File Considerations and Best Practices
This file is required if you are aligning Institutional Competencies to Course/Co-Curricular Activity Learning Outcomes (CLOs) outside of the HelioCampus platform for the sole purpose of Completion-based Learning Journey.
This file provides the external alignment between a competency in an Institutional Outcome Set and a Course/Co-Curricular Activity Learning Outcome (CLO) belonging to a Course/Activity. These alignments are what allow the Learning Journey to populate records on a learner’s CLR based on completion of said experience(s).
This file is not term based. Alignments are made at the Course/Co-Curricular Activity level (not the Section level), so a single file may contain alignments for all active courses or activities. As a best practice, should you wish to provide this data for both courses and co-curriculars, we recommend the creation of two separate files (one for academic courses and one for co-curricular activities).
One row represents one alignment. A CLO may align to multiple competencies, and a competency may align to CLOs across many courses/activities; express each of these as its own row.
Before submitting the file to HelioCampus, please confirm the following:
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Make sure that all required fields are included in the file.
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Make sure that the data in the field matches up with the header it belongs to.
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If providing Course alignments, choose a small set of CourseUniqueIDs and verify that they exist in the Course Catalog file.
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If providing Co-Curricular Activity alignments, choose a small set of CoCurricularActivityUniqueIds and verify that they exist in the Co-Curricular Activity File. If not providing Co-Curriculars via nightly import, please review the “Details” page of the activity in the platform or confer with the HelioCampus Support team for assistance.
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Choose a small set of CLOCodes and verify that they exist on the corresponding Course or Activity in the Course Learning Outcome file. Should you not be providing CLOs via nightly import, you may reference the Excel Export available in the Course Manager (see here for instructions: https://assessment-help.heliocampus.com/ackb/course-learning-outcome-import ).
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Choose a small set of OutcomeCodes and verify that they exist as outcomes within the Institutional Outcome Set configured in HelioCampus.
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Remove duplicate rows. The combination of CourseUniqueID/CoCurricularActivityUniqueId + CLOCode + OutcomeCode must be unique within the file.
This file will NOT create, edit, or remove outcomes in the platform. If updates are needed, we recommend you doing so BEFORE sending this file.
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For details in how to update your CLOs, please reference the CLO Import File, the import template Knowledge Base Article linked above, or the following article for manual updates in platform: https://assessment-help.heliocampus.com/ackb/course-learning-outcomes
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For details on how to update your Institutional Outcomes, please reference the following article: https://assessment-help.heliocampus.com/ackb/outcome-designer
File Format
Please note when creating the Data File in a text editor each column must be surrounded by double quotes and separated by a comma.
Example: "CourseUniqueID","CLOCode","OutcomeCode"
Sample rows:
"BIOL-101","CLO1","IC-2.3"
"BIOL-101","CLO1","IC-4.1"
"BIOL-101","CLO2","IC-2.3"
"NURS-310","CLO3","IC-1.2"
Example File Name
institution_clo_alignment.csv
File Splitting: This file is not term based and does not need to be split. If the volume of alignments is large, the file may be split by college or program; if so, we suggest appending that identifier to the file name.
Example: institution_clo_alignment_nursing.csv
Load Behavior
Each load is treated as the full, authoritative set of external alignments for the courses/co-curricular activities represented in the file. Alignments present in HelioCampus for a course/activity in the file with the prior alignment(s) absent from the file are removed; alignments for courses/activities not represented in the file are left untouched.
Alignments created through this file are flagged as externally managed. They cannot be edited in the HelioCampus UI and will be overwritten on the next load.
Required Data
|
Data Field |
Data Type |
Required | Optional |
Description |
Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
“CourseUniqueID” OR “CoCurricularActivityUniqueId” |
String |
Required |
If providing for Academic Courses, should match the CourseUniqueID provided in the Course Catalog File.
|
Needed as part of the unique identifier / used to locate the CLO |
|
CLOCode |
String |
Required |
The code of the Course/Co-Curricular Activity Learning Outcome as it exists on the Course/Activity identified by the prior UniqueID. Must be unique within a Course/Co-Curricular Activity. |
Needed as part of the unique identifier / one side of the alignment |
|
“ChildOutcomeCode” OR “OutcomeCode” |
String |
Required |
The code of the competency within Institutional Outcome Set(s). Must match an existing outcome code configured in HelioCampus. Should you be using a parent/child hierarchy structure for your ILOs to roll up the competency records, we recommend using the header “ChildOutcomeCode” as you should only align to child ILOs. |
Needed as part of the unique identifier / the other side of the alignment; drives CLR roll-up |
Optional Data
|
Data Field |
Data Type |
Required | Optional |
Description |
Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
OutcomeSetCode |
String |
Optional |
If provided, we are looking for an outcome set with the the listed OutcomeSetCode. This is recommended should you have multiple, or if you have customized the codes, for your Institution Outcome Set in the platform If not provided, we are looking for an Institution Outcome Set specifically set with the code "INST-OUT" |
Used to locate the Institutional Outcome Set that houses the OutcomeCode to be aligned to |