Proposing a New Course or Changing an Existing Course

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, September 28, 2020 for Spring 2021 courses and Friday, February 5, 2021 for Fall 2021 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 2021 courses is November 16. 

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 after approval by the COI and the Faculty must be resubmitted to the Committee on Instruction 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

*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.

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:

• instructor's office hours and contact information
• student learning outcomes
• required readings, including reading lengths (in page numbers or ranges)
• course requirements (e.g. exams, papers, book reviews) and relevant due dates
• guidelines for assignments, including the degree to which collaboration is allowed
• criteria for course grade
• expectations regarding participation, which includes attendance
• inclusion of the Honor Code; listing what constitutes plagiarism is recommended
• inclusion of the Wellness Statement 
• inclusion of the Center for Accessibility Resources & Disability Services Statement 
• inclusion of the Affordable Access to Course Texts & Materials Statement 

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. 

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.