Course approval
Responsibility for the approval of new courses and for changes, withdrawals and suspension of existing courses, is devolved to Colleges. Proposals for new courses and changes to courses must be processed via PIP, the Programme Information Process, using the course specification and course proposal support documents. Suspension and withdrawal proposals must be processed using the proposal support document.
The formal distinction between major and minor changes to courses has been abandoned but the following convention adopted in the design of the PIP may be applied more generally. It has been established that the following Course Specification fields may be amended without explicit College approval:
- Course co-ordinator
- Availability to visiting students
- Schools contributing to the course
- Texts students are expected to buy or consult
- Pre-requisites, co-requisites and exclused courses
- Short description
- Formative assessment
- Additional relevant information.
Other changes must be scrutinised and approved by the College Board of Studies either by the full committee (for new courses or withdrawal/suspension proposals), or out of committee by the Convener (changes to existing courses).
Academic Standards Committee has decided there is no longer any need for external consultations for course changes. There is also no need for consultation with Central Room Bookings for course changes, except where the change is likely to have an impact on room bookings, e.g. where large teaching spaces are required.
Some Colleges have not always completed the approval process by the end of Semester 2 deadline. If course codes - particularly for new courses - are not live in time, this has serious implications for plan building, room bookings, student registration and examination timetabling.
The Senate Office submits a summary of course proposals approved by Colleges for information to the Academic Standards Committee annually at the first meeting of each academic session.