I have a web gradebook for teachers I am working on. A teacher defines Courses, then Classes and each class belongs to a course and a term. Then defines categories in the class. So a category has a class_id and the class has a course_id.

So example. I have a course MATH, a term TERM 1, and a class Math-Term1. I have a category HomeWork (HW) that belongs to Math-Term1.

So when adding a category, I want to display the list of classes first so the teacher selects a class. This list should show the CourseName-TermName combination.

My questions are...
1) Do I do this with a reference map/dependentTables? if so, where does the dependentTables get defined (class model or course model) and where does the ref map go( I assume the other table)?

OR is this just going to be a join issue?

3) Should the controller handle the "did he select a class yet" or if not, where is it best placed? In the action or form?

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JuJuBee