Checking a programme of study

The prototype study programme checker is now available from the programme page. This checker allows a user to select the modules already taken, and the script will then check the pre-requisites, co-requisites, excluded combinations for each selected module, showing the remaining unsatisfied conditions (if any). It also checks on the credit limits for options and for the programme overall.

There are a few problems with the prototype:

• Multiple ILP modules on a programme (fixed with a fudge)
  
• Included Options
• Credit-based constraints on a module ( these need to be encoded in the module specitication but otherwise working)
  
• Programmes which are not 3/4 year (fixed)
  
• No distinction between modules taken and being taken ( and hence no difference between pre-requisites and co-requisites) - needs radio buttons in place of the checkbox
  

and some user interface issues:

• linking from constraints to the modules in the structure somehow (DHTML?)
  
• the color-coding and text
• clearing the selections
  

A future possibility would be to extract a student's record, to pre-select modules passed and to show the mark gained. This would include modules taken which are not on the programme being viewed, for students who have switched programmes.

If the user can entering expected marks, a grade prediction could be done.

This page could also act as the option collection form next year, or perhaps just use the new stage option form required for the student portal now.

A complication is that the rules which apply to both the programme and each module for a given student are not those in the current year, but are those which pertained at the time of the student's registration. Since all versions are in the database, this is possible, although our history is only back to 2005. Modules are fine since the mechanism is therre already, programmes a bit trickier since it's not clear how to determine which version applies to what. I wonder if such changes are always in the student's favour - i.e. could previous conditions be applicable which would now make a choice which is legal in the current programme/ module illegal ? Seems unlikely, so that the only cases where such history is relevant is where conditions were more relaxed in the past - so using the current situation only will err on the cautious side (for UWE).

I also wonder if the conditions and excluded cominations should be filtered for modules on the programme - its confusing to be alerted to exclusion of modules not on the programme, or to the possibility of satisfing a prerequisite with a module which is not on the programme - the ability to add or import modules taken from a previous programme would allow apparently unsatisfiable conditions to be met, but what then is the status of exclusions - presumably the problem is that credit cannot be gained from both, rather than that the student cannot take the module at all?