New course numbers now available on ACES
Jul 20 2011, Written by Melissa Dalis in News, 2 Comments
Either I just got a lot smarter and am suddenly taking insanely difficult classes, or ACES just changed on me.
Although the new course numbering system will not affect courses before Fall 2012, all of the new numbers are now, as of today, visible in the planner for classes placed in the Fall 2012 and later terms. They are not available on the course catalog under the registration tab since the catalog currently only includes classes through 2011.
“[The new course numbers] were intentionally updated to allow everyone—faculty, staff, guests and students—to see the future numbers,” said John Campbell, Associate Director of Student Information Services and Systems (SISS). “For students planning their schedule in advance, they will be able to choose the new classes to add to their planner.”
Courses taken through 2011 will, however, remain unchanged on students’ transcripts.
“If we did that every time we changed a number, we’d have to change thousands and thousands of transcripts,” Campbell said. “Think of a transcript as a legal document—once you changed something you don’t go back after the fact.”
As reported by The Chronicle in March, the current numbering system only includes four distinct levels of classes: introductory (0-99), advanced (100-199), senior and graduate (200-299) and graduate-only (300-399). The new system will include six distinct levels of classes: freshman-only (0-99), introductory (100-199), undergraduate above introductory (200-399), advanced (400-499), graduate open to undergraduate (500-699) and graduate-only (700-999).
Students no longer need to worry about very low course numbers appearing on their transcript for introductory courses—Psychology 11 is now Psychology 101, Economics 51 is now Economics 101, Engineering 53L is Engineering 110L and Public Policy 55D is now Public Policy 155D.
“There’s something scary about seeing 300-level computer science courses in my planner,” said sophomore Peggy Li.
Since Economics is the most popular major at Duke, I played around with the Planner and pretended to be an Economics student who would take Economics 51, 55, 105, 110 and 139 as core classes and 153, 181, 187, 195 and 225 as electives. Under the new system, courses taken after 2012 will be numbered 101, 201, 205, 210, 208, 353, 381, 438, 390 and 673—that sounds much better to me (and probably employers, too)!
An email sent this afternoon from SISS to students, faculty and staff said that ACES will not be accessible from July 22 to July 25, but this is not related to the new course numbers that have been entered, Campbell said.
“This weekend we’ll be putting in some new changes that don’t really affect the look and feel,” Campbell said. “They affect how things work in the background.”
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2 Comments
July 22, 2011 9:54 am
Peggy
I think it’s potentially problematic that “courses taken through 2011 will… remain unchanged on students’ transcripts.” To me at least, this creates a strong incentive to delay taking higher-level courses.
For instance, if I’m interested Behavioral Economics (a fitting example), I could take ECON 162 in Spring 2012. Or I could wait just one semester and take ECON 462 in Fall 2012. As the article implies, it’s obvious which one is more likely to sound attractive to prospective employers or for grad school applications.
That’s not to say that many students (or even myself) will reconsider what courses they’re taking and when. But it’s probable that people who are concerned with course numbering on their transcripts will reorganize their planners accordingly.
I don’t think there’s an easy solution. Sure, we could update numbers for the transcripts of all current students, but what about Class of 2010 graduates, who might “lose out” if they’re applying for the same job as a Class of 2013 grad? It’s certainly not fair to disadvantage them for matriculating one year earlier. Going back and updating all previous transcripts is just inefficient, even if the cost and manpower to develop a computer program to do so are moderately low. As the article acknowledges, it just doesn’t make sense to retroactively change something for hundreds of thousands of people.
That said, I don’t think there’s an ideal solution, and the problem (if it exists at all) would exist for only one year and probably apply to few people. But I think it’s interesting to consider.
July 25, 2011 2:24 pm
Ingeborg Walther @Twitter Name
To Peggy and all students,
Beginning in Fall 2012 and for 4 years thereafter, there will be an explanation on every student’s transcript of the change in numbering system that took effect in Fall 2012. The old and new numbering schemes will be explained for future employers and anyone else looking at the transcript, so please do not worry about timing of taking certain courses. Everyone reading the transcript will be aware that the course numbering scheme before Fall 2012 is different from the numbering scheme Fall 2012 and after.
Please refer to the Course Renumbering Website (http://trinity.duke.edu/curriculum/course-renumbering) for all information pertaining to course renumbering. This site also contains two Master Lists of all courses that contain old and new numbers, one arranged by old number, and one arranged by new number. Each pdf is very long, but searchable, and you can easily and quickly scroll down to any course you are looking for.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Professor Ingeborg Walther
Associate Dean, Trinity College
Director, Office of Curriculum and Course Development
684-5585
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