Our course coding is starting to get messy. Do you all have any best practices or naming conventions you use to keep course codes clean and easy to navigate?
Adam Ballhaussen 2 years ago
There are some really great tips in this thread. Thank you
One best practice I’ve adopted is using 3 digit numeric code prefixes for different types of “like” courses. Most often, these “like courses” are determined by which catalog/LP they live in.
Example
- I have Course 1, Course 2, and Course 3
- These 3 courses are a part of my 101 Learning Plan
- The codes for these courses become:
- 005-101-Course1
- 010-101-Course2
- 015-101-Course3
- The codes for these courses become:
- The 101 Learning Plan lives in a catalog with 2 other Learning Plans, 201 Learning Plan and 301 Learning Plan
- The codes for these Learning Plans become:
- 005-101-LearningPlan
- 010-201-LearningPlan
- 015-301-LearningPlan
- The codes for these Learning Plans become:
Why use a 3 digit numeric code prefix?
- Allows you to Sort Catalog Items by Code A-Z, keeping all of your content in catalogs tidy without impacting the names of your courses
- Makes it easy to sort courses in order within Course Management
- Gives you flexibility to add courses later on without having to change multiple course codes
- For example, if I need to add a course before Course 1, I can simply create a new course that is:
- 004-101-Course1
- This essentially gives you “5 degrees” of flexibility to add courses in your curriculum without impacting all other course codes
- For example, if I need to add a course before Course 1, I can simply create a new course that is:
I could see this approach working with most other approaches recommended in this thread, but I would only recommend it if sorting courses/LPs in a particular order in a catalog is important to you!
Does anyone else use a similar method to control sort order of content in catalogs while maintaining flexibility to edit the curriculum in the future?