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Sections
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| The importing of Section data or subject data is essential for a variety of functions within your Trac system. Importing Course enrollment information, registration records, and even grades or progress reports can potentially add meaning to data that is being collected.
Course enrollment can also be highly beneficial in regards to Advising sessions, Tutoring consultations, the Log in / Log out process, Scheduling process, and Reporting capabilities. Course enrollment data can make your login process more efficient by automatically populating students’ current enrollment information as they are logging in. When a student is searching for an Availability to book an Appointment, his/her section data can automatically load into the subject field, streamlining the setup and configuration processes, and ultimately making searches more efficient and timely. Consultants can host sessions based upon subject or section, such as Group workshops or Supplemental Instruction meetings, and conversely, students can find sessions based upon subject. Reports can be generated based on section data. Whether a report aims to organize visits by a specific course, or compare grades of students who have received tutoring to those who have not, adding section data to your Trac system is highly recommended.
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Importing Course Enrollment Data
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| Students’ course information may also be Imported into your Trac system from your Student Information System. Whether your campus uses Banner, Datatel, Peoplesoft, or even a homegrown system, we can extract data from your Student Information System and Import the appropriate data into your Trac system. This process can be run on a manual or automated basis.
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Generic Sections
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| After both student and course enrollment data are entered, it is in some situations beneficial to create what we call a “generic” section. For example, when our student Sam Smith logs in to a center and is selecting a Subject for his visit, a list of courses that Sam is currently enrolled in (typically 4 - 6 courses) can be displayed in the Subject drop down menu, rather than a complete list of all available courses. However, if Sam is looking for general Writing help in preparation for a Graduate School Essay Application, this need cannot be expressed in his current list of courses. In this situation, we have the option of adding a Generic Section, perhaps entitled “Graduate Prep”, that would be available to ALL students (enrollment NOT required), so that Sam can select a more accurate subject for his visit. You might also create sections that are for generic tutoring subjects that you would like to offer as options to all students, such as Other, Personal, Study Skills, Non-Course Related, etc.
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Activating Sections
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| Once your section/course information has been entered either manually or via the import process, we will need to activate Sections for your Subcenters, or in other words, we will need to indicate which courses will be available at which Subcenters.
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Changing Semesters
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| Because import files contain student registrations specific to a term, the timing between changing your Term Code and importing your registrations is crucial. If you import the next semester's data before you change the term code, then all of the previous semester's courses will be marked as Inactive AND all of the next semester's courses will be marked Inactive. Even if your previous term is not over and you have not changed the term code in the preferences, the courses are now Inactive and students will not be able to visit for the courses. Even if your next term has started, the courses will be marked Inactive if you have not changed the term code in the preferences. Make sure to change your Term code FIRST, and then run your Import.
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Activating Sections for a New Term
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| At the end of the semester, there are a few steps to transition to the new semester. Your import files include course registrations for specific terms. Your Trac system identifies the active term to specify which course registrations are active. The tutors' specialties are related to sections from the previous term and need to be converted to sections for the new term.
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Consultant Section Specialties
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| Consultant specialties contains the sections that the consultant specializes in.
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Copy Specialties Utility
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| The Copy Specialties Utility allows you to copy the same sections from one term to another.
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