requirement and/or group setup. Alternatively, you can specify that one course should always be treated as an equivalent to another. For example, you may have a Level I requirement that specifies the student take the course PIE101. You can leverage cross references to inform that system that DES102 is equivalent to PIE101 and fulfills any requirement that calls for PIE101.

Create cross reference

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Cross Reference.

3. Click New Record.

4. In Course Num enter the course code (e.g. PIE101) that is equivalent to another.

5. In Start Semester select the semester this equivalency became effective.

6. In End Semester select the semester this equivalency ended.

7. In Req Course Number enter the equivalent course code (e.g. DES102).

8. In Req Credits enter the credits for the course.

9. Click Create.

10. If the opposite equivalent is true (e.g. DES102 is equal to PIE101) you must build a reciprocal rule by following the above directions. Place DES102 in the Course Num box and PIE101 in the Req Course Numb box.

11. The equivalent will become effective after the server restarts, which occurs automatically each evening.

Comments

Comments show on the degree audit to add contextual information about the curriculum.

Create comment

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Comments.

3. Click New Record.

Semester: This indicates the degree audit semester to which the requirements apply.  The audit semester from the student’s current degree is used to link to this table.  If an exact match for the degree audit semester is not found then the next highest semester found in the table will be used.

Major: The major for which the comment applies.

Comment Boxes 1-10: Comments to display on the degree audit.

Work Flow Notes

Work Flow's Name, Due Date, and Comment/Notes Box 1 field can also be shown at the bottom of a degree audit by selecting the "Print on Degree Audit" checkbox on the Workflows Definition Detail. The Email/Comment box will not appear on the degree audit; only the smaller Comment/notes box 1 under a workflow will appear.

This is how it appears on the degree audit. The blue due date box is for reference only, it does not appear on the degree audit itself:

Examples

Require specific course

London College requires students majoring in Foreign Intelligence to take SPY101 Spycraft 101. This is a core major requirement.

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click Add Record.

5. In Major select Foreign Intelligence.

6. In Semester select when this requirement came into effect. In our example, we’ll select Fall 2021 meaning students who entered London College in Fall 2021 are held to this standard. Any student entering our college after Fall 2021 will also be held to this requirement unless we create a new requirement with a semester occurring after Fall 2021.

7. In Requirement Number enter 1. This will become the first requirement shown on the degree audit.

8. In Sequence Number enter 0. A zero tells Campus Cafe this is the master requirement that controls any child requirements. In our example, a specific course is required so this is the master and there are no child requirements.

9. In Requirement enter the course code, in our case SPY101.

10. In Level Group enter 1. This tells Campus Cafe this requirement is a specific course.

11. In Credits enter the required credits. Since Spycraft 101 is a 3-credit course, we’ll enter 3.

12. The Description will auto populate with the course title.

13. In Category Sort select Major Requirements because we want this requirement to show in the the Foreign Intelligence major’s core requirements category.

14. Click Create.

Require 6 credits of math

London College requires students majoring in Foreign Intelligence to take 6 credits to fulfill a quantitative requirement. The requirement is met when the student takes any courses with the subject code MTH that combined total 6 credits. This is a general education requirement.

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click Add Record.

5. In Major select Foreign Intelligence.

6. In Semester select when this requirement came into effect. In our example, we’ll select Fall 2021 meaning students who entered London College in Fall 2021 are held to this standard. Any student entering our college after Fall 2021 will also be held to this requirement unless we create a new requirement with a semester occurring after Fall 2021.

7. In Requirement Number enter 4. This will become the fourth requirement shown on the degree audit.

8. In Sequence Number enter 0. A zero tells Campus Cafe this is the master requirement that controls any child requirements. In our example, any course with a subject code of MTH qualifies so this is the master and there are no child requirements.

9. In Requirement enter the subject code, in our case MTH.

10. In Level Group enter 2. This tells Campus Cafe this requirement is based on a course subject code.

11. In Credits enter the required credits. London College requires 6 credits in this area so we’ll enter 6.

12. In Description we’ll enter Quantitative Requirement.

13. In Category Sort select General Education Requirements because we want this requirement to show in the the Foreign Intelligence major’s core requirements category.

14. Click Create.

Require class A or class B

London College requires students majoring in Foreign Intelligence to take either PSC109, Introduction to the United Nations or SOC102, The Mind of a Diplomat. London College calls this the Foreign Relations requirement. This is a core major requirement.

Set courses that fulfill the requirement

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Groups.

3. Click New Record.

4. In Grouping enter FR. Any class tied to the FR grouping will fulfill the Foreign Relations requirement.

5. In Semester select when this requirement came into effect. In our example, we’ll select Fall 2021 meaning students who entered London College in Fall 2021 are held to this standard. Any student entering our college after Fall 2021 will also be held to this requirement unless we create a new requirement with a semester occurring after Fall 2021.

6. In Description enter Foreign Relations.

7. In Course Number enter PSC109.

8. Repeat steps 1-7 for course SOC102.

Create the requirement

Now we’ll tell Campus Cafe how many credits the students need to fulfill the Foreign Relations requirement. We’ll make it a 3-credit requirement. Because both classes that fulfill the requirement are 3 credits each, we’re effectively saying the student can take either course.

1. Go to Registrar > Degree Audit.

2. Click Requirements.

3. Click Submit.

4. Click Add Record.

5. In Major select Foreign Intelligence.

6. In Semester select when this requirement came into effect. In our example, we’ll select Fall 2021 meaning students who entered London College in Fall 2021 are held to this standard. Any student entering our college after Fall 2021 will also be held to this requirement unless we create a new requirement with a semester occurring after Fall 2021.

7. In Requirement Number enter 5. This will become the fifth requirement shown on the degree audit.

8. In Sequence Number enter 0. A zero tells Campus Cafe this is the master requirement that controls any child requirements. In our example, we will reference a group so we can set this to 0.

9. In Requirement enter the group code. In our case FR.

10. In Level Group enter 3. This tells Campus Cafe this requirement is based on a group.

11. In Credits enter the required credits. London College requires 3 credits in this area so we’ll enter 3.

12. In Description we’ll enter Foreign Relations.

13. In Category Sort select Major Requirements because we want this requirement to show in the the Foreign Intelligence major’s core requirements category.

14. Click Create.