Curriculum and Catalog: Tips for Success

The courses and degree programs offered at UNM undergo multiple levels of review and are published annually in the UNM Catalog—a transparent record to the public of course, degree, and university requirements.

UNM uses the Kuali platform to manage the workflow associated with curriculum review and catalog production. At each stage of review, committees rely on specific criteria to evaluate new courses and degree programs or changes to existing courses and degree programs.

Faculty and departments will be more successful in modifying curriculum with awareness of how key criteria are applied at each stage of the full review process, which includes UNM, the New Mexico Higher Education Department, and the Higher Learning Commission (UNM's accreditor). See below for information on in-person training days, how to use Kuali, and Curriculum Flow and Tips for Navigating Curriculum Review.

In-person training: Contact curric@unm.edu to set up a personalized training session for the following topics:

  • Curriculum Basics;
  • Developing new degree programs;
  • Kuali Resources/ Using the Kuali Platform;
  • Curriculum Flow and Tips for Navigating Curriculum Review;
  • Courses;
  • Degree, Certificate, and Concentration Programs;

KUALI COURSES: Tips for Success

TIP: New courses or changes to current courses

  • Create a new course, select +New Course upper right panel.
  • Propose changes to an existing course, search for the course, and select Propose Changes in upper right panel.

PRO TIP: Filters

Check your Filters on the right panel and select all that apply; select all statuses when searching for a course.

TIP - New Course Creation for upper division and graduate courses (Lower Division courses have special requirements - see Common Course Numbering section)

  • There are many mandatory fields required by the Provost Office, curriculum committees, and the Registrar’s Office. You’ll receive a Validation Error if any required fields are missing.
  • The syllabus description and student learning outcomes must match the Kuali course form. You are limited to 45 spaces for the description in Kuali and Banner; your syllabus does not have this limitation.
  • A draft proposal is automatically created, and you can always find it in your dashboard, in the upper left pane. It’s best not to create multiple drafts of the same proposal. The Registrar’s Office will delete duplicate drafts and incomplete drafts at the end of the curriculum cycle.
  • Note you can also Share your proposal with any number of colleagues, for their review and comment before submitting to workflow.
  • When you’ve completed your proposal, leave Edit Mode (upper right pane) and select Submit to move the proposal into the workflow.
  • NOTE: The College on the Kuali course form refers to the curriculum approval process selected by the College. For example, Arts and Sciences has 3 separate college approval committees. If your school or college has this structure, please use the drop down and select the correct approval committee. If you select just the College of Arts and Sciences, for example, then your proposal will not proceed through the workflow process. (We must keep the College name for catalog purposes.)

PRO TIPS:

Checking workflow progress: Once a proposal is submitted to workflow, you can see the approval path it will go through by selecting the “expand” arrow in the upper right part of the Kuali form.

 Duplicate forms: Did you know you can create multiple proposals based on the first one? Let’s say you’re proposing several new graduate courses and much of the information is the same for each course proposal. After creating the first course, you can Duplicate it in the right pane (below comments), and a draft proposal will automatically be generated for you. Of course you’ll have to change the course number, title, description, etc., and make sure to upload the correct syllabus. These draft proposals are found in your Dashboard.  Kuali won’t automatically submit any proposals for you!

TIP – especially for New Course Syllabi

  • Defects in the syllabus are the number one reason that new course proposals either get returned, denied, or edits are requested.
  • Although syllabi are part of the faculty's creative purview, the Faculty Senate and curriculum committees have minimum requirements.
  • Some of those requirements are:
    • Credit hours
    • Course number/description
    • Student Learning Outcomes
    • Assignments and grading
    • Appropriate grade distribution scale (Undergraduate is different from Graduate)
    • An approved accommodation statement
  • See the Sample Syllabus template
  • The Kuali course form and syllabus need to match each other.

PRO TIPS

               Submit! The proposal may be returned to the department chair or proposer to address defects. You receive an email from Kuali, and it is best to address the issues immediately. Delays in reviewing and correcting concerns can prevent your proposal from being approved for the catalog and curriculum cycle. Don’t forget to select Submit!

               Edit and Comment: Sometimes you will get edit ability at the current approval step without the proposal being returned to the beginning of workflow. This is a courtesy process by which you can make the changes requested by reviewers, and the proposal can proceed through workflow. Always reply to the comment when finished so the approver can process the proposal.

Giving Edit Access. You can give edit access to a proposal, but it must be done by creating a new comment!  You can’t give edit access with an already established email chain.

TIP for Common Course Numbering

Common Course Numbering (CCN) is required by NMHED for all lower division courses (see overview here ). Departments cannot offer lower division courses that have not been approved by NMHED.

TIPS for AOA and Cross-listing

AOA (Also Offered As) is the same course across different subject codes and departments. An agreement must be uploaded to the Kuali course form from the departments agreeing to the course. These courses are created by the Registrar’s Office at the course level and in Banner. Cross-listing is the situation where any two courses (or more) can be linked together at the section level. This is done at the section level and does not require any Kuali curriculum approval.

PRO TIP

The AOA course is the same for each subject code as the “original” course, including prerequisites. This means that any change to an AOA course must be made to all other courses, which can lead to some issues that require students in other departments to take prerequisites in the original course department. A better solution could be to cross-list the course with a topic or seminar number, for example.

For AOA proposals, only one course proposal is required. The Registrar’s Office will create all the courses from that one proposal.

TIP for Double-numbered or Starred (*) Courses

These courses are usually an upper division and graduate course covering the same subject: only one course proposal is required. The Registrar’s Office will create all the courses from that one proposal.

A starred course is one in which an undergraduate course can be taken by graduate students for graduate credit. Propose changes to the undergraduate course and fill in the required section. Only one course proposal is required. Do not create a graduate proposal.

TIPS for Prerequisites and Co-requisites

Graduate: The Graduate Office policy is that prerequisites are not enforced at registration. Therefore, the Registrar’s Office doesn’t enter prerequisites into Banner. Prerequisites can still be listed in the catalog.

Undergraduate:

Keep prerequisites as simple as possible. If Course A is a prerequisite to Course B, and Course B is a prerequisite to Course C, then Course C does not need to list both Course A and Course B in the prerequisite section. Listing just Course B is sufficient.

Please pay careful attention to how complex prerequisites are built in Kuali (for example: Course A or Course B, and Course C or Course D). If you have questions about how to build them correctly, or want to check to make sure they are correct, contact curric@unm.edu and we will be happy to look at them.

Keep in mind that courses listed as corequisites will always enforce concurrent enrollment, regardless of a student’s past course history.  So, for example, if a student passes a lecture but not the accompanying lab, the system will not allow the student to register to retake just the lab without a corequisite override.

To avoid this, consider using the option to list it as a prerequisite or concurrent enrollment.   

PROGRAMS:

TIP

  • Create a new program, select + New Program upper right panel
  • Propose changes to an existing program, search for the program, and select Propose Changes upper right panel

PRO TIP

  • Check your Filters on the right panel and select all that apply; select all statuses when searching for a program

TIP – New Program Creation

CATALOG REVIEW and EDITS:

TIP

  • Use Other Forms to find your department or college/school page, or other editable content.
  • The search function should help locate the page quickly; for example, I typed “engl” in the search window, and the results were two department pages: English-Philosophy Dept. Info and English Dept. Info.
  • Like other Kuali forms, you can Propose Changes and edit the page and then submit to workflow.
  • Unlike other Kuali workflow forms, these changes have a very limited workflow and do not go through the curricular approval process.

PRO TIP

  • You can edit departments or other non-curricular pages at any time in the curricular calendar. However, it is highly recommended that you update these pages toward the end of the spring semester. Kuali only allows one update per curricular cycle; waiting until the spring semester gives the best chance to capture changes prior to catalog publication.
  • Once the catalog has been published, review your department or college/school page (even if there were no changes). Check all the links to make sure that they are functional and are navigating to the correct web page.