Proposing New Programs or Courses or Changes to Existing Courses

Procedure

The four steps that a course or program proposal goes through in the CSE Department are:

1. Prepare and Present Proposal to the Curriculum Committee:
• Answer appropriate questionnaire

Any faculty member who is interested in proposing a new course, proposing a change to an existing course, or proposing a new program, should first answer the relevant questionnaire: new course or new program. For proposing changes to existing courses, refer to the questionnaire for proposing new courses.  Answer the questions relevant to the changes being proposed to the course.
• Prepare a syllabus

See the CSE Syllabus Database; log into it with your CSE user name and password, and click on "Help" if you need it, or ask the Curriculum Committee Chair for help.  Note that the official syllabus includes information beyond what a student typically sees (e.g., relationship to accreditation criteria), and it must be included for consideration.  Do not simply create an MS Word document as your proposed syllabus!
• Present proposal to Curriculum Committee

The questionnaire indicates what issues are likely to be raised by the Curriculum Committee in any event.  It is helpful to have thought carefully about these questions in advance as this expedites the process considerably.  Then contact the Curriculum Committee Chair to schedule a proposal to the Curriculum Committee, giving the Committee Chair a course syllabus and the filled out questionnaire ahead of time so it can be distributed to the Committee members.  The proposing faculty member presents the proposal to the Curriculum Committee.  In the case of proposing a repeated offering of a  group studies (X94s), a report to the Committee on the successes and failures of, and resulting revisions to, the course should be presented by the proposing faculty member.
2. Present Proposal to the Computer Committee:

A particularly important aspect of any curricular change is that of its impact on the computing environment and of its demands on computing resources.  Please think this through so that we are not caught off-guard when it comes time to put a curricular change into operation.  Once a proposal has been brought to the Curriculum Committee, discussed, and approved, it then goes to the Computer Committee for computer infrastructure impact evaluation and their approval.  If possible, it is presented by the proposing faculty member who must schedule time in a Computer Committee meeting for consideration.  Otherwise the Curriculum Committee Chair will present the proposal for consideration by the Computer Committee.  If a course change is proposed which will not impact the required computing resources, then this step can be completed by the Curriculum Committee Chair or the proposer presenting the course change to the Computer Committee Chair for approval.
3. Present Proposal to the CSE Faculty:

Once any computer issues are resolved, it is then presented to the full CSE faculty for consideration (except for X94s, minor editorial changes, etc.) by the Curriculum Committee Chair.
4. Fill Out the University Paperwork and Get it Signed:

The proposing faculty member works with the Curriculum Committee chair to get the official "course proposal", "change to course", or "program proposal" form from the CSE office and they fill it out.  From there, it gets the CSE Chair's signature and moves on up through the bureaucracy.

Deadlines and Other Information

• Group studies (X94s)
• College deadline: middle of the quarter before the course is to be offered
• A 694 generally can only be offered twice; after that it normally must be proposed as a regular course.
• Must be accompanied by a syllabus.
• Must be approved by Curriculum Committee.
• Must be approved by Computer Committee.
• Permanent courses
• College deadline: middle of the quarter before the quarter before the course is to be offered.
• Must be accompanied by a syllabus.
• Must be approved by Curriculum Committee.
• Must be approved by Computer Committee.
• Must be approved by full CSE faculty.
• Must be accompanied by concurrence letters from other units with "interests" in area.
• Schedule of the deadlines for OAA forms (course change, new course):
• SU: Feb 15
• AU: Feb 15
• WI: July 15
• SP: Nov 15