Multi-Item: Snippets Report

Multi-Item: Snippets Report

This article will be most useful for academic administrators, instructors, and Concourse admins.

Overview

The Multi-item: Snippets Report (Snippets) is a feature that allows users to examine multiple categories of syllabus content simultaneously. It displays visualizations of how items actually appear in a set of syllabi in the form of snapshots or “snippets.” This feature is useful for reviewing content in specific item categories for small sets of syllabi when performing an audit, compliance review, or institutional research. Snippets renders content exactly as it appears in its respective syllabi. The presentation of content in the original syllabus is preserved so the user can gain a fuller picture of content based on its context and formatting. For users who need to compare content across multiple item categories for large sets of syllabi, the Multi-item: Tabular Report is the recommended feature to use. 

Before You Begin

Before you start using Snippets in your Concourse system, you should be aware of the following:
  1. If the main navigation is displayed to users, then any user who can access the Report Center is able to generate Snippets.
  2. When an item category is selected for inclusion in Snippets, not only will the top-level item be included–so will its sub-items. For example, if Contact Information is selected, then its sub-items, Contact Entry and Office Hours, will also be displayed in the Snippets. As a result, Snippets containing many sub-items may become quite lengthy.
  3. Users cannot generate Snippets just for sub-items. If an item category is selected, all content in that item category will be included in the report.
  4. Comments are not displayed in Snippets view. If users would like to access comments, they must do so on each syllabus individually.
  5. Users may toggle to the Tabular view of the report by selecting the Tabular View link in the upper-right corner of the Snippets page.
The Tabular View button on the Snippets Report page
With these notes in mind, let’s generate a set of Snippets.

Generating Snippets

To locate Snippets, select Reports in the main navigation bar. In the Reports Center, locate the first set of reports, Content Reports. Select View> in the Multi-item snippets panel. To generate a set of Snippets:
  1. Select the item categories that you wish to include in Snippets and then Next.
  2. On the following page, enter criteria for the courses/syllabi to be included in the Snippets results and then Search.
    1. For more precise results, select +Advanced to reveal more search parameters.
    2. You can narrow your search by subject, domain, session/year, delivery method, and more.
  3. In the Results pane on the right side of the screen, select the syllabi to include in the Snippets. Either:
    1. select the syllabi manually by checking the checkbox to the left of the syllabus title and then choosing Selected Results at the bottom of the page, or
    2. scroll to the bottom of the page and choose All Results to generate snippets from all syllabi that match your search criteria.
  4. On the resulting page, an excerpt from each syllabus in your search that contains the categories you selected will be displayed.
Example of Snippets view showing snippets from two syllabi

Users who would like to access an entire syllabus that is included in the Snippets view may select Expand to access that syllabus in the same window. Snippets may be downloaded or printed as a single PDF using the native browser printing functionality.

Blank or Empty Snippets

Users are able to select any item category and syllabi for inclusion in Snippets, regardless of their group and domain permissions. If the user does not have permission to view an item or a syllabus or if the content does not exist, the Snippet will not display the selected content. Snippets can only be displayed if two conditions are met:
  1. The item category has been added to the selected syllabus. If the item has not been added to a syllabus in the set, the display of that syllabus Snippet will not include the item category. 
    1. If the item category was added to the syllabus but does not contain content, the Snippet will only display the item header.
    2. If other items are included in the Snippets parameters and those items have been added to the syllabus, the other items will appear in the syllabus’s Snippet.
  2. The user generating the Snippets has permission to view the selected item on the selected syllabus. If the user’s group permissions prevent them from viewing the item(s), then it will not display. 
Let’s consider a scenario that would lead to blank Snippets.
  1. A user is part of the Assistants group and attempts to generate Snippets of Course Descriptions and Meeting Times for syllabi in the School of Business.
  2. Assistants are not able to view Course Description but can view Meeting Times on syllabi.
  3. The user selects all ACCT syllabi for Fall 2024. On the syllabi selected, that user would not be able to view Course Descriptions in the Snippets, but Meeting Times would be displayed.
  4. For syllabi that do not have Meeting Times enabled, the syllabus Snippets would be blank (displayed as blank white boxes).

Best Practices and Recommendations

Keep these final recommendations in mind before you start generating your own Snippets.
  1. Snippets works best for smaller sets of syllabi. If a user needs to compare content from multiple item categories on a larger set of syllabi, they should use the Multi-item: Tabular Report.
  2. If users need to download a CSV file of the generated Snippets (to share with other stakeholders, for example), they can do so from the Multi-item: Tabular Report interface.
  3. Review group permissions in your Concourse system to ensure that anyone generating a Snippets report can view and/or edit only approved item categories.
Check out our help article on the Multi-item: Tabular Report for more information about the data table view of this report, which is more useful for larger syllabus sets.

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