Barnard College Barnard College
Teaching & Curriculum

Proposing a New Course or Changing an Existing Course

Using Course Management

Instructors and Department Assistants/Administrators may log into Course Management to propose new courses and make changes to existing courses via the Proposal module. Through workflow, the proposal will be reviewed by the department chair/program director, and if approved, it will go to the Committee on Instruction (COI). COI has bi-weekly meetings. 

In order to use Course Management, you must use CUIT's Multifactor Authentication - DUO. If you have questions about downloading or using DUO, please contact CUIT. Contact the Office of the Provost if you are having issues gaining access to to Course Management.

There are many fields in the Proposal Module, with select ones marked as required. You may start a draft of the course and save it at any point until you are ready to submit. Some required fields are listed below.

Your department assistant/administrator should be able to help you with the Proposal module in Course Management, but please feel free to contact the Associate Director of Academic Affairs LaShawn Keyser in the Office of the Provost if you have further questions. You may also refer to the Course Management User Guide. 

Proposal Module

All proposals for new courses must be submitted to the COI through Course Management via the Proposal module. A syllabus must be attached to the online new course proposal form. Proposals must be submitted by Monday, October 11, 2021 for Spring 2022 courses and Friday, February 18, 2022 for Fall 2022 courses. These deadlines are to ensure that courses are reviewed, approved, and reflected in the Directory of Classes in time for the early registration period in November and April. The deadline for Summer 2022 courses is Monday, January 10, 2022. 

If you are proposing a 4000 level GU course, it will also need to be approved by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences COI via the workflow in Course Management. You will not need to do anything extra as the process is automated.

New courses recommended by the COI must be approved by a majority vote of the Faculty before they may be included in the Directory of Classes.

Any of the following changes to a course must be submitted to COI through Course Management:

  • student learning outcomes
  • course points or course type
  • number of class hours
  • department, subject area code, prefix, number, or course title
  • general education requirement (GER) designation
  • substantial alterations in course requirements

Courses that have not been taught in more than 5 years must also be reviewed. Barnard's COI does not review changes to course descriptions or new topic titles, but you must still submit those changes through Course Management for an approval that usually takes 1-2 days.

*If a student wishes to appeal a course for general education requirement, please direct the student to "How to Request a Course to Fulfill a GER" within the Curriculum page.

Fields in the Proposal Module

Every course is required to have a syllabus. When crafting your syllabus, please refer to the COI's Guidelines for Syllabi for recommended style and content suggestions. The syllabus should contain the following information:

Owner

  • Most Barnard courses will have just one department as the owner. All Barnard departments have departmental codes that end in "B." e.g. American Studies (AMSB) and NOT AMST. It is important to get this correct or the course will not go through proper workflow. if you have questions about this, ask your department administrator/assistant. 
  • You have the ability to add another department as an owner of the course. Essentially, whoever owns the course will have the ability to schedule the course. 

Subject

The 4-character subject code that you see publicly when referring to the course. 

Course Number and Qualifiers 

  • BC and UN courses are open to undergraduate students only and may have course numbers as high as 3999.

  • GU courses are open to undergraduate and graduate students (typically master’s students). GU courses may have course numbers ranging from 4000 to 4999. These courses need approval by both Barnard's COI (for undergraduate students) and the GSAS Executive Committee (for graduate students).

  • Note that “GR” designates a course open to graduate students only, numbered from 5000 and higher. These courses are not reviewed by the Barnard's COI.

  • The system will not allow you to create a subject code and course number combination that is currently in use by the College or University. Searching Course Management's Inventory module will allow you to see all courses offered by the University. 

 

Course Official Title and Transcript Title 

Some systems do not have a character limit for course titles, but the Directory of Classes and Colleague do. If your official course title is more than 30 characters, you will need to abbreviate it in the transcript title field. 

Topics courses

This is used in instances where there are several courses with the same main title but each section has a different topic. For example: The official course title is Acting Lab, but the topics are Shakespeare, Chekhov, Acting the Song. Topics titles are limited to 30 characters. 

Barnard College assigns credit hours to measure the amount of coursework required of students, in compliance with standards established by the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) and the U.S. Department of Education. In general, Hours should reflect points awarded for the course. The relative proportions of in-class and out-of-class time can vary by course, with justification. For guidelines on determining hours for Barnard courses, please visit the Guidance on Course Points. 

Courses with fixed credit points should have the minimum and maximum values set to be the same. Variable points should be used only for courses where students are able to choose the appropriate points for their enrollment during registration. Non-credit courses (such as discussion sections) should have points set to 0 (zero).

General Education Requirements (GERs) are not required for your courses, but if you would like your course to satisfy one, you must provide a rationale. You may choose as many of the the Foundations: Distributional Requirements and Foundations: Modes of Thinking that you believe are applicable. 

If you need assistance with determining which of the Foundations: Modes of Thinking best fits your course, view information on the Foundations Curriculum page.  Please note that your course must be at least 3 credits for it to qualify for GERs. 

If your course has any prerequisites or co-requisites, please provide that information. If there are non-course prerequisites, such as "must be an English major," you may also enter that information here.

A course description must be provided. This will be displayed in the Course Catalogue and the Directory of Classes. 

Other Curricular Changes

If your department would like to make a change to your major or minor, view the Change in Major/Minor form to submit to COI. 

If you and your colleagues would like the creation a new major or minor, please contact the Vice Provost of Academic Programs, Saskia Hamilton.

For more guidance from COI, please visit Forms & Guidelines.