Course proposal and class schedule instructions

Course proposal and class schedule instructions for Instructors

Catalog information (such as the title and description) does not change each time the course is offered. Schedule information is associated with a particular offering in a given term, such as dates and times, enrollments, assigned faculty, etc. Some course information is maintained in the Catalog (e.g., prerequisites, restrictions) so it is in place every time the course is offered, but can be changed in the Schedule with different offerings of the course. For example, a course typically may be offered on campus in a lecture format, but a particular section may be offered in a distance format. This information is described under Catalog, below. It is preferred to maintain such information in the Catalog to assure consistency. Catalog information is modified using Course Proposal forms. Schedule information is submitted to the Office of the Registrar for each academic term. Both forms are available at www.du.edu/registrar. In this document the word 'course' refers to catalog information and the word �section� refers to a specific offering. Please contact Miranda Butler (14795) in the Office of the Registrar to discuss your particular needs.

Catalog Information (Courses)

Course Title (30 characters maximum � please do not trust our abbreviations) appears on transcripts. Except for �topics� courses for which the title may change with each offering, changes in course titles must be made on a Course Proposal Form. Courses must be approved with completed Course Proposals in order to be scheduled. The official (transcript) course title should be a straightforward description of the course subject matter. Avoid �catchy� titles or ambiguous abbreviations in this field.

Long Title (100 characters). Units may provide an expanded, long (100-character) course title that appears in the bulletin and on student schedules. See Syllabus Information below for additional information.

Topics courses are temporarily offered (up to two times in three years) and permit innovation, experimentation, and development, to take advantage of talents of visiting faculty, or explore current topics. Course titles and content change with each offering. If a topics course is offered more than twice, a permanent course number should be created.

Subject code indicates the discipline or subject matter (e.g., CHEM, FREN, MKTG) and should equate to Department of Education Classifications of Instructional Programs (CIP codes): http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/default.aspx?y=55. Subject codes appear on transcripts and are used for external audiences. Thus, they should be understandable in their abbreviated format to the best degree possible. Subject codes in Banner should not be used to differentiate programs or for internal budgeting purposes. The web-based bulletin and schedule of classes are organized by subject code.

Course number differentiates the level of a course. The following system is used:

0001-0999 Pre-collegiate or remedial
1000-1999 Undergraduate (lower division)
2000-2999 Advanced undergraduate (upper division)
3000-3999 Advanced undergraduate and Graduate
4000-5999 Graduate
6000-6999 Doctoral
7000-8999 Unassigned
9000-9999 Reserved for system use

Some course numbers are reserved for special purposes and may not be departmentally assigned. They are n700, n701, n702, n703, n704 numbers reserved for �topics� courses; n991 numbers reserved for independent study; n992 numbers reserved for directed study; n994 reserved for future use; n995 reserved for independent research; n988 reserved for study abroad; and 4600, 4601, 4602, 4603, 5600, 5601, 5602, and 5603, reserved for continuous enrollment. 7000-8999 numbers are not used. 9000 numbers are used by the Registrar for administrative purposes.

Changes in Course Numbers, Titles and Descriptions. Significant changes in content should be made by creating a new course. A course number can not be used if it has been used previously within the past ten years.

College Code organizes courses, majors and students. College codes are roughly equivalent to our unit structure and financial structure. Values are:

	AH		Arts and Humanities
	DC		Business
	EC		English Language Center
	ED		College of Education
	EN		Engineering & Computer Science
	GS		Graduate Studies
	IL		Joint PhD in Religious & Theological Studies
	IS		International Studies
	LW		Law
	NM		Natural Sciences & Mathematics
	PP		Professional Psychology
	SA		Study Abroad Programs
	SS		Social Sciences
	SW		Social Work
	TX		Graduate Tax Program
	UC		University College
	UG		Undergraduate Programs
	WC		Women's College

Department Code organizes courses and sections within �colleges.� Department codes designate responsibility for courses and are used to distribute course information to the correct department. Department codes are not associated with students, but courses and curricula. Contact the Office of the Registrar for appropriate department code.

Credit hours. Courses typically are approved and offered for a specific number of credit hours. Courses that are approved to be offered for variable credit may be scheduled in a particular term for a specific number of credits or variable, allowing the student to choose when registering. Please note, for variable credit sections, the lowest available amount appears in the on-line schedule and will be the default number of credits when a student registers. Students may change the credit hours in web registration or contact the Office of the Registrar.

Repeating Courses. Rules may be established for repeating courses that affect registration, degree audit and transcripts (GPA). Most courses may not be repeated. Some courses (e.g., topics or independent study) may be repeated. Limits of hours (e.g., 10 hours of undergraduate independent study) or times (the course may be repeated 3 times) may be established.

Schedule Type distinguishes the instructional delivery mechanism for a course. At the Catalog level, all Schedule Types for which a course may be offered are maintained. For example, if a course may be taught as a Lecture (L) or via Distance (D), both Schedule Types would be maintained in Catalog. A single Schedule Type must be specified for a particular section (at the Schedule level). For example a course may be offered either on campus (Lecture) or by Distance. Both would be specified in the Catalog; one or the other would be specified in the Schedule. Schedule type is also specified for individual meeting sessions. E.g., a section may be Lecture/Lab (E); individual Lecture (L) and Lab (B) sessions may be specified. Or, the section may be taught with Combined Methodologies and a Lecture (L) session and Distance (D) session may be indicated. The following types are available:

	Code		Description/Definition
	A		Study Abroad A course wholly taught outside the U.S. Usually used by Study Abroad office.
	B		Lab Laboratory experiences that require special-purpose equipment for student participation, experimentation, observation or practice in a field of study. May involve discussion of a forthcoming laboratory or review of a completed laboratory session. Includes scheduled laboratory periods as well as laboratory experiences for which times may be selected by individual students. Two or three contact hours per week per credit.
	C		Clinical or Practicum A faculty-supervised training and educational experience where the student is working in a field setting. Three to seven contact hours per week per credit hour equivalent.
	D		Online/Distance A course in which all or nearly all of the organized instruction is conducted online or by distance learning methodologies.
	E		Lecture and Lab combined Instruction including both laboratory activities as defined above in addition to lecture or recitation instruction..
	F		Performance or Individual Lessons Individualized instruction with a faculty member such as music performance.
	I		Independent Study or Research Independent projects or research such as special problems or special topics in which the student works more or less individually at various locations, ordinarily requiring intermittent consultation with the professor.
	L		Lecture Organized instruction in a lecture (one-way communication) format. One contact hour per week per credit.
	M		Combined/Hybrid Methodologies A course in which online (or other distance) instruction is combined with face-to-face instruction, where a substantial portion of the face-to-face instruction is replaced by online instruction.
	N		Recitation or Discussion Regularly scheduled discussion session that is offered in addition to lecture instruction, but is generally scheduled in smaller groups than the lecture. This type of instruction is only offered in combination with lecture and may not be used as the only type of instruction for a course.
	O		Off-site instruction Organized instruction of any type offered in an off-campus location.
	P		Internship, Externship or Cooperative Ed. Supervised experience in an area of specialization, that may be conducted either on or off campus with the student making periodic reports to the instructor. Includes practicum, internship, student teaching, and cooperative work experience. Three to seven hours of preparation or work per week per credit hour equivalent.
	R		Directed Study or Research Used where a regular catalog course is offered individually to a single student.
	S		Seminar Organized instruction in a recitation (two-way communication) format. Usually used for smaller sections.
	T		Travel Courses (not study abroad) Class field instruction involving travel away from the campus, within the U.S..
	U		Studio An organized method of instruction with emphasis on the synthesizing nature of the design process and conducted through critique and one-to-one interactions. One and one-half contact hours per credit.

Experiential Learning Courses. Experiential learning courses consist of supervised experience in an area of specialization that may be conducted either on or off campus with the stu�dent making periodic reports to the instructor. These include clinical, practicum, intern-ship, student teaching, and coopera�tive work experience. They do not include graduate teaching or research assistantships at DU.

Enrollment in experiential learning courses may constitute half- or full-time enrollment for financial aid and other pur�poses if they are required for the degree and meet minimum academic requirements. Under limited circumstances, tuition and fees for these courses may be billed at reduced rates (such as rates for Continuous Enrollment). These courses must be approved by the Offices of Planning & Budget and Financial Aid. Experiential learning courses that are not billed at stan�dard tuition rates may not be credit-bearing (tran-scripted).

Enrollment status (e.g., part- or full-time) is based on the number of hours per week in the activity. Although experien�tial learning courses may or may not bear academic credit, part- or full-time equivalence is based on credit hour equiva�lents. Experiential learning classes must entail three to seven hours per week per credit hour equivalent. For example, to equate to four credit hours (half-time status at the graduate level), students� activities must be at least twelve hours per week for a ten-week quarter.

Requests for experiential learning courses for which a stu�dent�s enrollment at the University is reported, but are not billed standard tuition may be submitted through the standard course proposal process. A memo must accompany the course proposal that includes the following:

A statement that the proposed experiential learning course is to denote enrollment at DU and that it is not credit-bearing or that non-standard tuition and fee assessment is requested.
A detailed description of the experiential learning course. The description must include the duration of the experience and the range of work and preparation hours entailed per week.
Documentation of degree requirements reflecting the required experiential learning program.

Prerequisites and Corequisites. Course or test prerequisites may be enforced or simply listed in a course description or section comments (see below). While the Banner Student system provides sophisticated prerequisite checking, enforced prerequisites can have unintended negative consequences. Prerequisites may be entered with Boolean logic, i.e., with nested and/or conditions. You may also specify whether prerequisites may be taken concurrently with a particular class. Prerequisites are maintained at the Catalog level (default to sections each term) but may be overridden for specific sections. Contact Miranda Butler (14795) for further information. Enforced corequisites may be entered only at the Catalog level. I.e., corequisites must apply to all offerings of a course.

Restrictions limit course registration to or from students in specific colleges, majors, classes (e.g., sophomore), levels (graduate), degrees, and programs. Restrictions may be established to include only certain categories of students (e.g., only business students) or to exclude students in certain categories. The Registrar automatically uses this field is to restrict registration of University College Students in traditional courses and to limit Social Work courses to Social Work students, for example. Restrictions are maintained at the Catalog level (default to sections each term) but may be overridden for specific sections.

Course Description. The Course Description may be any length. It appears in the on-line catalog and is used to produce printed course bulletins.

Schedule Information (Sections)

Section number has no meaning other than to differentiate different sections of the same course. You may leave this blank on the Schedule of Classes worksheet. Independent studies and similar courses will have a section number of zero (0). Final section numbers in the schedule of classes may not match numbers submitted by departments.

Maximum Enrollment. Do not leave blank. Courses submitted with blanks or zeros will be assigned a maximum enrollment of 35.

Approvals.Special approvals may be required for a student to register for a course. Faculty may grant approval for a particular student to register for a course on the Faculty tab of webCentral. The following approval types are available:

	AD		Advisor
	DE		Dean
	DP		Department
	DS		Daniels Student Services
	ED		Editor (College of Law)
	IN		Instructor
	IO		Internship Office
	IS		Independent Study
	SA		Study Abroad
	SP		Interterm Travel

�IS� approval codes are automatically placed on all independent study and research courses so a student can be referred appropriately.

Reserved Seats. Seats in a section may be reserved for certain groups of students. Reservations can be defined using level codes (e.g., graduate), major codes, class codes (e.g., sophomore), or any of these codes in combination. Seats are reserved for specific majors, which you must specify. E.g., biochemistry is different from chemistry. Also, if a section of 30 seats has 10 reserved for graduate students, the 11th graduate student is not be able to register without permission even if there are unrestricted seats available. We suggest you not use this function, but consider �Restrictions� (q.v.).

Begin and End Time. Please see class scheduling policy. Please use 24-hour clock (e.g., 14:00 to 15:50). The Excel version of the schedule worksheet will convert your 12-hour times (e.g., 2:00 p.m.) to military time for you. It is increasingly difficult to find acceptable classrooms during �prime time.� Please consider earlier and later time slots.

Days. Use the following abbreviations for days:

	M	Monday
	T	Tuesday
	W	Wednesday
	R	Thursday
	F	Friday
	S	Saturday
	U	Sunday

Sessions. Individual sessions for a course section may be defined. A session may be used to specify the different meeting time combinations or different schedule types associated with a section. For example, a geology course which has a lecture, a lab, and a field trip may want to create three separate sessions within the course section to further define each of the meeting types. Sessions are not used to define sections where there are multiple labs to choose from. Use linked sections for that purpose.

Linked Sections. Courses composed of one or more lecture sections and multiple recitation or lab sections may be "linked" to allow flexibility in scheduling and registration. Linking allows a student to register for one of many different permutations of lecture and lab. E.g., if a student is taking CHEM 1001, she can be required to sign up for a lecture and one of several different lab sections of that course. Please contact the Office of the Registrar for additional information.

Instructor. In order to assign an instructor in the Banner Schedule, he or she must be appointed in Banner Human Resources. Please assure all instructors are appointed through Human Resources. Since we may not be familiar with all of your faculty, please provide full names and DU ID numbers so we may identify the correct Banner faculty record. Instructors must be assigned in the Schedule to enable web services such as grading for the instructor. Please provide instructor assignments with initial course schedule if possible.

Course fees. Indicate approved fees associated with a course here. Banner will automatically assess fees and credit to the appropriate account. Departments must provide a detail code and amount. Course fees must be approved and established through the Budget office and the Bursar.

Cross-List. Cross-listing permits the same section to be taken under different subject/course numbers. Cross-listing results in numerous unintended consequences including understatement of enrollment and inflation of true class offerings. Cross-listing should be used rarely and only in cases where course content can be described equally by two different subjects, e.g., sociology and economics. Do not use cross listing to differentiate levels when students are taking the same course or to restrict seats. Rather, use multiple levels, restrictions or reserved seats. Indicate course with which this course is cross-listed. Sections must be indicated by all relevant departments in order to be processed.

Attributes. Section attributes denote cross-divisional, institutionally defined characteristics of specific sections. Attributes appear prominently on the online Schedule of Classes. The following attributes have been defined:

Abroad. Used for departmentally based courses (as opposed to those offered through Study Abroad) with an international travel component.
Analytical Inquiry: Natural. Indicates courses that fulfill the Ways of Knowing Analytical Inquiry: Natural and Physical World Common Curriculum requirements.
Analytical Inquiry: Society. Indicates courses that fulfill the Ways of Knowing Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture Common Curriculum requirements.
Arts & Humanities Foundations. Indicates courses that will fulfill former Arts and Humanities University Core requirements.
Honors. Denotes an honors section.
Math/Comp Science Foundations. Indicates courses that will fulfill former Math and Computer Science University Core requirements.
Natural Sciences Foundations. Indicates courses that will fulfill former Natural Sciences University Core requirements.
Scientific Inquiry: Natural. Indicates courses that fulfill the Ways of Knowing Scientific Inquiry: Natural and Physical World Common Curriculum requirements.
Scientific Inquiry: Society. Indicates courses that fulfill the Ways of Knowing Scientific Inquiry: Society and Culture Common Curriculum requirements.
Service Learning. Denotes a service learning based section.
Social Sciences Foundations. Indicates courses that will fulfill former Social Sciences University Core requirements.
Writing Intensive. Used for writingintensive undergraduate courses and Law courses that meet the upper-division writing requirement.
Women�s College. Identifies Women�s College class sections from other departmental course offerings.

Please indicate the appropriate Attributes when submitting schedules.

Section Comments. Additional text may be included for sections. Text will appear on the web-based Schedule of Classes. Information may include additional information about fees, a description of the specific section, etc. Information that always accompanies a class should be included in the Catalog description. Indicate in the Comments column of the schedule worksheet.

Syllabus Information

Additional syllabus information may be provided for sections and appears on the online Schedule of Classes. This information may be entered directly by departmental staff [SSASYLB] or faculty may enter this information on the Faculty tab of webCentral. The Office of the Registrar does not generally enter this information.

Long Section Title. Expanded (100 character) section titles may be specified. It must be consistent with the official short title. The long title appears on the online Schedule of Classes, but not on transcripts and other official documents.

Course URL. A web link for the course may be provided. This link should not be the link for Blackboard. Blackboard links are automatically generated and appear on the Courses tab of webCentral.

Learning Objectives, Required Materials, Technical Requirements are text fields that faculty and departments can use to provide additional information about specific sections of a course.

Submitting Schedules

Since schedules are copied from a previous term (e.g., autumn 2005 to autumn 2006), it is preferred that departments submit a term�s schedule of classes marked on the previous year�s schedule.

Departments may submit class schedules each term using a schedule worksheet from the Office of the Registrar (http://www.du.edu/registrar/forms/index.html). The work-sheet prints on standard 8� x 11 paper, but it is three pages wide. Page setup may be changed to print on legal paper (two pages wide). Please do not change other spreadsheet features. Rows will expand to include all necessary information.

The Schedule of Classes is available in summary format for proofreading and departmental use on the Registrar�s web page (www.du.edu/registrar). Click �Courses and Schedules� then click �Schedule Archives.� This page does not include information important to students and should not be used by students or for advising purposes. Information on this page is updated daily.

Time and Day Distribution of Classes

Classroom space is increasingly difficult to obtain. Thus, courses must be evenly distributed throughout the day to maximize availability and utilization. The following class scheduling policies will be enforced beginning autumn 2006:

Standard Class Meeting Patterns. Class meeting times will start only on the hour. Classes may begin as early as 7:00 a.m. Classes end 10 minutes before the hour. Class meeting days are MTWRF, MTWR, MWF, MW, TR. (Classes also meet on Saturdays.) Two-hour block classes will start at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., 12 noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. or any time after 6 p.m.

50% of the two-hour block classes offered by a department should be scheduled on Monday-Wednesday and 50% on Tuesday-Thursday. Departments and programs must distribute courses throughout the day, utilizing the following formula: At least 10% of a department�s sections must begin before 10:00 a.m., and at least 10% must begin at 4:00 p.m. or later. One-hour classes must be evenly distributed in the two-hour time blocks. Labs are not included in the time distribution of courses. Evening courses can start at or after 6:00 p.m. and may start on the half hour, but need to be balanced across the specified day combinations.

Non-standard courses will be given the lowest priority in general-assignment classroom scheduling. Departmental schedules that do not meet the above criteria will be returned to the department.

Web-based Schedule of Classes

The Schedule of Classes is available on the web at www.du.edu/registrar and through webCentral. Students are able to look for sections by term, subject, course number, title, schedule type, level, instructor, attribute and time. Printable schedule archives for current terms and the past two years are also available at www.du.edu/registrar. We will print a schedule on request for departments.

Classroom Scheduling

Approximately ten weeks before the start of an academic term the scheduling coordinator will e-mail departments and ask for room requirements and pre-assignments. In order to maximize faculty satisfaction and room utilization, please select the minimum feature requirements only. The software automatically considers departmental location preferences. Departmental scheduled rooms should be listed in the request. Any other pre-assignments may not be honored. It is increasingly difficult to accommodate preferences for courses taught during �prime time� (10:00 am to 4:00 pm). Please consider earlier and later time slots.

Institutional policy for class scheduling can be requested from the Office of the Registrar. Please contact Miranda Butler, Scheduling Coordinator with any additional questions (email: Miranda.Butler@du.edu or call ext. 14795).

Course Proposal (Change) Form (Word)

Course Schedule Worksheet (Excel)

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