Business Rules for Student Terms and Enrollments

Launching the Enrollment Process

A new student record is made in the Student Table when the enrollment form has been approved. The status of all new student records in the SIS student table is "planned." The start_date field is the student's first day of class. The start_date may change after a new student record has been created as students sometimes start earlier or later than originally planned.  However, once the student status has been changed to "active", the start date may no longer change.  Also, if the start date has passed, it will be assumed that it will not longer change.

Creating a Set of Student Term Records

A start date and the student's start grade level is all that is required to make the student term records.  The grade level determines the student's grade span.  Student term records are created for the student through the end of the grade_span. Student term records are created with new student record is created and these two essential fields are not empty. 

If a new student record is made that does not have a start date or does not have a current grade level, the student records will not be made automatically.  For this reason, the UI provides the user a manual option to create student term records.

Starting Mid-Grade Span

Many students will start school in the middle of a term but also in the middle of a grade span.  In this case, student term records are only made for current and future terms, they are not made for past terms in the grade span that a student was not in attendance.

Selecting a Plan

When the student status is either "planned" or "active", the student's program (plan) can be selected. Making the decision on what plan to assign to the student in is an important process, it involves discussions with the student and family as well as interpretation of assessment tests that may be taken prior to first day of school, or in the first few days of active school participation. 

Enrollment Records are created for the duration of the plan, not just fo the next term.  So if a student is assigned plan that spans two academic years, the enrollment records are planned out for the next two years, and there are no decisions to be made on classes over this time period.

Based on the enrollment records, the PEMS integration with Moodle will auto-enroll the student in the Moodle courses.  The student will not be enrolled in Moodle courses until the beginning of the term.   Enrollment records in the PEMS are created for the full duration of the plan, however, Moodle course enrollment is only term by term.

Mid Plan Enrollment

Each plan specifies a starting grade level and a starting term.  So a student who joins the school late in the school year may be assigned a plan that has started in the previous term or even the previous year.  These students will not complete the full plan as they will start the plan mid-way through.  We do not want to create enrollment records for terms the student never attended at the school.

PEMS creates enrollment records according to the template, but skips enrollments that required for past terms.  Enrollment records are created only for the current term and future terms of the plan.

Triggering the Plan

When the student record is created, all the student terms are created until the end of the grade span.  Then, when the program plan is selected, the enrollment records are automatically created.  

Changing The Plan Prior to Start Date

Changing the plan prior to start date is straight forward, all the previous plan's enrollment records are deleted and the new plan's enrollment records are created.

Changing plans very shortly after courses started

A student may start the plan and decide the courses are not at all appropriate.  A new plan must be selected.  In a user-determined time frame, like less than two weeks for example.  The plan may be changed, causing all related enrollment records to be deleted, and all corresponding Moodle Course enrollments  to be deleted, and starting over with a new plan, new enrollment records and new Moodle course enrollments.  None of the student's previous work will be saved or credit given.  The user interface should require a reason for a plan being changed so soon after the student started the plan.

note: whenever there is a plan change, the plan change begin and end dates (how long the student was enrolled in that plan) is stored so that plan history may be viewed.

Changing plans after courses started and some completed

Once the courses have been started, changing plans is more complicated since the the student will have completed some of the plan's courses. but not others.  So enrollment records that have not yet started will be deleted, but enrollment records the student has already completed will not be deleted.