Schools that are just starting out by building their offerings from scratch or adding existing courses to their curriculum will enter new course information in jmc Office. Creating courses will enable users to build schedules and schedule students which allows teachers to take period attendance and access their gradebook in jmc Teacher. Whether you are creating a required, year-long offering or a one-trimester elective, adding a new course is where you start!
New courses are created in Schedules > Course > Edit Course Data.
General Course Data
The general course data defines overall course characteristics which dictate how the course (as a subject) is included in both scheduling and grading. Use the following course fields to accurately set up each of your courses:
Course Name: The name is how your course will appear on class lists and student schedules.
Term Type: Define the duration of the course during the year by setting the term type, such as semester, trimester, quarter or hex.
Weight: This value determines how much the course counts in GPAs and toward graduate credit. With a weight of "1" a "Yearly (Semester)" course will give 1 credit for one completed year (divided .5 credits per semester). A weight of "1" will give a "Quarter" course a full credit for completion of one quarter.
Grade Scale: The scale dictates which one of three possible grade value scales should be used for grades awarded in the course. Will this course follow a normal, raised or lowered grading scale?
Block Length: The block length informs the scheduler of how many consecutive periods a longer-than-normal class meets during the day.
Required/Elective: Designate the status of the class to help with scheduling students into high school courses. Required classes are given preference when creating a student's schedule if a conflict occurs.
Miscellaneous: Indicate whether or not the course will be included in GPA, Class Rank, Report Card, Honor Roll, or if jmc should flag students that are repeating the course.
Tabs
Office professionals will use the course data tabs below the general course data to indicate information about how the course is graded along with everything about each class section of students for the course:
Sections: Create sections of the course by adding the terms, periods, and days the course will be offered to students. Also add the teachers, the room numbers and view how many students are scheduled/enrolled in each course section.
Constraints: Set constraints for scheduling students to ensure sections are scheduled into the available terms and periods dictated by your staff availability.
State Specific Section: Indicate the institution providing the instruction, the organization and delivery method if different from the default.
Teachers: View the teacher associated with each course section.
Grading Schemes: Picking a grading scheme informs the grading module of which term grades to allow teachers to grade and to list on report cards. For example, if your "Term Type" is "Yearly (Semester)" will you report grades for "Qtr 1, Qtr 2, Qtr 3, Qtr 4" or "Qtr 1, Qtr 2, Sem 1, Qtr 3, Qtr 4, Sem 2" etc.
State Specific Course: Enter course SCED codes, the "Common Course Number" and select the "Accreditation Program Area" to ensure accurate state reporting.
Fees: Add any fees that are associated with a student taking the course. Fees are populated in the "Tuition and Fees" module.
Description: Enter a course description in this field to be displayed to students when signing up for classes online in jmc Student.