Overview

This article covers how the Shared Group feature can be used to create a Program Plan that also shares another Program Plan's Courses.

Use case

Sometimes you’ll want a Program Plan to share / take Courses from other Program Plans‍, or use a reusable list of elective Courses.

This can be achieved using Shared Groups.

For example, an education institution is offering a Program named the 'Bachelor of Business Management'.

This Program Plan contains its own Plan Requirements, which are the Courses that a student will have to take, if they enroll to this Program.

The structure is as follows:

• Program.
  • Program Plan.
    • Plan Requirement.

One of the Plan Requirements here is RIOUNI03 - Business, which contains some Courses.

The institution plans to offer another different Program, which is the 'Bachelor of Business Information System'.

The institution intends to also include the Courses from RIOUNI03 - Business (the Plan Requirement above).

Rather than re-creating a similar Plan Requirement under the second Program, it is easier to use the Plan Requirement from the first Program.

Under the Plan Requirement in the second Program (Business Information System), populate the 'Shared Group' field, which is the Plan Requirement from the first Program (Business Management).

Click 'Save'.

The Plan Requirement‍ of the second Program (Business Information System) will now include the Courses from RIOUNI03 - Business (the other Plan Requirement in the first Program).

• This saves time for the institution, by not having to re-create all those Courses in this Plan Requirement.
  
  
• Instead, it can share the Courses from other Plan Requirements.

• Students who enroll to a Program Plan with a shared group from a different Program Plan, will see the shared group and its related Courses as if it had been set up for their own Program Plan.
  
  
• As shown in the image above, the highlighted Courses from the first Program appear as part of the second Program (since this is the Program the student enrolled to).

Notes

Setting up Pathway Units for Shared Groups

The Plan Requirement from Program Plan Y, is sharing the Courses belonging to the Plan Requirement from Program Plan X.

When setting up the Pathway Units under Program Plan Y, make sure that it points to the Plan Requirement from Program Plan X.

In other words, if your Plan Requirement shares (or 'borrows') the Courses from another Plan Requirement, make sure to point the Pathway Units to that other Plan Requirement as well.

Sharing the Program Course Requirements

Please note that setting up a Group type of Plan Requirement by pointing to another Plan Requirement (Group) will bring the Program Course Requirements‍ across (i.e. pre-requisites, co-requisites, etc.).

A precautionary check should be performed to avoid any conflict. These Program Course Requirements must be attainable in the origin Program Plan‍.

• E.g. a Plan Requirement in the destination Program Plan that has a pre-requisite that is not available for enrollment in the origin Program Plan.

This is to prevent conflict for the student enrolled in the Program Plan that has a Plan Requirement (Group) created as a 'Shared Group'.

This would be the case if some Courses in the original Program Plan had a requisite that is not available for enrollment in the student's Program Plan.

Duplicate Courses in Shared Group and Plan Requirement (Group)

In some cases, a Program that uses the Shared Group function for it's Elective Courses, might have inserted duplicates of the Elective Courses into the Plan Requirement (Group).

This results in the Program having a Plan Requirement (Group) of Elective Courses, on top of using the Shared Group of those same Elective Courses.

The Enrollment Wizard will not display a duplicate of Courses for selection, but there is already a duplicate of Courses between the Plan Requirement (Group) and Shared Group.

This means that when Students enroll through the Enrollment Wizard and create a Course Connection, the system will randomly pick a Course from the Plan Requirement (Group), either picking:

• the Course belonging to the Parent Program Plan, or,
• the Course from the Shared Group function (which belongs to another Program Plan).

If the individual Plan Requirement (Course) within the Plan Requirement (Group) is of a "Required" type, the Course Connection automation will prioritize picking the "Required" Course instead of the Shared Group's Course.

Depending on the requirements of the project, there are two ways to resolve this:

Option A:

1. Update all Course Connection records to point towards the correct Courses from the Shared Group.
2. After a successful update, proceed to delete the additional Elective Plan Requirement (Course) that have been inserted into the Plan Requirement (Group).

Option B:

1. Update all Course Connection records to point towards the Courses from the Elective Plan Requirement (Group).
2. After a successful update, unlink the Plan Requirement (Group) from the Shared Group, to disable the Shared Group function for that Program Plan.