eBECAS v10 Classing
Index
The purpose of this documentation is to provide assistance in the allocation of students to classes in eBECAS. This then enables you to print class rolls, store student results (grades), entering student absences and calculation of attendance.
eBECAS Classing enables you to:
- View student class history and simply allocate classes and view student age, gender, country of origin and nationality
- Classing automatically generates class lists for attendance marking
- Integrates with web portal for students to view their information
eBECAS supports 2 College types: Language Language Colleges that are based on continual class attendance hours per week and Academic for any non Language College that provides classes based on subjects studied for a period or semester. Each subject is studied for a specified number of hours and weeks or during a semester. Academic courses are targeted for use by University Foundation Programs and Vocational Colleges.
Please note in the setup of eBECAS, the specification of a Language or Academic Course is vital and a basic building block.
Language Classing
Setting up Classing - Faculties, Courses and sessions
A faculty in eBECAS is a grouping of courses. We define each faculty as either type Language or Academic. Each faculty has specified the faculty week holidays for all courses in the faculty. Go to eBECAS Main - Utilities - Faculties.
Holidays specified for the faculty
Each course is created and identified as belonging to a faculty. This means when the student offer or enrolment is added, and the start date is specified, the length of the course together with the faculty holidays enable the end date to be calculated. To see the courses belonging to a faculty, go to eBECAS Main - Utilities - Courses.
Each course has the sessions the student undertaking the course will attend a class. For example for a Full time General English course, the student is expected to attend two classes during the AM and PM sessions.
Sessions are setup by the College also. Go to eBECAS Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - Language - Sessions. You can either display and use 4 or 8 sessions. A sessions can be used to reflect a time period in the day or what is studied. In the setup I am demonstrating here, we have 4 sessions AM, PM, Options and Private. A part time Course may only have the Am session selected. A fulltime Course could have the AM and PM sessions selected.
An alternate way to setup sessions is to use the sessions as the indicating what is taught in the class. The class name then would include the time. For example the sessions could be named Core, writing, reading, listening, speaking, options and activities.
General English levels are used both by Classes and for a general overal English level for students. This enables classes to quickly find the appropriate Students for the Class level for allocation. English levels are setup by the College and can be either Beginner, Beginner-Intermediate, Intermediate, Intermediate-Advanced, Advanced, or can use the more common numbering system shown below. To tailor these levels for your College, go to eBECAS Main - Utilities - Setup Configuration - Language - Levels.
Classes
To view the allocation of current students to Language Classes for a session go to eBECAS Main - Classes - Language Classes. While the class names should not change, the students allocated and attending classes for the searched date will. The class name is shown (this should NOT include the teachers name or reference the class level which are already identified for the class. For the class is the level, room, teacher and teacher level (teacher level is used to nominate teacher experience and calculate overall College teacher experience). You can also see the total number of students allocated to each class, and total students for that week. We provide a line that displays students undertaking a course that should be allocated to a class for that session, but have not been allocated yet.
From the above screen you can display the students in a class by selecting the class (such as 1A RED) and then press the option Class - Allocation. Then the students allocated to that class will be displayed:
To allocate the ** Not Assigned ** students to a class select the line ** Not Assigned ** and then press the option Class - Allocation. You will see the details of students who are waiting to be placed in a class.
You can display the Student enrolments details including the student class history. When you are ready to assign the student to a class, highlight the student and then selecting from the Tasks - Assign Class. Now highlight the class you want to place the student in, and press Select
If you press Search again on Screen 1.4 which displays the ** Not Assigned ** students, this will update the list and you will see the student has been removed from the class.
You can also go back to Screen 4.7 which displays the Classes, and you will see that the class number has been updated. You can highlight the class and display those students allocated to the class which includes the newly placed student.
To change the class for students already allocated to a class, you do not need to remove the student from hte existing class assignment. All you need to do is go to the class the students are in, and assign then to a new class. You can also highlight and select multiple students from one class to be assigned to a new class. Multi-select works the same way in all Ms Windows products. Hold down the alt key and then with the alt key pressed, click on multiple students. I have selected 3 students to transfer.
Now by pressing assign class at once you can transfer 3 students.
Highlight the class, and then press select, the students are placed directly in the new class.
Every time a student is placed in a new class for a session, history is automatically recorded. The current class a student is placed can be seen from the Enrolment Details (screen 1.3) Class tab.
Previous Class history can be seen from the Classes - View History button.
Language Attendance
The building blocks for attendance need to be setup in eBECAS. The calculation is based on the course the student is studying. The enrolment lists the course, and the Course specifies the hours per week the student needs to attend while studying the course. Go to eBECAS Main - Utilities - Course.
The number of hours is then calculated for the student enrolment from the number of hours per week the student is in attendance (for the above course 25 hours) times the number of weeks of the student's enrolment. So for the above course if the student is studying a course for 10 weeks, then the student for 100% attendance needs to be in attendance for 10 x 25 hours = 250 hours.
In eBECAS we enter absenses, which are counted in the calculation for attendance. We encourage Colleges to print and mark attendance on class rolls. Staff can then regularly (Friday) enter the student's absences by class. To enter the absence by Class go to eBECAS Main - Classes - Language Classes. Select the week starting date of a Monday, select the Session and Location, and press search. The classes are displayed.
Highlight the Class and press the Class - Absence button on the left panel from this screen.
The Language Class Absense Entry form is displayed, where the absent hours (including a decimal place), can be entered for each class for the day for students in that class and session.
After the absences for the stduents in the class are entered, by pressing ok, the hours of absence are posted to the student enrolment, and attendance calculation is updated. We will check what is entered by going to the student enrolment.
This shows that the hours of absence have been updated into the student enrolment details. Alternatively absence can be entered enrolment by enrolment (a tedious method) but and option if the absence needs to be annotated, or the not counted for attendance flag changed (e.g. doctor's certificate).
Either way, absence entered by student enrolment or in bulk by class, the attendance is calculated and updated.
eBECAS calculates attendance 2 ways. The standard calculation we call overall attendance. The other attendance calculation we call current attendance. The current attendance should be used to get an idea of what the overall attendance level would be if the current level of attendance continues throughout the students course.
Current and Overall attendance percentage calculation example - If a student is doing a 10 week course and was absent for the second week, then as of the end of week 2 the current attendance is 50%, and the overall attendance is 90%.
Language Rolls
Once Stdeunts are allocated to a class, then the Roll can be printed to mark attendance. We have several reports and well as the option to create your own report from Ms Excel.
eBECAS Reports - Classes - Language - Class Roll (Attendance) The report options are:
These option in preview display:
This report is designed to be annotated by the teacher in the classroom and collected at the end of the week and absences entered into eBECAS to update the attendance calculations.
An alternate report to use is eBECAS Reports - Classes - Language - Class Register. The report provides space at the bottom to larger teacher notes.
So student know what classes to attend for the different sessions, we have provided a Noticeboard Roll eBECAS Reports - Classes - langaueg - Stuent Class List (Noticeboard). This report can also be exported to Ms Excel so you can tailor the layout.
Academic Classing
eBECAS can be used by Colleges for Foundation, University and Vocational based courses. The following will illustrate the setup and allocation of Vocational based courses and classes in the Australian situation.
Colleges can buy Training Packages. Examples of the packagaes available can be found at www.ntis.gov.au for example a training package is available with the title - Hospitality Training Package - and code THH02
There are many qualifications at several levels. Certificate 1 has two qualifications: Certificate 1 in Hospitality (Operations) code THH11002 and Certificate 1 in Hospitality (Kitchen Operations) code THH11102.
The Certificate 1 in Hospitality (Operations) has 7 units. 5 core and 2 elective. The core units are: THHCOR01B Work with colleagues and customers, THHCOR02B Work in a socially diverse environment, THHCOR03B Follow health, safety and security procedures, THHCOR01B Follow workplace hygiene procedures and THHCO01B Develop and update hospitality industry knowledge. Each unit has performance criteria and key competencies.
Academic Units / Modules
The units need to be added as Modules in eBecas. Go to Main - Utilities - Modules.
Each unit can be defined with the total hours and length in weeks this unit will be taught.
Academic Assessment / Competencies
You can optionally and additionally define and store the Assessment items for the unit, in this use, the competencies for the unit.
To store an assessment item of type competency, you need add this type, go to Main - Utility - Setup Configuration, Academic - Assessment Types.
Now going back to the Main - Utilities - Modules enables you to optionally enter the assessment items (competencies) for the module / unit.
Academic Courses
To specify a course go to Utilities - Courses. You can search, display and add a new course.
You can specify the course code, faculty, course name and display name, number of hours per week (if not specifying module hours), course length, cost, cricos code and cricos name.
Details about the course can be listed under the notes tab, billing rates are designed for weekly course rates so would be not used in this circumstance, price books are used for weekly course rates with break points for different countries.
Academic Course Modules
Academic courses can also have the modules that need to be studied for the course defined. The modules tab enables you to add / define the CORE modules and optionally elective modules (units) for the students studying this course.
After defining the modules in the course, when you add a new student enrolment and specify this course as being studied, the student enrolment will have these modules (units) listed as waiting for the student to study. It is suggested that electives be added to the Enrolment Details following and interview with the student.
Student Enrolment Modules
When a student is enrolled in an academic course, the modules are imported for the student enrolment from the course modules definition. The simpliest display of the modules the student is/has studied is under the Enrolment Details screen 1.3 Results tab. The modules are listed in three groups by status: Not Studied, Class Assigned and Completed.
Notice that we are displaying the Results in this tab. While we can display the classes under the Class tab, the classes provide a lot more details including room, day / date / times / period.
Academic Class Scheduling
Once the students are enrolled, and have the modules (units) specified that need to be studied, we need to schedule classes. Allocating academic classes is made from Main - Classes - Academic Classes.
Academic Class Details
A class is a module / unit studied for a period of time. A class can be simply defined as below as a lecture in Room 203, and runs during the period 30/04/2007 to 04/05/2007. The start date is specified, and the end date is calculated from the module length.
We also provide the option to specify what day or days the class runs, the time period for those days and you can also specify the lecture, tutorial, examination, excursion or other events the student should attend for that class.
We also provide for alternate "sessions" the student can attend. This is where the same class may be run on several days, where the student can attend either a lecture on for example a Monday 10-11am or the same lecture on Wednesday from 3-4pm. The classes can be a combination of attendances, or a specification of days and times.
Academic Class Allocation
The classes and number of students in each class are displayed on Screen 4.0
Students can be assigned/added to the class by pressing Allocation option while highlighting the class. The students already assigned to the class are displayed. You can also export this list of students to Ms Excel.
You can add students to the class by pressing the new button, and a search screen is displayed which lists the students who have not studied this particular module (unit) and is scheduled to study this module. Details about the students listed in the search can be displayed and sorted so that you can select the most appropriate students for allocation.
Academic Class Absence Entry
From the Academic Timetable search screen 4.0 for an existing class you can enter absences by class.
Academic Class Result Entry
From the Academic Timetable search screen 4.0 for an existing class you can enter results and print by class.
