24

Is there a word to describe the case when a student can only receive credit for one of a group of courses because they are versions of a single course?

For example, "Accelerated Elementary Statistics" and "Elementary Statistics" - these have different course numbers but I would only want a student to be able to take one of these courses for credit.

Context: I'm designing course scheduling software and want to be able to describe/refer to this situation concisely to inform students and communicate with administrators who are designing course catalogues and requirements.

Improve this question
10
  • 1
    At first, I thought all the answers were missing the point, then I realized there is an ambiguity. I was interpreting it as a particular course offering credit but the others not.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Mar 11, 2018 at 21:10
  • 2
    Incidentally, hopefully your software can somehow help students avoid the catch-22 that got me as an undergrad. I took a half-credit intro to linguistics as an elective, then fell in love with it and switched majors. But this course did not qualify as a prerequisite for any higher courses, yet was an exclusion with the full-credit course that did, meaning I'd paradoxically already earned the credit. So it was a dead end that prevented all further progress in the subject. Much discussion with the department before they made an exception. Not much later they abolished that course. /anecdote
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 13:05
  • 1
    @LukeSawczak The issue for you seems to be how the university dealt with exceptional cases. I wouldn't expect the software to fix that itself, but you're right that it needs to allow overwriting in unusual cases.
    – Jessica B
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 13:44
  • @JessicaB True - or, perhaps, a note of caution like "This course will make it impossible to qualify for the following courses..."
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 13:52
  • 1
    @LukeSawczak, it will result in most student see 100s of messages that are of no interest of them........
    – Ian
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 22:13

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
24

A couple of universities that I've worked and/or studied that described the courses as having equivalent content. So, the prerequisites for an upper-level course might be listed as "MATH 344 or equivalent content."

The reverse descriptor also came up sometimes. For example, the degree requirements for a given major might include: "Four additional courses at the 500 level, of essentially different content." Another school used inequivalent content for the same thing.

Improve this answer
2
  • 4
    My school uses language roughly like this -- "MATH-123 or equivalent". It means that you can take MATH-123, or any course that teaches the same things, which is generally decided on a case-by-case basis by the professor of the class.
    – anon
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 5:39
  • 2
    Some schools have formalized this with classes that have the same base number but use different pedagogies, use different schedules (e.g. 6 week, 12 week, self-paced), or are delivered in different media (e.g. main campus, online, correspondence). You could thus have MATH 344SO to mean MATH 344 delivered in a Short, Online format.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 13:55
15

I think anti-requisites might be a good choice, since it would fit with other necessary concepts in the context (pre-requisites and co-requisites). Moreover, it seems to me to have a reasonably intuitive meaning even if it isn't the word you normally use (in this context it is very important that words are not misinterpreted).

A quick search suggests it is used by at least some universities, e.g. Western University:

Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in course content that both cannot be taken for credit.

Improve this answer
1
  • I like how this terminology more readily applies to "Survey of X for Non-majors" vs. "Advanced X" in which cases "equivalent" is a bit confusing.
    – Nat
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 10:28
6

My university has a concept of some courses being "incompatible" with other courses. See for instance: this course listing.

Improve this answer
4

Usually such choices are referred to as pools. Similar courses are put in the same pool and you specify that only one course can be taken from each pool.

Alternatively, it can happen that courses in the same pool do not carry the same number of credits. In your example "Accelerated Elementary Statistics" could have more credits than normal "Elementary Statistics". In this case you specify the maximum amounts of credits allowed from a single pool. This would allow students to take, for example, either one difficult course or two easier courses, but no more.

This can also work the other way around, to specify some mandatory courses, without being too precise. In the universities that I've been to this is referred to as "core courses pool" and each student has to have a minimum of X credits from this pool. Again, they can choose how to assemble the choices to meet this requirement.

Improve this answer
1
  • Your description sounds like you are talking about a slightly different concept.
    – Jessica B
    Commented Mar 11, 2018 at 18:49
4

At the University of Toronto these are often called "exclusions" (see that heading here).

Improve this answer
1
  • I've never seen that used in noun form, but I guess that would be closest to what my university is doing too: "this course is mutually exclusive with..." is the stock phrase.
    – nengel
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 5:32
1

Of the universities I am familiar with, the term restrictions is used for classes that used different codes and potentially taught some different material, but were considered similar enough in content that one was equivalent in some sense to the other.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Along these lines, while I don't have any standard term for these courses, my first choice would be 'excluded combinations'.
    – Jessica B
    Commented Mar 11, 2018 at 18:50
0

At my university, a choice of say 3 out of 5 lectures is called a module, if they have some topic in common. Single lectures were only referred to as equivalents, but I can imagine that both fit for 1 out of several, too.

Improve this answer
2
  • Whereas at the universities I've been at a 'module' is a lecture course. This might be the term you use, but it would be awful in the context.
    – Jessica B
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 6:54
  • @JessicaB Sure, if a term is used otherwise within the same context, it does not work. equivalents may also refer to lecture crediting, so even this term was sort of unfortunate at my university.
    – rexkogitans
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 8:23
0

I might refer to those courses in some situations as Cross-Listed.

Improve this answer
0

I've seen these called preclusions at my university.

Preclude

verb (used with object), precluded, precluding.

  1. to prevent the presence, existence, or occurrence of; make impossible: The insufficiency of the evidence precludes a conviction.

  2. to exclude or debar from something: His physical disability precludes an athletic career for him.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .