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Working with Supplemental Questions User Guide

Working with Supplemental Questions User Guide

This user guide pertains to configuring optional Supplemental Questions for the CCCApply Standard, Noncredit, and International applications.

Contents

 

Looking for the Supplemental Questions XML Schema template? Find the latest version on the User Guides page.


Getting Started with Supplemental Questions

Supplemental questions are optional, extra questions that colleges can configure to display on a page within the CCCApply Standard, Noncredit, and International Applications.

Supplemental questions are written in XML and validated with XSD. You can create one or more sets of supplemental questions to be added to your college's CCCApply applications via the CCCApply Administrator tool. Only one supplemental question set can be active/displayed at a time. The Configuring Application Supplemental Questions section of the CCCApply Administrator User Guide provides details on importing, updating, and exporting your Supplemental Question XML files.

If you want supplemental questions to display in both or all three CCCApply applications, you must configure and import separate XML files for each application.

Note: The Noncredit application is a workflow and subset of the CCCApply Standard applications questions that skips the residency and military questions for students who are only taking noncredit courses. See the Noncredit Application section of the CCCApply Standard & Noncredit Application Data Dictionary for more details.

When you have your XML file ready, you import your XML supplemental questions in the CCCApply Administrator and then activate and deactivate question set(s) as you wish.

Screenshot of the Supplemental Questions module summary page in the CCCApply Administrator.

 

 

Understanding Active And Not Active Question Sets

After you have uploaded a set of supplemental questions, there are three factors that determine whether that set will show up in your college's student application:

  • The Status (Active or Non Active)

  • The Effective Date

  • The Status and Effective Dates of other question sets you have previously uploaded

If you marked a previously-uploaded set of supplemental questions as Not Active in the Administrator, that set will not show up on your college's application, regardless of any other factors. Similarly, a future-dated set of supplemental questions will not display until the future date becomes the present date, regardless of other factors. If you have only a single set of questions, then marking it Active and setting the effective date to today or earlier will cause that set to show up in your college's application.

Multiple supplemental question sets require some management. For example, if your supplemental question sets have different effective dates, the set with the most recent Effective Date (that is not in the future) takes precedence over any others. If you have multiple supplemental question sets with the same effective date, then the set with the lowest Page ID number will take precedence.

Consider the following example that shows questions that have been imported into the Supplemental Questions module in the CCCApply Administrator application.

Screenshot showing a list of the college's Supplemental Questions XML pages in the CCCApply Administrator.

If today were March 8, 2016, the questions with Page ID 9 would show up on your college's CCCApply Standard student application. Page ID 10 would not show up, because although it is marked Active and has the latest effective date, that date would be in the future (assuming March 8, 2016 as an example). When the date became April 25, 2016 Page ID 10 would take precedence and the questions on Page ID 9 would no longer display on the application.

If Page ID 9 and Page ID 10 had the exact same Effective Date, then Page ID 9 would take precedence as the set with the lowest Page ID number is used in this scenario.

 

Working with XML

Although working with computer languages can be daunting, you don't need to be an expert to create supplemental questions for your college's student application, and you don't need any sophisticated tools. A simple text editor and a rudimentary understanding of XML hierarchy will be helpful.

If you are comfortable writing computer software, you can of course use the tools that best suit you. Otherwise, create your XML files using your operating system's built-in text editor. On Windows, the text editor is called Notepad, and on OSX, it is called TextEdit.

Most of the contents of your XML file will depend on the questions you want to ask and the responses you expect to receive. For details on creating questions and guiding the student through the application process see Supplemental Questions: Layout And User Experience and Supplemental Questions: Response Elements.

 

Setting up Your XML File

  1. Copy and paste the example starter XML file structure below into your XML editor before you begin creating questions. This text will serve as your XML base and you can use it over and over again for each new supplemental question XML file set.