Course Tags

Course Tags

Info
This article will be most useful for Concourse admins and academic leaders.

Overview

At many institutions, there are courses across the curriculum that share characteristics, requirements, and policies, such as General Education and Service Learning courses. Course Tags allow institutions to categorize such cross-curricular courses in Concourse by curating and applying Tags beyond standard organizational schema or course metadata. 

To learn about Course Tags, continue reading or watch the video below.

Anatomy of a Course Tag

Course Tags include three components (image below):
  1. Label: User-facing name of the Tag; this name appears in the Advanced Search panel and Info page of individual courses.
  2. External ID: Abbreviation of the Course Tag that aligns with your other systems, like the SIS; for example, DE for Dual Enrollment. The external ID is only visible to System Admins and individuals who construct feeds.
  3. Definition: Optional explanation of the Course Tag; the definition is only visible to System Admins and individuals who construct feeds.
Tags applied to an individual course on the Info page; tags include First-Year Experience and General Education

To learn more about managing Course Tags, continue reading this article or check out the Managing Course Tags help article.

Using Course Tags for System Data Management

Course Tags are created and managed at the system level, which means that Concourse System Administrators determine the list of Course Tags that can be set on courses. As a result of this central management, the list of available Course Tags aligns with your other systems and institutional protocols or schema, thus ensuring consistency of system data. System Admins exclusively manage the tag list, with the ability to create, delete, and update Course Tag labels, external IDs, and definitions. System and Domain  Administrators can add predefined tags to courses, both templates and non-templates alike. 

There is no limit to the number of Course Tags that exist in a Concourse system, and multiple tags can be assigned to a syllabus as needed. There are many ways to manage and set Course Tags:
  1. Manually create, update, and delete Tags at the system level in the Admin area of the Concourse environment. 
  2. Create or update Tags at the system level via feed. 
  3. Manually set Tags on individual courses in Course Settings.
  4. Manually set Tags for syllabus sets en masse in the Tools area of the Concourse environment.
  5. Set Tags for syllabus sets via feed.
For full instructions on these processes, see the Managing Course Tags and Setting Course Tags help articles.

Course Tags can also be used to facilitate faster and more targeted reporting for System Admins and Domain Users. For example, if all General Education courses must include a specific course policy statement, a Domain Reporter can generate an Item Report for all courses tagged as General Education to search for inclusion of the required language. Instead of generating multiple Item Reports for different departments or subject areas, the Domain Reporter can generate one Item Report that includes all applicable courses regardless of their assigned domains. As a result, Course Tags can expedite your institution’s quality assurance and completion reporting processes.

See the Reporting on Course Tags help article for more information about reporting options.

Course Tags and the End User Experience

In addition to highlighting specific characteristics of syllabi, Course Tags improve the search experience for end users. End users like advisers and students can search by a single Course Tag to find syllabi across the curriculum that meet that parameter. For example, students needing to take a General Education elective could search for current syllabi tagged as General Education to help them decide how to register for courses for the upcoming term.

Course Tags are not included in the metadata of courses (syllabus header), but they are visible to all users in the Info page of each syllabus. If end users would like to know all the different Course Tags that are applied to a given course, they can do so by following these steps:
  1. View a syllabus
  2. Select Info in the syllabus navigation menu
  3. At the bottom of the General Information pane, find a list of Course Tags applied to the course (image below).
The Manage Tags page includes space to create a new tag; it features two existing tags (Clinical and Dual Enrollment) and the option to update or delete them.

Best Practices and Recommendations

Like all data management processes in your Concourse system, there are many factors to consider when implementing Course Tags. We encourage you to consult with academic and IT stakeholders when determining the best course of action for using Course Tags in your Concourse system. In addition, keep the following best practices in mind:
  1. Tag Labels are visible to instructors, students, other end users, and individuals using public search. As a result, Tag labels should be intuitive to end users without explanation (e.g., First-Year Experience is more readily apparent than FYE.).
  2. Tag External IDs should match identifiers as they appear in other systems to streamline the Tag creation and setting process via feed. In other words, if your SIS identifies OER courses as 123, then the External ID for the OER Tag should be 123. External IDs are not visible to end users, so there is little need to worry about misunderstanding this data field.
  3. While there isn’t a limit to the number of Tags that can exist in your Concourse system, we recommend curating Tags intentionally so that setting and reporting upon Tags is more efficient for Domain Users. In other words, create only Tags that are meaningful for your users or that will expedite current processes.
  4. Once Course Tags are implemented in your system, remember to update training for Domain Admins so they feel more comfortable setting Tags on courses. You may also want to update internal training on Concourse Advanced Search to socialize searching by Course Tags to end users.
For step-by-step instructions on using Course Tags in your system, see the Managing Course Tags, Reporting on Course Tags, and Setting Course Tags help articles. Have questions about Course Tags? Email support@campusconcourse.com to get help.


    • Related Articles

    • Setting Course Tags

      This article will be most useful for Concourse admins, domain administrators, and template managers. Overview Course Tags are designations within your system that identify courses sharing similar characteristics, requirements, or policies, such as ...

    • Reporting on Course Tags

      This article will be most useful for Concourse admins. Overview Course Tags are a feature that allow you to categorize Concourse syllabi beyond their domain, subject area, or other course metadata. With Course Tags, courses in your system across the ...

    • Managing Course Tags

      This article will be most useful for Concourse admins. Overview Course Tags are system-level identifiers that can be used to categorize courses beyond organizational markers such as department or subject. Each institution determines the full list of ...

    • Access Concourse User Meeting Recordings

      This article will be most useful for Concourse admins. Overview Concourse hosts User Meetings every Spring, Summer, and Fall. These meetings include updates about Team Concourse, product development, and training materials. Any Concourse user is ...

    • Opening Concourse in a New Window (Canvas)

      This article will be most useful for IT/IS staff and Canvas admins. Overview If your institution uses Canvas LMS and has integrated Concourse via LTI 1.3, you may have noticed an uptick in “ID token: State not found” errors. This error means that the ...