A Credit Plan is the structure that expresses the overarching credit requirements, ensuring that learning in more fractional ways does not get in the way of meeting those goals. It defines what a learner needs to earn, and it appears on the learner's credit dashboard as a set of buckets to fill.
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How Credit Plans work
A Credit Plan is a named set of credit requirements assigned to one or more learners. It does not award credit and it does not change credit that has already been awarded — it is the lens through which awarded credit is measured.
This means you can create, edit, or reassign plans at any time without affecting the credits a learner has earned. Only the Credit dashboard changes:
You can create as many plans as you need. Many organizations define one plan for full graduation requirements. Others create smaller plans by year or program, so learners have nearer-term targets to work toward.
Headrush evaluates the requirements in a plan automatically as credit is awarded, including compound requirements where several combinations of courses would satisfy the same goal.
Before you start
Credit Plans depend on three things being in place first:
Credits enabled. An Admin turns on Courses/Credits Enabled and Credit Plans Enabled under Global Settings.
A course catalog. Requirements are built from the courses and subject areas in your Course Catalog, so load these before building plans. Course codes and subject groups matter here — subject groups are what allow a subject area requirement to accept several different courses.
Create a Credit Plan
Go to Admin > Credits > Credit Plans.
Click Create Learning Plan. The new plan appears as 'Untitled'.
Click 'Untitled' and give the plan a name.
Add credit requirements. You can add a Subject Area goal, a Course-specific goals, an Electives requirement, or a goal across any one of a combination of Subjects or Groups (also known as an 'Or Group').
Assign the plan to learners.
The plan's total credit value appears in the upper right and updates as you add requirements.
Requirement types
Credit Plans support four types of requirement. Requirements can be stacked to express a range of possibilities.
If a subject area or course does not appear as an option, chances are it has not been added as as an option in your sitewide Course Catelog yet.
Add it under Admin > Credits > Course Catalog, then return to the plan.
Subject Area
Subject Area
The most common requirement. Choose a subject area, then set the total required credits.
Optionally, you can use 'Must Include' to name specific courses that have to be part of that total, each with its own credit amount. Must Include credits count toward the subject area total. They do not add to it. For example, a science requirement set at 3 credits might name biology at 1 credit and chemistry at 1 credit. Two of the three credits then Must Include those two courses. The learner can earn the remaining credit anywhere within science.
You can add more than one subject area requirement to a plan.
Course
Course
Requires a specific course rather than a subject area. Useful for a standalone graduation requirement — a personal finance credit that every learner must complete, for instance.
Electives
Electives
Specifies a number of extra credits above and beyond the credits named in your other requirements. A plan can have only one electives requirement.
By default, any credit counts toward the elective total. Optionally, exclude subject areas or specific courses so they do not count.
ℹ️ On the word "electives." The Electives requirement is a Headrush feature that measures credits earned outside your other named requirements. It is not the same as a subject area your organization may have named "Electives" — one that groups things like career and technical education or world languages. If your catalog has a subject area by that name, use a Subject Area requirement for it.
Or Group (aka- 'Any of these')
Or Group (aka- 'Any of these')
An Or Group is satisfied when any one of several conditions is met. Name the group, then add the combination of options to meet the requirements inside it.
For example, a one-credit STEM requirement might be satisfied by a credit earned in engineering, in technical education, or in math. The learner reaches the total through any combination of the three.
Or Groups also work well for breadth requirements. A work-based learning requirement might ask learners to gain exposure across several vocational areas, without naming which ones. Any combination that adds up to the required total satisfies it.
In both cases, Headrush determines automatically whether a learner has met the requirement. An advisor does not need to track the combinations by hand.
An Or Group is one concept applied at either of two levels. You can add it at the top level of a plan, or inside a Subject Area requirement.
Assign a plan to learners
At the bottom of a Credit Plan, under Assigned to, click Click to add and select learners. You can assign a plan to an individual learner or to all learners at once.
A plan only appears on a learner's credit dashboard once it is assigned to them.
Order multiple plans
A learner can have more than one plan assigned. The order of the plans in the left column of the Admin > Credits > Credit Plans page sets the order the learner sees them in. Drag a plan up or down in that list to change the order. Put the plan learners should see first at the top.
Copy or delete a plan
Use Copy This Plan to duplicate an existing plan, then modify the copy. This is the fastest way to build a set of related plans — for example, year-by-year plans that share most of their requirements.
Delete This Plan removes the plan. Credit already awarded to learners is not affected.
What learners and advisors see
Assigned plans appear on the learner's credit dashboard, where each requirement is shown as a bucket that fills as credit is awarded.
Learners and advisors can drill into any requirement to see which courses the credit came from, and from there to the specific modules that earned it. This closes the loop between the work a learner chose to do and the requirement it satisfied — which helps learners choose their next project with their remaining requirements in view.
Credit awarded that does not match any requirement in the plan is still recorded. Headrush treats it as extra credit and groups it below the table with the other subjects, so learners can see everything they have earned in one view.
Also, in some reports, you may have the option to select the respective Credit Plan to help inform or filter what shows on the respective report: