Overview

This article covers the concept of disciplines (i.e. Major/Minor) and how to use it in RIO Education.

Note:

The Program Discipline only serves as a template for a Major/Minor.

When a student enrolls to a Program Discipline, a PE Discipline record is created, which tracks the student's progress.

Use case

When a student enrolls into a Major, there will be a select group of Courses that the student is required to complete.

In RIO Education, the Program Discipline object tracks different disciplines (i.e. Majors and Minors) within a Program Plan‍.

Under each Program Discipline, there are Discipline Requirements (the Courses that are required to be completed for that Major).

Students will be able to select their Program Disciplines and track their progress in the Student Community.

For example, a student (who is already enrolled to a Program) is looking to select a Major.

1. Click on 'Major' in the Student Community.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a Program Discipline.
   
   
   
   
3. The Discipline overview page is then updated with the details and progress.
   
   

The student will only be able to find and enroll to Majors/Minors once:

• the student has made a Program Enrollment.‍ 
• the admin users have created the Program Discipline‍ (the Majors created for the students to choose).

Setup (Faculty POV)

1. Create Program Disciplines in the student's Program Plan. These will be available for the student to select, as seen above.
   
   
   
   
2. Create Discipline Requirements in each of those Program Disciplines. These contain the Courses that the student is required to take.
   
   
   
   
3. Under the student's Program Enrollment, head to the 'PE Disciplines' tab and select a Program Discipline (just like the student's POV in the Community).
   A PE Discipline will be automatically created after selection of the Program Discipline.
   
   
   
   
4. The overview of the student's progress can also be viewed here in the admin console. 
   
   

Data model

Similar to Program Plan with its Plan Requirements, a Program Discipline consists of the following child objects:

• Discipline Requirement‍ (Record Type = Group).
  • Discipline Requirement (Record Type = Course‍).

Unlike Program Plan‍, the Program Discipline only supports 2 level of requirements. As an example, for the Bachelor of Science Majoring in Health Science, this is not supported:

• Cognate Requirements (Group) - 18.
  • Biology Requirements (Group) - 6.
    • Introduction to Biology I (Course) - 3.
    • Introduction to Biology II (Course) - 3.
  • Chemistry Requirements (Group) - 6.
    • Introduction to Chemistry I (Course) - 3.
    • Introduction to Chemistry II (Course) - 3.
  • Physics Requirements (Group) - 6.
    • Introduction to Physics I (Course) - 3.
    • Introduction to Physics II (Course) - 3.

Instead, you should setup as below, with the main group "Cognate Requirements (Group) - 18" excluded:

• Biology Requirements (Group) - 6.
  • Introduction to Biology I (Course) - 3.
  • Introduction to Biology II (Course) - 3.
• Chemistry Requirements (Group) - 6.
  • Introduction to Chemistry I (Course) - 3.
  • Introduction to Chemistry II (Course) - 3.
• Physics Requirements (Group) - 6.
  • Introduction to Physics I (Course) - 3.
  • Introduction to Physics II (Course) - 3.

Please bear in mind that the Program Discipline is a template. The data will be cloned over to PE Discipline‍ when a Program Discipline is selected. The actual completion status and credits earned for each student will then be tracked in the PE Discipline for each individual enrollment.

As of v3.6, the template checkbox allows admin to create a Program Discipline as a template. When the template is selected while creating a new Program Discipline, it would replicate its details and related discipline requirements.

The Program Discipline and its Discipline Requirements will be carried over when it is used in a Program Plan.

Important fields

Implementation

To implement the Program Discipline function, check out our article here.