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16. When there are multiple versions of a course, how does the IIPS program of study (POS) system choose which version of a course will appear on the POS?

The single determinate for which course version will be pulled into the POS is the "program of study's effective term". When the college user types a course name in the POS:

1. IF there is only one version of a course listed in the IIPS database of courses, then IIPS will select that single course version (unless it has been archived and has an end term), or

2. IF there are multiple versions of a course listed in the IIPS CCL database of courses, then IIPS will look through the list searching for the course version that has the exact same effective term as the program of study's effective term,

   a) if IIPS find a course version with the same effective term as the POS effective term, then IIPS will select that course version or

   b) if IIPS does NOT find a course version with the same effective term as the POS effective term, then IIPS will move backwards to the previous effective terms until it find a course version.

EXAMPLE:

The CCL has (2) versions of WEB 250: Spring 2006 and Fall 2009  (see spreadsheet of Colleague courses, see WEB prefix)

If the user is building the Fall 2009 POS in IIPS, and the user types "WEB 250" into the POS, then IIPS will pull in the Fall 2009 version of WEB-250.

If the user is building the Summer 2009 POS in IIPS, and the user types "WEB-250" into the POS, then IIPS will pull in the Spring 2006 version.

A COMMON PROBLEM

As mentioned above that there is a "single" determinate for choosing from multiple course version, but there is also a "timing" issue to take into consideration. There is a common problem that often occurs when college staff builds the POS more than ten (10) months before the term begins -- let's continue using WEB 250 as a example:

A revision to WEB-250 was approved by the Fall 2008 CRC which met on September 23, 2008.  The CRC approval resulted in the Fall 2009 version of WEB-250.  System Office staff added the Fall 2009 version of WEB 250 into IIPS database on October 1, 2008. If the college staff had already built the Fall 2009 POS before October 1st, then IIPS would have pulled in the Spring 2006 version of WEB-250 because that was the only version in the IIPS database when the POS was built.

To prevent this problem from occurring:   Under normal circumstances, courses revised by the Fall CRC will become effective in the fall term of the next year. If college staff wishes to use the newer versions of courses when they first become effective, then college staff should wait until after they have received the Fall CRC numbered memo before building the next year's Fall POS.  By the time the CRC numbered memo is sent out to colleges, all courses would have been added to IIPS and Colleague.

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