To capture credits towards transcript that are not tightly couple with a course

Summary of outcomes for Data Standard 3.2

• Problem Addressed: Implementations need a way to group credits awarded on a CourseTranscript record by locally or state defined categories.
• High-level Reasoning: A descriptor list was seen as a good compromise between referentiality and flexibility, and the developing concept of operational context could also permit mapping between contexts, allowing there to be state lists of codes and local lists of codes. Given the high level of variability for these categories by implementation, the descriptor will not have a standardized set of values defined by Ed-Fi. These will instead always be customized by implementation.
• Changes Made: Added optional array CreditCategory descriptor to CourseTranscript. Added AcademicSubject descriptor to CourseTranscript as an optional array. Added CreditsByCreditCategory common to GraduationPlan.

Original ticket description follows:

Additional Information

What is the expectation of when the student should get a Student Acadmic Record?
Should every student have a SAR regardless if the have a transcript or graduation record?
When do we trigger the Post/Deletes of a SAR?

How to Determine What School and Disrict Number to send for the SAR Ed Org Reference and the Course Transcript Course/School Numbers
School Number not in District
Transcript School Number is in District and where the student is enrolled
Transcript School Number is in District but not where student is enrolled
Transcript School Number is in District but not where student is enrolled

Transcript School Number not in District

Transcript School Number not in District
Transcript School Number not in District

Previous Year Transcript Records Issues
Courses from previous year is not offered in the current year so Course does not exist in current year ODS
School switched from Trimesters to Semesters and changed their Term Descriptors in the ODS so the old Term Descriptor does not exist in the current year ODS

Determining Term Descriptor on transcript records for courses not taken at student's school of enrollment
Users are stuck defining the Term Descriptor for manually posted transcript records
When a school posts more than 1 transcript record for the same course in the same year the user has to understand how to define term descriptors manually

Courses not in the District/School where the student is enrolled
Courses may not be offered by the reporting School/District so we use difficult workarounds for reporting the course reference
The Term the student took the course in may not align to the reporting districts terms and term descriptors are difficult to define