1. The Curriculum Process at NKU
Richard Fox
Chair, UCC
Department of Computer Science

2. Changing The Curriculum at NKU
The curriculum process involves changes to the curriculum of programs, classes, the general education program, and curriculum policy changes
Curriculum changes are
new courses, course changes, course deletions
program (majors, minors, certificates) changes, deletions
changes to program admissions
new programs
note: the “Focus” is not a specified curriculum so there is no need to explicitly create or change a Focus for a student
general education program changes

3. Curriculum Process Parties involved in the process are
Departmental faculty (original proposer(s), department curriculum committee if any, program director if necessary, full department, department chair)
usually a department votes in its entirety on curriculum changes rather than having a separate curriculum committee
Library (for new courses only)
TEC (if applicable)
College curriculum committee
Dean’s office (usually the associate dean)
Graduate Council (if applicable)
UCC
Faculty Senate (new programs, substantive program changes, gen ed program changes)
Provost’s office (via the Vice Provost)
CPE and Board (new programs only)
Registrar (non-voting)

4. Some Current Curriculum Policies
Program-level
A major is a degree conferring program
it must consist of a minimum of 30 credit hours
it must exist within a department (or a college in some rare cases), cross disciplinary degrees are permissible but it must still be housed somewhere
A minor consists of at least 18 hours, usually 21
A focus consists of 12 upper level hours within one discipline (note: a focus is selected by the student)
all undergraduate students are required to complete a major and either a second major, a minor, or a focus, plus 45 advanced hours of coursework and the general education program to graduate
A certificate program consists of a collection of hours (usually) and can be undergrad ( ) or grad (500+)
All advanced courses (300+) require prerequisites

5. Special Course Numbers
Some course numbers are reserved for special types of courses
X91 for thesis coursework
X92 for research courses
X93 for seminar courses
X94 for topics courses
X95 for study abroad topics courses
X96 for practicum
X97 for portfolio/presentation courses
X99 for independent studies/directed readings
X90 and X98 are reserved for future use
Options: repeatable for credit when topics vary, restrict number of credits earned toward a degree, secondary title (for some of these categories)

6. The General Education Program
All general education (GE) courses must fit into a category by fulfilling all of the student learning outcomes (SLO) for that category
A GE course can fit into two categories if one of those categories is Global Perspectives
All GE courses are to be assessed
New GE courses must be approved both as new courses and new GE courses by UCC, Gen Ed committee and Faculty Senate
Existing courses that are being proposed for GE only require approval as new GE courses but must be approved by UCC, Gen Ed and Faculty Senate
Changes to the GE program require approval by UCC, Gen Ed and Faculty Senate

7. Exceptions to the Curriculum Process
The following require approval by only the department chair and UCC chair
X99 course creation and course changes
Course term change
SAP type change
Creation of honors section of existing course (Gen Ed honors courses require approval of Gen Ed committee)
Changes to the departmental or college portion of the catalog (i.e., the narrative sections) do not require approval through the curriculum process
Course deletions are not voted on by UCC
Unclear whether they need approval by college, dean, grad council, etc

8. Curriculog
Starting this fall, we are using Curriculog as our UCC software
Interfaced through your web browser (nku.curriculog.com)
Forms for different types of operations
course change
new course
course deletion
gen ed course re-certification
gen ed program change
new gen ed course (course being added to gen ed whether it’s a new course or not, if new course then need new course form as well)
program change (major/minor/certificate)
new program track/concentration or new minor
program (or track) deletion (major/minor/certificate)
mass course change
new program (two forms: full proposal, NOI/preproposal)
All forms include text boxes for justification

9. Curriculog Continued
Change forms for programs and courses retrieve current information from Acalog to populate the form
The proposer need only edit the content to be changed
Members of various committees and in administrative roles will be part of the approval process
Approve
Reject
Send back to originator for changes
All members of the university committee will have access to read proposals, track a proposal’s progress and leave comments
You will be alerted if an item is waiting for your approval
Different levels have the ability to edit a proposal, but only when the proposal is awaiting their approval

10. Impact Reports and MOU
Curriculog has a convenient feature to determine the impact of a change
You can obtain a list of all courses and programs impacted by a program or course change
Include the results of the impact report in your form (if any)
Notify all impacted departments (department chair, program director, UCC rep) of the changes you are proposing
place a copy of that as an attachment in the form(s) you are submitting as a memorandum of understanding
failure to include the MOU will cause the proposal to be held at the UCC (or lower level) until this is taken care of

11. Curriculog Starting Page

12. Login Page
Curriculog will use our authentication page (same as logging in
to , use the same account information)

13. Main Portal
Don’t forget to log out when done

14. The Proposal Types (forms)

15. Course Change Form

16. Importing from a Catalog

17. Approving or Deleting a Proposal

18. Running a Report
Reports are ed to you

19. An Impact Report

20. The Timeline
Faculty are free to submit UCC forms at any time but they should first be approved by the department or department curriculum committee
After chair approval, items go to TEC or their college, college meetings vary
CoAS – every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month
CoEHS – every 2nd Wednesday (in conjunction with TEC)
CoB, CoHP, CoI – meet as needed
Graduate items go to Grad Council (2nd Thursday)
UCC meets 1st and 3rd Thursdays (4th Thursday in March, no 3rd Thursday in Dec or 1st Thurs in Jan)
Faculty Senate meets 3rd or 4th Monday
The timeline to make it through the process varies by type of submission
Graduate items, items for TEC, take more time
New programs take a lot more time

21. Keeping Track of Items
The time it takes to make it through the process can be as little as 2-3 weeks or as much as 7 months (new graduate program from CoAS)
Items can also be held at any level and take weeks to get through
someone should keep track of the submission to make sure it is progressing: the original proposer, the department’s UCC rep or the program director
Any level could potentially kick an item back to the proposer for changes
anyone can comment on a proposal, original proposers should review these as the item progresses
items are not final until they are approved by the Vice Provost (or the Board for new programs)

22. Deadlines
Until we moved to Acalog this past year, our deadlines for next fall’s catalog were that items had to be approved through the UCC by December
We are moving the deadline ahead to end of March
UCC last meets week 3 of March, items must be approved by the UCC by that date to be in next fall’s catalog
Graduate items must be approved by grad council by their February meeting (GC and UCC meet on the same Thursday in March after spring break)
New programs and changes to GE require Senate approval so must be approved by the March meeting

23. Two Comments
Its preferable for curricular items to be submitted as early as possible to ensure that they make it through in time
don’t wait until January to discuss possible curriculum changes for the next academic year! Start early in the fall
Items can be approved and implemented in SAP even if they are not going to appear that way in the catalog for 1-2 semesters
e.g., you change a course title in SAP for spring 2017 even though it will not appear that way in the catalog until fall 2017
such changes need to be approved early in a semester to give the registrar time to implement them in SAP prior to the next semester’s schedule of classes being released, once students are enrolling for a course, its very difficult to make changes such as changing a prereq

24. Questions?
About the curriculum process, curriculog or a curriculum issue: Richard Fox 5334)
About mistakes found in SAP: Beth Vasquez 5159)
About acalog or erroneous content in the catalog: Bethany Smith 6432)
For the Registrar: Alan Cole 5225)
About CPE, SACS or undergraduate policy issues: Ande Durojaiye 5379)
About program review and assessment: Abdou Ndoye 5379)
About graduate policy issues: Samantha Langley 7567)
About curriculog issues or access: Connie Kiskaden 6567)