Overview

“Return the abbreviation of the Subject (Module) as part of the Subject title in the following Forms” is a display customization setting found under Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Views & Forms (setting ID: Return_Subject_Abbr_For_The_Following_Forms).

It lets an institution choose, independently for each of six specific forms/screens, whether a Subject’s short code (its “Abbreviation”) should automatically be shown together with its full title.

This is a purely visual/display setting. It does not create, rename, or recalculate any Subject data – it only decides whether the Subject’s existing Abbreviation is shown next to its Title, and only on the specific forms selected.

Note on terminology: throughout this article the entity is referred to by its default Classter name, “Subject” (in some institutions displayed instead as “Module”, “Course” or “Unit”, depending on local terminology configuration). Likewise, “Teacher” may be displayed as “Lecturer”, “Instructor” or a similar term, depending on the institution.

What This Setting Does

When a form is selected in this setting, Classter automatically shows the Subject’s short code in square brackets immediately before its full title, wherever that Subject’s name appears on the selected form – for example, “[MATH101] Mathematics” is shown instead of just “Mathematics”.

Administrators can select any combination of the following six forms; each one can be turned on or off independently of the others:

• Subject Form (Module Form) – forms and drop-down selectors centered on Subject information itself.
• Group Form – forms and lists showing which Subjects are connected to a Group (class/course), such as the list of Subjects taught within a specific Group.
• Student Form – forms that show a Student’s Subjects, e.g. a Student’s academic/curriculum overview screen.
• Teacher Form (Lecturers Form) – forms that show which Subjects a Teacher is connected to or teaches.
• Gradebook Analysis – the Gradebook Analysis screen, where a Subject is chosen (via a filter/drop-down) to review marking statistics for a class.
• Marking Results – the Marking Results screen and its related reports, which list Students’ marks per Subject and Group.

If a form is left unselected, that form keeps showing only the Subject’s plain title – no abbreviation, no brackets.

Where It Is Used

Setting location: Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Views & Forms > “Return the abbreviation of the Subject (Module) as part of the Subject title in the following Forms”.

The setting affects the six forms listed in Section 2, wherever Subject names are shown on them:

• On the Subject Form, when browsing or selecting Subjects directly (e.g. Subject lists and Subject-related drop-downs).
• On the Group Form, when reviewing which Subjects are taught within a Group – used mainly by administrative/registrar staff and Teachers reviewing a class’s course load.
• On the Student Form, when reviewing a Student’s connected Subjects.
• On the Teacher Form, when reviewing which Subjects a Teacher is assigned to.
• On the Gradebook Analysis screen, in the Subject selector used before viewing marks statistics – used by Teachers and academic staff.
• On the Marking Results screen and its printed/exported reports, wherever a Subject is named next to a Student’s or Group’s marks – used by Teachers, registrar/academic staff and, where reports are shared, Students and Parents.

This setting does not change how Subjects are shown anywhere else in the system – for example, ordinary Subject list pages outside of the forms above, timetables, or online enrollment/catalog pages are not affected.

Business Logic / Behavior

• For every form selected in the setting, Subject names on that form are shown as “[Abbreviation] Title” instead of just “Title”.
• Forms that are not selected are never affected – they always continue to show the plain Subject title only.
• The abbreviation displayed is the one already saved on the Subject’s own record. If a specific Subject has no Abbreviation on file, that Subject’s name will simply continue to appear without brackets on the enabled form(s), since there is nothing to display. (This is a reasonable inference from the setting’s design, rather than something explicitly stated to users.)
• The six forms are independent multi-select options – enabling or disabling one has no effect on the others; any combination can be active at the same time.
• This is an institution-wide setting: it is configured once for the whole organization and does not vary by academic period, user, or role. Once a form is enabled, every user accessing that form sees the abbreviation.
• Confirmed Higher Education / K-12 nuance: enabling the Student Form option currently produces a visible effect mainly when the institution is working in Higher Education Mode. In K-12 Mode, Student-related forms continue to display the plain Subject title, regardless of whether “Student Form” is checked in this setting. See Section 7 for full details on this distinction.

Examples

Example 1 – Higher Education institution enabling “Marking Results”:

Riverside Institute of Technology runs several similarly-named Subjects across its degree programs, such as “Introduction to Programming” and “Advanced Programming Concepts”. Instructors and registrar staff found it time-consuming to tell such Subjects apart at a glance in printed mark sheets. The administrator opens Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Views & Forms and, in “Return the abbreviation of the Subject (Module) as part of the Subject title in the following Forms”, selects Marking Results, leaving the other five forms unselected.

From that point on, on the Marking Results screen and its exported reports, the same Subjects are shown as “[CS101] Introduction to Programming” and “[CS205] Advanced Programming Concepts”, using the Abbreviation already saved on each Subject’s record. Every other form in the system (Group Form, Student Form, Gradebook Analysis, etc.) is unaffected and continues to show only the full Subject title.

Example 2 – K-12 school leaving the setting disabled:

Maplewood Elementary School teaches a small, fixed set of Subjects such as “Mathematics”, “English Language” and “Science”, each with a name that is already short and easy to recognize. The administrator leaves every option in this setting unselected. Subject titles continue to appear in their full, plain form everywhere in the system – Marking Results, Gradebook Analysis, and the Student and Group forms all show simply “Mathematics” rather than a coded version, keeping the interface simple for Parents and Teachers who are used to referring to Subjects by name only.

When to Use

When to Enable:

• The institution already maintains short, meaningful Abbreviations for its Subjects – a common practice in Higher Education, where course codes such as “CS101” or “ENG202” are widely recognized by academic staff and Students.
• Staff regularly need to quickly identify a Subject in a report or form when several Subjects have long or similar titles.
• The institution wants specific forms or reports – for example, Marking Results or Gradebook Analysis – to show recognizable Subject codes at a glance, without necessarily changing every other screen in the system.

When to Disable (leave the relevant form(s) unselected):

• Subject titles are already short, distinct, and easy to recognize on their own.
• Subject Abbreviations are not consistently filled in across all Subjects, which could make the coded titles look inconsistent – some Subjects showing a code, others not.
• The institution prefers a simpler, cleaner presentation of Subject names without additional codes, particularly in K-12 institutions where Teachers, Students and Parents are used to referring to Subjects by their full names.

Notes

K-12 Mode vs. Higher Education Mode:

Most of the six forms covered by this setting behave the same way in both K-12 Mode and Higher Education Mode – if a form is selected, the Subject’s Abbreviation is shown on that form regardless of institution type. The one confirmed exception is the Student Form option: its effect on how a Student’s Subjects are displayed is currently tied to Higher Education Mode. In practice, this means selecting “Student Form” mainly changes what Students, Teachers, or staff see on Student-related Subject displays in institutions running in Higher Education Mode; in K-12 institutions, the same Student-related displays continue to show the plain Subject title. Higher Education Mode itself is controlled by a separate, general-purpose setting (see “Related Settings” below) and is not specific to this setting.

Prerequisites:

• Each Subject that should display an abbreviation on an enabled form must already have its Abbreviation filled in on its own record (Subject > General Data > Abbreviation). Without it, no code will appear for that Subject, even on an enabled form.
• For the Student Form option to have a visible effect, the institution must be working in Higher Education Mode (see the related setting below).
• In Higher Education institutions using Curricula, if a Subject has been given a custom abbreviation specifically for a given Curriculum, that curriculum-specific abbreviation is the one users should expect to see, rather than the Subject’s general/default abbreviation.

Related Settings:

• “Enable Configuration for Higher Education” (“Main Settings > General Settings > Higher Education Customization > Basic Settings” – Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou) – switches Classter into Higher Education working mode; the Student Form option of this setting produces a visible effect specifically when this is enabled.
• “Subject Custom Abbreviation for This Curriculum” (“Curriculum (College) > List of Subjects”, available in Higher Education Mode) – lets a Subject use a different Abbreviation within a specific Curriculum, without changing its main record; where configured, this may be the abbreviation shown instead of the Subject’s default one.
• “List full names as ‘Surname Name'” (“Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Views & Forms” – Xrisi_Prota_Tou_Epithetou_Sto_Plires_Onoma) – a similarly-purposed display setting, but for people’s names rather than Subject titles; located in the same settings area, though independent in effect.