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1.. _academic_section:
2
3Academic Section
4****************
5
6Academic bodies of universities are hierarchically structured. A
7university contains faculties which again host departments. The
8latter offer courses (course units) and study programmes (courses of
9study). A course is a series of classes or lessons on a particular
10subject. This can be a lecture, tutorial, seminar, practical work
11offered by a lecturer of the department over a period of an academic
12term. A course can also be only an exam at the end of an academic
13term. A study programme is defined by a set of course units to be
14taken at various programme levels and by an academic degree
15certificate, which is issued at the end of the programme.
16Information about universities, their study programmes, lecturers
17and courses can be found in the university prospectus.
18
19Kofa's academic section takes on the task of the university
20prospectus. It is build to disseminate information about faculties,
21departments, courses, study programmes and the sets of courses to be
22taken. The academic section reflects exactly the universities'
23hierarchical structure as described above. Technically speaking, the
24academic section is a container of type `FacultiesContainer` with id
25``academics`` which contains faculty subcontainers. They again
26contain department subobjects and so on. This leads to a
27:ref:`treelike storage of objects <object_database>`::
28
29  Academic Section (FacultiesContainer)
30  |
31  +---> Faculty
32        |
33        +---> Department
34              |
35              +---> CoursesContainer
36              |     |
37              |     +---------------------> Course
38              |                             ^
39              +---> CertificatesContainer   |
40                    |                       |
41                    +-----> Certificate     |
42                            |               |
43                            +-----> CertificateCourse
44
45.. note::
46
47  In the user handbook we do not describe how to browse the
48  academic section. The menu navigation should be
49  self-explanatory and it's quite easy to follow the menu
50  prompts. However, in the beginning of the development of
51  Kofa, we used extensive doc tests which describe the
52  navigation very well. Thus navigating through the academic
53  section and other parts of Kofa with a test browser is
54  perfectly described in :ref:`pages.txt <pages_txt>`.
55
56Faculty
57=======
58
59Faculties are container objects of type `Faculty`. They have a
60`code`, a `title` and a `title_prefix` attribute. Furthermore,
61faculties and departments have a `longtitle` property which
62:py:func:`composes <waeup.kofa.university.faculty.longtitle>` and
63returns the full title as it appears in tables, in breadcrumbs and
64in many other places:
65
66  `longtitle` = `title_prefix` + `title` (`code`)
67
68The following :ref:`local roles <local_roles>` can be assigned at
69faculty tree level:
70
71  .. autoattribute:: waeup.kofa.university.faculty.Faculty.local_roles
72     :noindex:
73
74
75Department
76==========
77
78Additionally, each department object has the attributes
79`certificates` and `courses`. These attributes again are containers
80which hold certificate and course objects respectively.
81A :py:meth:`traverse
82<waeup.kofa.university.department.Department.traverse>` method leads
83the user to believe that `certificates` and `courses` are the ids of
84objects stored inside a department container. De facto they are not.
85However, it doesn't matter if we store a subobject 'in' or 'at' a
86parent object. The result is exactly the same: :ref:`a hierarchical,
87treelike storage of objects <object_database>` (see also diagram above).
88
89The following :ref:`local roles <local_roles>` can be assigned at
90department tree level:
91
92  .. autoattribute:: waeup.kofa.university.department.Department.local_roles
93     :noindex:
94
95Course
96======
97
98The `Course` class inherits from `grok.Model` which means it is
99designed as a pure model and not a container. Courses are tips of
100the database tree branches. Course objects contain information as
101they are offered by the department. In the base package these are:
102`code`, `title`, `credits`, `passmark`, `semester` and the boolean
103attribute `former_course`. Like all objects in the academic section,
104they also have a `longtitle` property. A former course is an
105archived course which had been offered in the past and is no longer
106part of any curriculum.
107
108.. note::
109
110  Only the manager of the department, which offers the course,
111  decides how many credits can be earned, which pass mark must be
112  achieved and in which semester the course can be taken. The
113  manager cannot decide whether a course is mandatory or not, or
114  at which study level the course has to be taken when studying a
115  certain programme. This information is stored in
116  `CertificateCourse` objects, see below. Therefore it does not
117  make sense to speak e.g. of a 300 level course. Also course
118  codes like ``AEE311``, which tell the student that the course
119  is primarily intended for 300 level students, is somehow
120  misleading. There might be other study programmes which
121  recommend to take this course earlier or later.
122
123
124The following :ref:`local roles <local_roles>` can be assigned at
125course tree level:
126
127  .. autoattribute:: waeup.kofa.university.course.Course.local_roles
128   :noindex:
129
130
131Certificate
132===========
133
134.. seealso::
135
136   :ref:`Certificates and Certificate Courses Doctests <certcourse_txt>`
137
138In Kofa, the terms 'certificate' and 'study programme' are used
139synonymously. A certificate object holds information about the study
140programme. Important data for further processing in Kofa are: the
141various school fees to be paid at certain levels, programme start
142and end level, the study mode and, last but not least, the
143application category to which the programme belongs.
144
145Certificates are containers which contain `CertificateCourse`
146objects. thatt means a certificate defines the curriculum, i.e. the
147list of course units which have to or can be taken within the
148programme.
149
150The following :ref:`local roles <local_roles>` can be assigned at
151certificate tree level:
152
153  .. autoattribute:: waeup.kofa.university.certificate.Certificate.local_roles
154   :noindex:
155
156.. warning::
157
158  Do not remove certificates without backing up the student data
159  of this department. If a certificate or even one of its parent
160  containers is removed, students studying this programme are
161  'homeless' and need to be re-allocated to another study
162  programme.
163
164
165Certificate Course
166==================
167
168`CertificateCourse` objects point to `Course` objects which means
169they have a `course` attribute which is one of the course objects
170stored in the portal. If the course is removed, an event handler
171takes care of deleting also all referring certificate courses. The
172same happens if a course is beeing marked as former course (see
173above). A former course cannot be part of a curriculum.
174
175Certificate courses have to more attributes: `level` (integer) and
176`mandatory` (boolean). Simply put, certificate courses carry the
177information at which level a certain course can or has to be taken
178to meet the current curriculum.
179
180No local role can be assigned at certificate course tree level.
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