In the System Settings form, administrators have the option to "Enable legacy concentrations."  This makes several changes to how FlightPath manages concentrations (and other degrees), and what happens if this setting is enabled.

How FlightPath Currently Handles Multiple Degrees

With version 5.x, FlightPath gained the ability to combine degrees plans together, whether that was someone seeing a double major, a major + a minor, or a major + one or more concentrations.

The system accomplished this by "squishing" the degree plans together and forming a single "dynamic" degree plan.  Even though a concentration (aka Track, aka Emphasis, etc) isn't really a "degree" in the real world, FlightPath records them as degree plans in its database for simplicity.

Concentrations

A concentration is its own degree plan which only contains the courses and groups necessary for that concentration's requirements.  So, for example, if a student has BIOL with a concentration in VIRO (Virology), then the concentration's degree plan would be named something like this:

• BIOL|_VIRO   
  • Note the base degree is concatenated with the concentration/track code with "|_"  (pipe + underscore)

The concentration degree plan should only contain the extra courses and/or groups needed for a concentration in Virology.  The "base" degree of BIOL might even require that a concentration is selected, because it intentionally has fewer courses than are needed for graduation.  This scenario would allow the concentration to fill in the "missing pieces" of the Biology degree with the groups or courses specific to that concentration.

How FlightPath Used to Handle Concentrations (Legacy Mode)

In FlightPath version 4.x and before, every major code belonged to a specific, full-sized degree plan.  So, BIOL with a concentration in VIRO would be its own complete degree plan, with the all of the courses and groups from the base degree plan entered in addition to the concentration's requirements.

In this "Legacy" mode, concentrations were not separate mini-degree plans that got "squished" together with the base degree.  They were a full, complete degree plan.

This has the downside of more time performing data entry. Additionally, if you need to permit degrees to be able to select more than one track/concentration, it would require you create a new degree plan for every possible permutation.

Enabling legacy concentrations

Checking this setting enforces this concept.  If checked, you must make sure all of your concentrations / tracks are set up as:

• Level-1 Degree Plans
• Full degrees, assuming nothing will be combined with them.

Recommendations

A) Leave this setting unchecked (in other words, use FlightPath normally, where concentrations only contain the requirements for that concentration) if you have more traditional degree plans, where a concentration simply adds onto a base degree.  FlightPath has several modern features which take advantage of this configuration.

B) Enable legacy concentrations only if your degrees change dramatically when a concentration is selected, and simply displaying a new, full degree is less work or less confusing than having FlightPath automatically combine the base degree with the concentration/track.