Better Handling of Add/Drop Combinations in the Same Course
A long-standing problem in the processing of enrollment data from SIS has been the ordering of data based on the exact date and time a student added or dropped a course in SIS. This normally does not affect the vast majority of students. However, for courses where multiple sections of a course use the same CoursePlus site, a student who dropped one section of the course but then added the other section of the course could end up having the DROP processed after the ADD in CoursePlus. If a student added and dropped the same section of the same course, this could sometimes result in a similar problem. This problem would result in the student constantly being dropped from the course in CoursePlus, even though the student was registered for the course in SIS. This is because the data from SIS lacked an original transaction date that could be used for sorting and ensuring that ADDs were processed after DROPs.
We have worked these past few months with the SIS team to get the information we need to prevent the issue where a student drops one section of a class and adds the other section (or re-adds the same section), but then has the DROP processed after the ADD in CoursePlus. The SIS team now provides us with the exact date and time on which an add or drop is created in SIS. This gives us the ability to ensure that records for courses that have multiple sections using a single CoursePlus site are always processed in the correct order.
We know that this will avoid problems we see at the start of every term with students switching between .01 and .02 sections of a course. Anything that reduces problems with accessing CoursePlus sites is always a win for the CoursePlus team!