Setting Course Tags

Setting Course Tags

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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 General Education or Service Learning courses. Course Tags can be applied to courses across domains and subject areas to improve searching for end users and reporting for administrators. Course Tags can be applied to individual courses or to large sets of courses simultaneously. 
Alert
Course Tags that are applied to templates carry over in the cloning process. For example, if a course template has the General Education Course Tag applied, then section syllabi cloned from the template will also have the General Education Course Tag applied.
Continue reading or watch the video below to learn more about setting Course Tags.


Before You Begin

Course Tags must exist in the system before they can be applied to courses. If a Course Tag has not been created in your system, then it will not appear as a Tag option in the interface and Apply Tag feed rows that reference the non-existent Tag will return errors. Only System Administrators can create Course Tags at the system level; if a Domain Administrator notices that a Course Tag does not exist in the system yet, they should reach out to the System Admin for assistance. 

After Course Tags have been created in the system, System Admins and Domain Admins can apply tags to template and non-template courses. Multiple Tags can be applied to courses. Once applied, Tags are visible to all users in the Info page of each course. 

With this guidance in mind, you’re ready to start setting Course Tags.

Setting Tags on One Course

Domain Admins can set Course Tags for courses in their assigned domains. System Admins without domain permissions can only set Tags via feed or en masse, not on the course level. Follow the directions below to set Tags on an individual course.
  1. Access the syllabus where Course Tags will be set.
  2. In the syllabus navigation menu, select Settings > Course (see image below).

    The syllabus navigation menu shows Settings dropdown menu opened with Course selected.


  3. In the Optional Information pane, locate the Tags multi-select menu.
  4. To select more than one Tag, hold CTRL and select applicable Tags. To deselect a Tag, hold CTRL and select the Tag to deselect.
  5. When appropriate Tags have been selected, select Save (see image below).

The Tags multi-select menu of the course settings area. Dual Enrollment and General Education Tags are selected.

You may open the Info page to view the Tags that have been applied to the course.

Setting Tags for Many Courses Manually

System and Domain Admins can set tags for multiple courses simultaneously in the interface by setting tags en masse. This process is similar to updating audit trails and group permissions en masse. To set tags en masse, follow the steps below:
  1. In the main navigation menu, select Admin > Tools.
  2. On the Tools page, select Set course tags en masse (see image below).

    The Tools page of the Concourse interface. The Tags area is highlighted in yellow.


  3. Search for the courses for which Tags will be set. Select +Advanced on the search pane to make more search criteria available.
  4. From the Results pane, select the courses for which Tags will be set and then select Selected Results.
  5. If Tags will be set for all courses in the Results pane, select All Results (see image below).

    Search results for courses to set tags on are listed, followed by the option to set tags on selected or all results.


  6. On the Set Tags page, select Set and then Apply or Unapply for each Tag that should be set for the selected courses (see image below).



  7. Select Set Tags at the bottom of the page.
  8. If a warning appears that the change will impact many courses, select OK.
To confirm that Course Tags have been applied to or removed from the selected courses as expected, we recommend that you generate a Tag Utilization Report. For instructions on how to generate this report, see the Reporting on Course Tags help article.

Setting Tags for Many Courses via Feed

Course Tags may be applied to or removed from multiple courses at once via feed. System Admins can process feed files manually, or a member of your IT team can assist with automating this feed. Follow the steps below to create and process an Apply Tag feed manually.
  1. Create a .txt feed file with the header row COURSE_IDENTIFIER|TAG_IDENTIFIER|APPLY.
  2. Create a separate row in the file for each tag to be applied to or removed from a single course. If multiple tags are being set for a single course, there will be multiple rows in the feed file that contain the same Course Identifier.
  3. Enter the External ID of the course for which the Course Tag is being set for the COURSE_IDENTIFIER data field.
  4. Enter the Course Tag’s External ID (abbreviation or code that matches external system) for the TAG_IDENTIFIER data field.
  5. If the Tag is being applied to the course referenced in the row, enter 1 for the APPLY data field; if the Tag is being removed from the course referenced in the row, enter 0 for the APPLY data field.
  6. To process the feed manually, navigate to Admin > Tools > Feed Processing.
  7. For Type, select Apply Tag (see image below).

    The feed processing page in the Concourse interface is shown with the feed dropdown menu showing Apply Tag as the selection.


  8. Select File and choose the .txt feed file to upload from your device.
  9. Select Process to run the feed.
As with processing any feed, review the Output Report to ensure that Tags are set for courses as expected. If an error is identified in the Output Report, refer to the error line in the feed file to confirm the External IDs for the course and Course Tag are correct and attempt to process the feed again. An example Apply Tag feed can be found at the bottom of this article for reference.

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 approach for setting Course Tags in your Concourse system. In addition, keep the following best practices in mind:
  1. Coordinate with academic and IT stakeholders at your institution to determine the timeline for Tag creation and applicable. Remember that Tags can’t be applied to courses if they haven’t been created in your system yet.
  2. Apply Tags intentionally with the goal of improving search and reporting. In other words, if a Course Tag would apply to the majority of your courses, does applying the Tag actually help narrow search results in a meaningful way? If the answer is “no,” then you may be better off not using the Tag.
  3. Generate a Tag Utilization Report or another Concourse report that contains course metadata if you want to confirm the consistency and uniformity of Tag application in your system.
  4. Setting Course Tags does not change the last modified date of a course; likewise, applying or unapplying Tags to a course is not recorded in the course’s Change Log. If your institution needs to track when course tags were added to or removed from courses for archival or reporting purposes, we recommend that you save tag feed files externally or generate reports that list applied course tags so that you have a record of application dates.
For more information, see the Course Tags, Managing Course Tags, and Reporting on Course Tags help articles. Need help setting Course Tags? Email support@campusconcourse.com to request assistance.


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