Process: Apply an Outcome to a Unit or Subject

The ability to manage a student’s units is the bread and butter of any SMS (Student Management System). In this article, we will go through the process of resulting a student’s unit with an outcome.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Navigating to the Student's Enrolment
• Resulting the Unit
• Updating Units in Bulk
• Applying an Outcome to a Subject
• Calculating A Grade Point Average
  •  Additional Reading

Navigating to the Student's Enrolment

Start by finding the party profile of the student. There are a few ways that you can achieve this, one of the easier ways is to search for them via the search bar at the top right of the page.

This will either bring you directly to the student’s party profile OR list a selection of parties that appear to match your entered search details. If this is the case, simply click on the specific party profile from the list to view their party profile.

On the left side of the party profile page, click on the enrolment that you would like to make changes to.

From here, hover over the More tab and click on Units.

Resulting the Unit

You should be on the Units page for the student’s enrolment, there will be a list of units that the student is enrolled in. Click on the Edit button to bring up the editing options.

The fields against each unit should now be editable, this includes the Outcome field. Go to the outcome field for the unit and click on the dropdown menu. 

From here, you can select the specific outcome that you would like to assign to the unit.

Once you have applied the desired outcome, click on the Save button.

The unit will now have an outcome applied.

Updating Units in Bulk

You can also apply outcomes to units in bulk by clicking on the Bulk Actions button, select the Outcome & Assessment Date option.

This will bring up a dropdown menu and a date field. Select an Outcome from the dropdown menu and an End Date from the date field. 

Check the box next to each unit that you would like to apply the changes to and click on the Apply button. 

Each unit will now have the outcome applied. 

Applying an Outcome to a Subject

Applying an outcome to a Subject (also referred to as a Unit of Study) is a very similar process to applying one to a unit. 

Go to the enrolment with the subjects, hover over the More tab and click on Units of Study. 

This will bring up all the subjects that the student is enrolled in, click on the Edit button to change their outcomes. 

Like units, click on the dropdown menu next to the subject and select the outcome that you would like to apply. 

Click on Save once you have applied the desired outcome.

The subject will now have an outcome applied.

Calculating A Grade Point Average

A Grade Point Average is a numerical calculation of the mean grades received over a student's enrolment.

It is normally calculated by multiplying the credit points achieved by the grade point awarded, and then dividing that by the sum of total credit points. There are multiple Grade Point Average scales used within the Australian education industry.

A Grade Point Average will normally involve assigning a numerical value against each possible grade, including fail grades and grades from any repeated units. Outcomes that are equivalent to a failed grade normally receive a 0 value for the grade point.

Within the system:

• Grade point average (GPA) calculations only apply to Units of Study
• The grade point value is defined on the assigned academic outcome
• When an outcome type does not have a grade point then that unit is excluded from the calculation.
• Grade points are stored as floats in the database layer
• The grade point calculation returns a decimal The equation for calculating grade point averages (GPA)
  • SUM (outcome grade point * unit of study point) / SUM (unit of study point)