All umbrella courses you’ve added to CMS will show on a list under the Short Courses tab under the relevant academic year. You can use this list to add course instances.

1. Go to the Short Courses tab on CMS.
   
   
2. Find the relevant course on the list.
   
   
3. Open the Select Action dropdown for the course.
   
   
4. Select Create instance. This will open a popup where you can enter the details of the course instance.
   
   
   
5. Enter the Start Date and End Date. The start date cannot be earlier than 01/09/2023. The end date can be up to 364 days after the start date. The system will not let you add dates outside these parameters. You do not need to enter term dates for short courses.
   
   
6. Select the duration of the course instance from the Duration dropdown.
   
   
7. Enter the campus or location in the Location field.
   
   
8. Enter the tuition fee in the Fee charged field. The system will not let you enter an amount that’s higher than the maximum allowance for the credit value of the umbrella course.
   
   
9. Under the Mode of delivery section, select the Attendance, Distance or Hybrid radio button.
   
   
10. The status of the course instance is set to Draft by default. You can set this to Active if the umbrella course is already activated.

If the umbrella status is draft the instance will remain at draft status until you have been informed that it has been validated and set to active. At this point you will be able to set the instance to active.

Students can only apply to a course when it is set to active status.

11. Once you’ve entered all the details, select Continue to save the course instance.

If your short course has 2 or more modules, you should add this as one course instance. The start date of the instance should be the start of the first module. The end date should be the end of the last module. The duration of the instance should be the total duration of all modules.

If your short course has more than one intake, you can add multiple instances under one umbrella course. For example, you can save one instance for a September start and another for a January start.

You can do this by repeating the steps to create a course instance or by copying the instance.

The copy option is available only on instances that are active.

1. To copy an instance, you should first select the academic year you wish to copy from in the AY dropdown.
   
   
2. Next, choose the umbrella short course and instance.
   
   
3. Then choose select Action on the selected instance to be copied and select Copy.
   
   

4. This will open a pop up with all fields pre-populated, except Start and End dates and status defaulted to draft.

5. Enter the Start and End dates, make the  changes needed and select Copy Instance.
   
   
6. A new instance with a new short course code will be created in the latest academic year.
   
   
7. To copy an instance available in the latest academic year 2023/24, you should first select AY23/24 from the AY dropdown and then follow the steps to copy a course instance.
   
   

Example 1

A short course is made up of 2 modules. Both modules are 6 weeks in duration. Module 1 runs from 20 September 2022 to 1 December 2022. Module 2 runs from 3 January 2023 to 14 February 2023.

You should add the details of this course instance as:

• start date: 20/09/2022
• end date: 14/02/2023
• duration: 12 weeks

Example 2

A short course is made up of 3 modules. Each module is 10 weeks in duration. Module 1 runs from 5 September 2022 to 14 November 2022. Module 2 runs from 3 January 2023 to 14 March 2023. Module 3 runs from 3 April 2023 to 12 June 2023.

You should add the details of this course instance as:

• start date: 05/09/2022
• end date: 12/06/2023
• duration: 30 weeks

Instance status options

Draft

This is the default status when you create a course instance. You’ll also need to save any course instances as drafts if we have not yet activated the umbrella course they belong to.

Active

Once you need the course instance to be available to students, you should move its status to active. You can only do this if we’ve already activated the umbrella course this instance belongs to.

Inactive

You can use this status if you’re not sure if the course instance will be running.

Closed

You should use this option if you need to close a course instance. Unlike umbrella courses, closed instances can be reopened.

Short course code format

Short course codes have an alphanumeric format: 2 letters followed by 7 digits, then up to 4 digits.

All instances added under an umbrella course get the same first section of the course code (2 letters and 7 digits).

They’ll also have additional digits at the end of the course code, for example 0001, 0002 and so on. These will be unique to the course instance. The extra digits show how many instances are under the umbrella course.