Creating, Revising, and Inactivating Courses

Current courses are viewable in the Course Catalog. Instructions on how to create, revise, and inactivate courses are below.

CourseLeaf CIM

The Office of the Registrar (OTR) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) implemented CourseLeaf CIM (pronounced like the name "Kim"), which is a course inventory and curriculum management platform with customized online forms and automated workflows, designed to ensure accuracy across an institution’s courses and programs. CourseLeaf CIM allows departments and schools to collect the needed information for revisions to courses, provide notifications across campus for affected units, and integrate into the General Announcements so that revisions don't need to be made on each and every page in the General Announcements. CIM is used for all Course Catalog processing.

CourseLeaf CIM can be accessed at courseleaf.rice.edu/courseadmin. A detailed step-by-step wiki to perform any action in CIM is available here.

Course Creation Process

Procedures to create new undergraduate-level courses (i.e., courses number 100-499) (or to reactivate inactive courses) were approved by Faculty Senate in November 2015 with the goal of enhancing faculty oversight of the curriculum. The full Working Group report and recommendations are posted on the Faculty Senate webpage, and the memo from the Provost and Faculty Speaker is also available.

Additional workflow approval requirements for new graduate-level courses (i.e., courses numbered 500-999) (or to reactivate inactive courses) were created by the approval of Rice Policy 108: Policy of Academic Credit Hours.

Deadlines

For new courses and for reactivation of currently inactive courses, proposals must be submitted in CourseLeaf CIM and observe the following deadlines in order to reach the appropriate Dean in the CIM workflow:

  • For new courses for the Fall semester: The deadline is March 1, with an extension to August 1 for visiting faculty, postdocs, and new faculty hires teaching their first Rice courses in the fall.
  • For new courses for the Spring semester: The deadline is October 1, with an extension to December 1 for visiting faculty, postdocs, and new faculty hires teaching their first Rice courses in the spring.

Temporary/One-Time Only Courses

    The process for creating a course that will be taught only once (e.g., by visiting faculty or postdocs) is expedited – there is no SCRC review. These courses will use designated Special Topics course numbers (238, 477, or 677, depending on the level of the course). All subject codes will use these course numbers for temporary/one-time only courses; each new temporary/one-time only course is created as a new section of the Special Topics course. The title of the course will appear in online registration and on the student transcript. Students may take a Special Topics course with the same subject code and course number more than once, since the section titles will vary and will appear on the transcript. These courses do not replace or displace existing Special Topics courses; they are specifically for courses that will be taught only once.

    Please note the following about these courses:

    • Special Topic Courses (238, 477, or 677) are repeatable. If a permanent course is created due to the popularity of the one-time Special Topics course, a student is eligible to repeat the course as the new (permanent) course. This cannot be restricted.
    • Special Topic courses may not carry Distribution Credit.
    • Special Topics courses cannot be cross-listed.
    • An UG/GR equivalent may be listed once for Special Topics courses (as 477/677) if requested, but they must be placed in CIM as separate courses just as regular UG/GR equivalent course would be due to the needed workflow approvals.

    Deadline for Temporary/One-Time Only Courses

    The deadline for submitting forms for one-time only courses to the appropriate Dean is August 1 for Fall semester courses and December 1 for Spring semester courses.

    Distribution Credit (Undergraduate Courses)

    When proposing a new course, faculty can indicate whether or not the course should be considered for distribution credit on the proposal form. During the approval review process for new courses the School Course Review Committee (SCRC) will assess the request against the criteria in the General Announcements and approve or deny the request during the proposal review.

    To request the addition or removal of Distribution Credit on a current course, please contact your Dean’s office. The Distribution Credit Roll Call is requested of each Dean’s office each March for the upcoming Academic Year, and Distribution Credit is applied or removed for the complete Academic Year for any current courses through that Distribution Credit Roll Call.

    Process for Departmental New/Reactivated Course Approvals

    The process for new departmental courses is handled automatically within CIM upon submission.

    1. Complete a new course request in CIM. Be sure to complete all fields and thoroughly answer the prompts for the evaluation of a new course. If the course is a one-time only course, you must use the departmental Special Topics course number 238, 477, or 677.
    2. Submit the new course request to workflow in CIM. The workflow is as follows:
      1. Rice Online (if online instructional method is requested)
      2. Department Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Chair (or Department Graduate Curriculum Committee Chair if one is identified and the course is graduate level)
      3. Department Chair
      4. School Dean
      5. School Level Review - SCRC/CUC/GC. (Please see SCRCs and the Review Process PDF.)
        • A list of course subject codes and the relevant Review Committee for each is available here.
        • For a one-time only, Special Topics course numbered 238, 477, or 677 there is no SCRC/CUC/GC review, but the signature of the SCRC/CUC/GC chair is still required.
        • For Departmental Courses:
          • For a recurring course, the SCRC will review requests within 10 working days of the October 1 and March 1 deadlines; the SCRC chair will sign approved course request forms.
            • The SCRC review is limited to consideration of credit hours awarded for the course, given the contact hours, work, and assessment information provided on the course request form.
            • A pilot version of Guidelines for Assigning Credit Hours to Courses is available here, illustrating minimum standards for awarding credit hours for the course types identified by the Office of the Registrar (OTR).
            • Review of course content, subject matter, and methodology is excluded; those are the responsibility of the department.
        • For Extra-Departmental Courses
          • For a recurring course, the relevant review committee will review requests within 10 working days of the October 1 and March 1 deadlines; the SCRC/CUC/GC chair will sign approved course request forms. In the review, the committee will consider suitability of the proposed course for university credit; appropriate faculty oversight of courses conducted mainly off-campus (e.g., internships and practicums); appropriate credit hours awarded for the course, given the contact hours, work and assessment information provided on the course request form. Note: A pilot version of Guidelines for Assigning Credit Hours to Courses is available here, illustrating minimum standards for awarding credit hours for the course types identified by the Office of the Registrar (OTR).
      6. Office of the Registrar (OTR)
    3. OTR will create the course and notify the relevant department of the course creation.

    Sharing among SCRC/CUC/GC members of best practices in different departments is encouraged, with the goal of achieving greater consistency of standards across departments and among departmental and extra-departmental courses.

    Review by CUC/GC is waived for new extra-departmental course requests with the following subject codes: AFSC, COLL, FWIS, HONS, LPAP, LPCR, MILI, DSRT.

    School Course Review Committee (SCRC) Chairs

    Each school has its own SCRC composed of curricular representatives chosen by each department, and the Dean of the school, ex officio. Further details are provided in the SCRCs and the Review Process PDF.

    • For departmental courses, SCRC review is limited to consideration of amount and level of credit hours awarded for the course.
    • For extra-departmental courses, SCRC review will be more extensive, except in the case of FWIS, COLL and LPAP courses, for which current review procedures will continue.
    • The course review process for Fall courses will be completed by March 15.

    The SCRC chairpersons are listed below.

    School SCRC Chair
    Architecture Igor Marjanovic
    Business Brian Rountree
    Continuing Studies Robert Bruce
    Engineering Elizabeth McGuffey
    Humanities Daniel Domingues
    Music Richard Lavenda
    Natural Sciences Ken Whitmire
    Social Sciences Mallesh Pai

    List of CIM Workflow Approvers/Notification Receivers

    A list of individuals who need to approve CIM requests, as well as those who will receive notification of the approval of a proposal are listed below. If you recognize an error, please contact registrar@rice.edu.

    CIM Role Definitions

    The majority of roles are below. Some additional roles exist for administrative units on campus.

    • DEPT Notify: individual who has requested to be notified of all new proposals and any approvals in CIM; no review/approval
    • DEPT UG Curriculum Committee Chair: the chair of the department's undergraduate curriculum committee responsible for entering decision on proposals once reviewed by the committee; reviews/approves proposals
    • DEPT GR Curriculum Committee Chair: the chair of the department's graduate curriculum committee responsible for entering decision on proposals once reviewed by the committee; reviews/approves proposals
    • DEPT Chair: the chair of the department; reviews/approves proposals
    • SCHOOL Preapprove: step prior to the school dean, usually used as a holding and administrative review of proposals before being sent to the dean; reviews/approves proposals
    • SCHOOL Dean: dean of the school; reviews/approves proposals
    • SCHOOL SCRC: School Course Review Committee Chair responsible for entering decision on proposals once reviewed by a school's SCRC; reviews/approves proposals

    Revising a Course

    To revise a course that is currently active, a request to revise the course will need to be submitted through CourseLeaf CIM.

    Cross-listing a Course

    Before proceeding to cross-list a course, please review information on cross-listing.

    Two New Courses

    The lead department will normally be the one in which the faculty member requesting and teaching the new course is primarily affiliated. When proposing the new course in CIM, there will be a spot to indicate the cross-list, and the request will be routed to all relevant departments and schools for approval.

    New Course with an Existing Course

    A course change request should be submitted. When proposing the cross-list, the initiator will indicate the new cross-list, and the request will be routed to all relevant departments and schools for approval.

    Two Existing Courses

    This cannot be done (easily) in CIM. Please contact registrar@rice.edu.

    Inactivating a Course

    Courses that have not been offered for several semesters or will not be offered in the future should be inactivated. To inactivate a course that is currently active, a course inactivation request should be submitted in CIM.

    Inactivating a course allows the course number to be reused after seven years since the last enrollment in that course number. If needed, OTR may inactivate numbers not used in the past seven years if they exist, thus freeing additional numbers for departments to use for new courses.

    Reusing a Course Number

    Courses must be inactive for seven years since the last enrollment to be eligible for reuse. OTR has created a dashboard for you to be able to see which courses are eligible to be reused on the Tableau Server, and the dashboard can be accessed by clicking here. You must be on the Rice network or use VPN in order to access the dashboard.

    Important note about the dashboard: only courses that have been offered and have had enrollment appear. If a course has been created and never offered and/or never had enrollment, it will not appear.