Synopsis
At your institution, syllabus content may originate from a variety of platforms, such as the Student Information System (SIS), institutional websites, or shared drives. If your institution synchronizes this data in Concourse to be part of your syllabus management process, then the data effectively exists in two places and, as a result, must be managed in both locations to ensure accuracy of presentation for end users and accuracy of reporting for external purposes. Some institutions prefer to migrate their syllabus data into Concourse and treat Concourse as the source of truth for all syllabus data moving forward so that the data only has to be managed in one location. As a result of this data migration, all syllabus data exists in one location and is easier to access, modify, and report upon; overall, this part of your data management process becomes less time-consuming and less susceptible to error.
Since content for different syllabus items may originate from different external platforms, Concourse provides multiple options to migrate data. It may be possible to migrate some data with Item Feeds, while other data might require manual input. There’s no one right way to migrate your data, and so you may use more than one of the approaches shared below. Continue reading to learn more about the available options.
Key Terms
- Migration: the process of permanently moving data from one system to another, with the new system becoming the source of truth. Data that is migrated to Concourse is managed in Concourse thereafter.
- Synchronization: the process of managing an external system as a source of truth and using feeds to send accurate copies of that information to Concourse. In this process, data simultaneously exists in both tools.
- Course: the artifact in Concourse that contains the syllabus.
- Syllabus: The main resource in a course in Concourse; the syllabus can be either structured or unstructured and contains course content, language, and policies.
- Item: a category of related content in a syllabus; there are twelve default items in a Concourse syllabus, including Meeting Times, Contact Information, Description, Objectives, Outcomes, Materials, Deliverables, Evaluation, Course Policies, Institutional Policies, Additional Items, and Schedule.
- Subitem: a lower-level or child item that can be added to a syllabus in multiples once the parent item has been added (e.g., Textbook is a subitem of Materials); subitems cannot be populated or updated with item feeds, but subitems are copied when a user processes a copy feed of an item containing subitems.
- Source of truth: a centralized, authoritative repository or system that holds the most accurate and reliable data for your institution; in structured Concourse systems, we identify the source of truth per item, not for the syllabus as a whole.
- SIS: Student Information System; a software platform used to store data about courses and course offerings at your institution. Some SIS platforms include Banner, Ellucian, and Jenzabar.
- Feed: a data file that is used to migrate information from external systems to Concourse; feeds can be automated or processed manually.
- Syllabus Content (Item) Feeds: feeds used to create and update syllabus items; each syllabus item in your Concourse system has a designated Item Feed that can be used to populate the item.
Important to this Decision
Before making decisions about how your institution uses Concourse, you should consider how stakeholders, systems, timelines, and other factors are impacted. Review the important elements below to be better prepared to make changes to your Concourse configuration or implementation.
Prior to making this decision, you should consult your institution’s Registrar, SIS admin, admins of external systems where syllabus data is stored, staff from Academic Affairs, personnel whose work is related to accreditation or compliance, and any other stakeholders whose work is related to syllabus or curriculum development.
If you opt to migrate data into Concourse, then Concourse is the place where that data will be managed moving forward. It’s important to consider how data management processes and personnel at your institution will be impacted by this change. If managing data in Concourse is not the most expedient option for your institution, if the available data is not complete or accurate, or if you do not have the personnel to support data management in Concourse, it may be better to continue managing data in other platforms and synchronize it into Concourse syllabi.
This decision is typically made during the implementation phase when templates are being developed, but your institution can migrate after deployment as well. Note that migrating data after templates have been developed may lead to conflicting data or data being overwritten. If data is migrated after Concourse is implemented, be careful to assess how existing data categories may be changed by the migrated data.
Your data sources for syllabus content may include the SIS, a catalog tool, internal documentation, shared drives, or other repositories. Migrating data from these sources to Concourse can be accomplished either via Item Feed or Manual Input.
- Syllabus data from the SIS or catalog tool can be formatted and processed in Concourse as an Item Feed. A Concourse System Admin can process the Item Feed manually. Since migration only occurs once, this isn't a feed that needs to be processed regularly on an automated basis.
- Syllabus data in a shared repository, website, or other location that cannot easily be queried to generate a feed file must be entered into syllabi manually.
If your institution uses an unstructured Concourse system (uploaded files as syllabi) and has archives of previous syllabus PDFs, those files can be added to your Concourse system en masse as a bulk upload with assistance from Concourse’s engineers.
If your institution opts to generate and process Item Feed files from the SIS or a catalog tool:
- Data is queried from the external tool to generate a .txt file in the appropriate format. Many system admins use SQL to collect the data and generate feed files.
- Feeds can be processed manually by uploading a correctly-formatted .txt file to Concourse; feeds can also be automated with the use of tools like PowerShell, though this is not a feed that typically requires automation.
If your institution opts to have high-level users manually input syllabus content from another data source:
- Provide guidance to users about what items are to be populated, the syllabi where items are to be populated, and what the standards and expectations are.
- Use Concourse’s Instructor Training Templates to find and adapt step-by-step instructions for editing syllabus items in Concourse to share with manual editors.
- Implement a review process to ensure that data entered manually is accurate, error-free, and otherwise meets expectations.
If your institution would like to pursue bulk uploads of historical syllabus PDFs, email
support@campusconcourse.com to submit the request.
Institutions typically choose to migrate data to Concourse in order to develop a central repository of syllabus content or course data. Storing authoritative syllabus content in Concourse streamlines reporting and supports accreditation and compliance measures; instead of supplying external bodies with data from a conglomeration of sources, the external body is provided Concourse access. Likewise, housing authoritative syllabus content in Concourse supports accurate public presentation of syllabi for legislative compliance (if applicable).
Configuration Options
The most important factor in your institution’s decision-making process about data migration is the availability and quality of existing data in your other systems. If syllabus content is complete and accurate but exists in several other systems, migrating that content to Concourse makes sense to streamline content management and reporting. On the other hand, if the syllabus content or course data available in your external tools is incomplete, not updated, or not easily available to migrate, migrating that data to Concourse may proliferate data gaps. Options for migrating syllabus data include:
- Option A: Opt Not to Migrate Data
- Option B: Migrate Data via Item Feeds
- Option C: Migrate Data via Manual Input
- Option D: Migrate Data via Bulk PDF Uploads
Keep in mind that it is possible to migrate syllabus data in more than one way. For example, you may be able to collect required materials data from an institutional website, format that data into an Item Feed, and then process the Item Feed to populate course templates. Other syllabus content, such as learning objectives, might be stored in other repositories; these repositories may not be as easy to query for automated data processing, and as a result, domain editors could be tasked with manually populating this content on course templates. Regardless of the method you use, data that is migrated into Concourse is thereafter managed in Concourse instead of multiple platforms.
If the choices below don’t fit your needs, reach out to Client Services for assistance.
- Approach: Upon reviewing your existing data, resources, and/or personnel, you might find that migrating data is not the best option after all. If the data in your external tools is incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated, you might consider starting fresh with Concourse. In other words, your institution could populate Concourse templates manually from a variety of sources and manage the data only in Concourse; from that point on, the original sources can be abandoned or archived per your institution’s data management and destruction policies.
- Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that have incomplete or outdated syllabus content stored in external platforms. If your institution’s stored syllabus content requires significant revision to be usable, it may be a better option to generate new syllabus content in Concourse and treat Concourse as the source of truth moving forward.
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Opting Not to Migrate Data: If you opt not to migrate incomplete or inaccurate data, you’ll essentially start from scratch in Concourse to create a definitive collection of course data. This can be beneficial because the new course data will be carefully curated and reviewed for accuracy. If your course data was previously collected in a variety of repositories or if multiple, conflicting versions of course data existed in your institution’s external tools, then leaving these systems behind means that data management will be optimized by making Concourse the source of truth. A disadvantage of choosing not to migrate data is that lots of stakeholders must be consulted and appropriate research must be done to ensure that the content being added to Concourse truly is accurate; depending on the number of stakeholders involved and the variety of source materials available, this investigative and preparation process can be time consuming.
- Effort: This approach does not require additional time or labor in Concourse beyond what is required to generate and maintain syllabus templates. If you opt to populate Concourse with fresh data and treat Concourse as the source of truth moving forward, domain users will need to maintain the data carefully in Concourse.
- Approach: Review the data available in your SIS or other external tool for completeness and accuracy and determine how the available data aligns with syllabus items in Concourse (e.g., which syllabus items will be populated with this data). Work with the administrator of the external tool and your IT personnel to generate Item Feed files that contain the selected content in html format. We recommend that you test out all new feeds in your sandbox before trying them in the production environment. Once content has been added to syllabus templates, this data can be managed in Concourse moving forward.
- Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that have complete, accurate syllabus content stored in a location that is easier to query for feed file generation (e.g., SIS or catalog tool).
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Migrating Data via Item Feeds: The most obvious advantage of migrating course data to Concourse, regardless of method, is that all your syllabus content will be housed in the same tool, therefore optimizing the data management and reporting processes. Migrating data via Item Feeds has the added benefit of ensuring the data in your external systems is added to Concourse exactly as it appears in your external tool, effectively eliminating incidences of human error. Item Feeds also add tremendous amounts of data to your Concourse system nearly instantaneously without significant intervention from your personnel. A downside of migrating data to Concourse via Item Feeds is that special characters included in Item Feeds may be presented in your Concourse system as html; for example, text that includes the phrase “instructor’s discretion” in your external tool may appear in Concourse as “instructor's discretion.” As a result, it’s important to be mindful of this possibility when reviewing syllabus content in Concourse; ensuring that feed files are saved in UTF-8 reduces the likelihood of this presentation occurring. Additionally, only Items can be populated via Item Feed; Subitems must be populated manually.
- Effort: This approach requires minimal time investment. Collecting data from the external tool is a task that the tool administrator should feel comfortable doing; once the data has been collected, it is formatted as an Item Feed file. The Item Feed file can then be manually processed or automated in Concourse. The most time-consuming part of this process is reviewing data in the external tool to ensure accuracy prior to migration.
- Approach: Work with academic leaders to determine where accurate course data is stored at your institution, such as in department shared drives. If this content contains inaccuracies, it’s a good idea to update the content in the source of truth prior to beginning work in Concourse. Next, confirm how existing course data aligns with Concourse syllabus items (e.g., which syllabus items will be populated with this data). Next, designate domain users to edit, audit (if enabled in your system), and review course templates, and train domain users on essential Concourse functionality. Make sure that domain users understand what templates they are responsible for editing, what items they will edit on assigned templates, what the source of truth is for the item, and what the timeline is for completion. Once the editing process is complete, domain auditors and/or reviewers ensure data accuracy. Once content has been added to syllabus templates, this data is managed in Concourse moving forward.
- Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that have complete, accurate syllabus content stored in a location that is not easy to query for feed file generation (e.g., Word documents in shared drives).
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Migrating Data via Manual Input: The most obvious advantage of migrating course data to Concourse, regardless of method, is that all your syllabus content will be housed in the same tool, therefore optimizing the data management and reporting processes. Migrating data via manual input does require significant human intervention, and as a result, it can be time consuming. Manually adding content to Concourse also increases the likelihood of errors occurring (e.g., pasting content to the wrong Item or syllabus). However, users with domain permissions who are responsible for populating syllabus templates will likely become more familiar with Concourse’s functionality and feel a sense of ownership over the tool, which may increase advocacy and adoption across your institution’s faculty population.
- Effort: Manually migrating data to syllabus templates is time-consuming and should be undertaken only if data in external platforms is complete and of good quality but there is not a way to generate Item Feed files of the existing data. Domain users must be trained on how to locate existing content, search for syllabus templates, and populate templates at the right level to avoid overwriting other syllabus content. The manual template population and audit/review processes may take weeks or even months.
- Approach: If your institution’s historical syllabus content exists in complete syllabus files and your institution uses an unstructured Concourse system, you can upload PDFs of past syllabi to Concourse for storage and management. First, collect all files for previous syllabi in a central storage repository. If previous syllabi exist in different file types, convert them to PDFs. Name the PDFs consistently to match their respective course’s course identifier in Concourse. Email support@campusconcourse.com to initiate a bulk upload request. Team Concourse will request information and provide guidance as needed from this point.
- Better For: This option is only available to institutions who use unstructured Concourse systems. In Concourse, PDFs can only be uploaded to courses that support unstructured syllabi (e.g., no templates, no Items to edit). If your institution uses a structured Concourse system, it is not possible to upload syllabus PDFs. If you use a structured Concourse system and PDFs are the source of truth for previous syllabi that must be maintained for archival purposes, syllabus content must be added manually to Concourse or pulled from the PDFs with another tool before the content can be added to Concourse via Item Feed.
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Bulk PDF Uploads: Bulk uploading historical syllabus PDFs to Concourse makes it easier for end users to search for syllabi, therefore supporting curriculum transparency, credit transfer, and reporting purposes. Housing all your syllabi in Concourse allows instructors, students, and public users alike to access your institution’s syllabi, depending on their group permissions. A disadvantage of bulk PDF uploads is that there may be significant preparation effort involved to convert your syllabus files to the right format and name them appropriately. Once the files are transferred to Concourse’s engineering department, the task is added to a queue and may not be addressed immediately if there are more urgent tasks in the queue. In other words, your institution does not control this part of the process.
- Effort: The time and effort involved in this approach is dependent on the state of your existing syllabus files. Syllabus files must be converted to PDFs and must be named to match the course identifier; if your syllabi already exist as PDFs, however, there is less work to do. Once your syllabi are in this format, they can be shared with Concourse’s engineering department to perform a bulk upload. Time estimates for bulk uploads also vary depending on the number of syllabi being uploaded; estimates range from one to three weeks.
Post-Decision Changes
Your institution’s needs may change over time and you may need to make changes to your configuration settings. In other words, the configuration decisions you make during the implementation phase might not be as efficient five or ten years afterward. Review the guidance below to better understand how changing this particular decision may affect your Concourse system or deployment in the future.
If your institution opts to migrate data before syllabus templates have been populated, there is no risk of overwriting data or altering historical syllabi in Concourse. The main concern with data migration during Concourse implementation is reviewing data prior to migrating to ensure that it is accurate, consistent, and complete.
If your institution opts to migrate data after syllabus templates have been populated, there is a risk of overwriting data and/or altering historical syllabi in Concourse. Regardless of methodology, migrating data once your syllabus templates have already been populated requires careful review to prevent accidental data loss. Follow the steps below prior to migrating data from an external system if your Concourse templates already contain content.
- Generate an Item Report for the item whose content is being migrated from the external source. The Item Report should target template syllabi since that’s where the migrated content will be added.
- Compare the content in the Item Report to the content in the external tool. If differences exist between content in the external tool and content in Concourse, you should create a bulk download of syllabus templates to maintain a record of previous content prior to migrating data from the external tool.
- Generate and process an Item Feed to add the content from the external tool to Concourse. The Item Feed will overwrite existing data with the data from the external tool.
- Once the data has been successfully migrated to Concourse, designated domain users can manage the data in Concourse without having to access another tool.
Before making a decision about migrating data, you should be familiar with some related issues and contexts. See the following articles for more information:
- Points to Consider Regarding Migrating Data to Concourse
- If you opt not to migrate data to Concourse but to continually synchronize data into Concourse from another platform, consider your Configuration Options: Data Sources.
Tell Us About Your Experience
Did this article answer your question? If you made a decision like this for your Concourse instance, let us know how it turned out. If we missed something in this article or if you have a question that isn’t addressed in our Knowledge Base, let us know how we can help by reaching out to
support@campusconcourse.com.