Course Forms FAQs

Academic departments submit Course Add, Modify, and Inactivate request forms in UAccess Student at the following navigation: Curriculum Management > UA Curriculum Management > Course Management > UA Course Add, UA Course Modify, or UA Course Inactivate.

The approval route is built for each course depending on course type. Generally, course requests are routed to approvers in the following order:

• Curricular Affairs Preview (initial review for formatting and form policy compliance)
• Department Approver (additional department approvers will be added to the route for any cross-lists subjects or requisite course IDs used in the form.)
• College Approver (additional approvers for each cross-list/requisite course id)
• Additional approvers for GENED, HNRS, GRAD, SUCCESS, and SUN.
• Curricular Affairs Approval (Syllabus review, final check for comments posted, and oversight of the mandatory 10-day campus review period for all course Add forms)

Once all necessary approvals have been granted including final approval by Curricular Affairs, the Office of the Registrar receives the form and uses a system push to move the forms information into the course catalog, with the exception of requirement groups, which are manually programmed and added, and other rare updates that the system push cannot handle. The effective date of new and updated courses depends on the date that final approval was granted; more information on Dates and Deadlines is provided on the Curricular Affairs website's Course Approvals page.

• The General Catalog contains all information regarding the structure of academics at the UA, including the Course Catalog, official degree requirements, the academic calendar, and academic policies. 
• The Course Catalog houses official course information, which is used to build the Schedule of Classes.  Courses must be taught as listed in the Course Catalog for the approved effective data row entry.
• The Browse Catalog is the public view of Course Catalog information and includes links to the Schedule of Classes.  It is term specific information and should not be used to review the catalog for updated.  Please use the Course Catalog.

• Course Component: The type of structure a course has (Lecture, Lab, Independent Study, etc.).
• Instructor Contact Hours: required time that students must meet with an instructor or the course component(s) and number of units. Each component type has requirement for contact time and can be viewed in the General Catalog’s Credit Definition section.
• Workload Hours: For single-component courses, Workload Hours should be identical to the Minimum Units for the course. For multi-component courses, the sum of Workload Hours for all required components should equal the Minimum Units for the course.
• Final Exam: Yes/No option to indicate whether the course utilizes a final exam. If yes, each course is assigned a final exam time that is dependent upon the meeting pattern of the course during the semester as listed in the Schedule of Classes.
• Graded Component: The component of the course that is graded or where the student receives credit on their transcript. The Primary component and Graded component should be the same. 
• Primary Component: the enrollment component. Should be the same as the graded component, so the workload will appear on the primary component on the students enrollment record.
• Optional Component: When optional is selected the department choose to offer the component or not in the schedule of classes when offering sections of the course. The workload on an optional component should be blank at the catalog level, and should be defined in the schedule of classes when offered.

1. UAccess
2. Students: Administrative Staff
3. Navbar > Menu > Curriculum Management > UA Curriculum Management > UA Course Management
4. Select UA Course Add, Modify, or Inactivate
5. Search Find an Existing Value forms or select Add a New Value.

*Note-if using Catalog Nbr to find an existing value on UA Course Modify or Inactivate forms please change search parameters to “contains”.

• UA Course Add- used to route and approve a new course proposal. Includes a 10-day campus review.
• UA Course Modify- used to make changes to an existing Course ID (must be less than 25% change to course content/learning outcomes.  If more than 25% an inactivate and new course add form need to be submitted). Modifications may be used to update all fields in the course catalog including titles, description, units, grading basis, typically offered campus/terms, etc.
• UA Course Inactivate- course status is changed to inactive in the course catalog and it will no longer be available to schedule or view in the "schedule of classes" or "browse catalog".

• UAccess Students > Administrative Staff > NaviBar > Menu > Curriculum Management > UA Curriculum Management > UA Course Management > UA Course Add, UA Course Modify, or UA Course Inactivate (depending on type of request submitted). Search using the transaction number (if known) or the Subject and Catalog number fields. Course routing information, including a full Comment history, is found at the bottom of each request form.
• Initiators are responsible to monitor the forms for their department and reach out to approvers when there are questions for an approval stage.

Attributes are informational tags added to courses. They indicate special types of courses (General Education, Writing Emphasis, Honors, Success, SUN, Engagement) and whether the course is cross-listed with another subject, equivalent, or mutually exclusive to another course.

The components used at the UA are colloquium, discussion, independent study, laboratory, lecture, seminar, studio, workshop.  A single component course uses only one component.  A multiple component course uses 2 or more of the components (i.e. Lecture/Laboratory).

Multiple components are used when an instructor would like to use different instructional methods to present course content. Example: General Chemistry uses a lecture component to present general knowledge and concepts and a laboratory component to allow the supervised practical hands-on experimentation putting into practice the information being presented in the lecture.

The owning department’s academic code and description will be listed on the Offerings tab in the course catalog and is indicated as offering 1.

Programmed logic that defines specific pre or co-requisite coursework, majors, minors, student groups, GPA, placement exam scores, etc that are on a student’s record that limit enrollment in a class. These are indicated on the UA Course forms so that any section scheduled will have the requirements desired enforced when students enroll. Indicated on the Offerings tab in the course catalog as a 6-digit code. These are programmed by the ACP team in the Office of the Registrar after a form completes its approval route and is handed to them for processing into the Course Catalog. If not all sections should have the requirements, please reach out to ACP at catalog@arizona.edu for a section level requirement.

• Requirement Designation: Generally used for Honors College courses with the HNRS prefix. Some introductory level natural science courses also utilize Requirement Designations for transferring equivalent coursework from other institutions.
• Equivalent Course Group: Logic attached to courses where content overlaps to the point that students should not receive credit for completing both courses. Students will receive a message during registration that credit will only be given for one course in the equivalency group programmed into the course catalog, but the system will not prevent them from registering.

• The Description is the shortest version of the course title, which appears on the student transcript.  Character limit is 30.
• The Long Course Title is the longest version of the course title, which appears in the Course Catalog and Schedule of Classes. Character limit is 100.
• The Long Description should be a brief summery describing course content, 3-6 sentences long.

• Courses may be designated as repeatable for credit when students receive different content or a different experience each time they take the course. Typically special topics or house numbered courses(seminars/colloquium/workshops and Individual Study courses), and studios.
• Courses designated as repeat for credit should display the total number of completions and total number of units an individual student may earn in the course.

• Repeating a Course is to attempt to earn a better grade in a course with the same content as previously taken. No additional credit given.  See the general catalog Repeating a Course for full policy details.
• Repeat for Credit is taking a course that is indicated for additional credit in the catalog and will have different content/experience each time the course is taken. Additional credit is earned. These are Special Topic or House Numbered Courses (seminars/colloquium/workshop and Individual Study courses) and studios

• Grading Basis: The type of grades that students earn for the course. Please see the General Catalog - Grades and the Grading System.
• Graded Component: The component that the grade is assigned to.

The unit used by the university to define the work and contact time value of a course. See Credit definitions in the general catalog for full policy details.

• Minimum Units: The minimum number of units a student can earn for one completion of the course.
• Maximum Units: The maximum number of units a student can earn for one completion of the course.

• The semesters in which a course is typically offered on specific campuses. Serves as a reference for students to plan their semesters. While departments are not restricted to scheduling courses only in the listed semesters, these fields should be maintained to provide students with accurate information.

There are specific deadlines for all Course Forms. Deadlines can be found on Curricular Affairs website under Course Approvals- Dates and Deadlines. Forms submitted by the deadline will be given priority. Course forms submitted after submission and processing deadlines will not be given priority and are processed as workload and approval deadlines permit. Refer to the deadlines schedule to ensure any submitted forms receive the term requested.

The General Catalog contains all policy items on course syllabi and the templates.  The finalized version of the syllabus needs to be attached to forms.

• Undergraduate Syllabus
• Graduate Syllabus

• UA Course Add Forms- All add forms require a syllabus except a few House-numbered courses:

Syllabi are not needed for the 498H and for the individualized courses -91,-92,-93,-94, -99 and the honors versions.

• UA Course Add Forms- a syllabus is needed when the following are true:
  • General Education Course that has not been reviewed in the last five years
  • Changing Content/Learning Outcomes(if >25% submit an inactivation and new add)
  • Changing course level (moving from upper division to lower division or vice versa)
  • Changing course component type
  • Changing the number of units by more than one (e.g., from a fixed 1-unit course to a fixed 3-unit course) or from fixed units to any variable range of units
  • Convene designation of 'Yes'

• Go to UAccess Provisioning  and select New Access Request. Select Add/Modify button, Enter your netID in the “Add Access for”, select APL Approver then complete the following:
• Select Category:

1. UAccess Student-Campus Users
2. What Access is required- Course and Fee Management
3.  Permission- 
   1. Course Management Initiator
   2. If you already have access and need to add an additional department please select- Row Level Security- ADD.
   3. We ask that a person only have one role per academic org.  Example if you are the initiator you should not be the department or college approver.
   4. Once all roles are listed fill out Business Justification.  Please include the department(s) you are needing access for and why.
4. Select Submit.
5. If you need assistance with the access tool please use the “Need Help?” or FAQ section of the access provisioning tool.

University-Wide House Numbered Courses | General Catalog (arizona.edu)

Co-convene designations on a course are placed at the catalog level. The designation means that students may receive credit for such courses only once, whether jointly convened or separately, unless designated repeatable in the course description or unless special approval is granted by the student's major advisor. Courses with a co-convene designation will remain on the catalog unless one of the courses is inactivated or modified significantly.

Use the process guide for how to navigate to the UA Course Management forms located on the Course Approvals website’s Business Process Guides section.

A deny comment will be requested.  Please provide specifics on why the form is being denied.  If all that is required is a few updates from the department, please specify the updates and request that they resubmit the same transaction

Add a comment to the form in question with your concerns about overlaps in course content between the new course and an existing course. The new course request will be held until an agreement has been reached between the interested departments. In the absence of any comments with outstanding issues on the request forms, these courses will be added to the Course Catalog on or after the deadlines listed on the report.  

For questions regarding the new pending courses attached, including course catalog data or curriculum, please email courseapprovals@arizona.edu.

UAccess Analytics has various reports and reporting tools that can be used to access the course catalog data needed.  Under the Student dashboard select Catalog and Schedule and then the Overview tab. One the right of the screen there is a link Catalog by Subject, Cat Nbr, Org, &Career.  The report can be analyzed and then modified to meet the department’s needs.

In UAccess Analytics the Student dashboard select Course and Fee Management and then the Security Roles tab.  You can then search by academic org code, Academic Org Desc, or Subject to view the staff with requestor or approver roles.

Go to UAccess Provisioning  and select New Access Request. Select Add/Modify button, Enter your NetID in the “Add Access for”, select APL approver then complete the following:

Select Category:

1. UAccess Student-Campus Users
2. What Access is required- Course and Fee Management
3.  Permission- 
   1. Course Management Initiator
   2. Course Management Department Approver
   3. Course Management College Approver
   4. If you already have access and need to add an additional department or college to the role please select- Row Level Security- ADD.
   5. Select Add to list for each role needed.  We ask that a person only have one role per academic org.  Example if you are the initiator you should not be the department or college approver.
   6. Once all roles are listed fill out Business Justification.  Please include the department(s)/College(s) you are needing access for and why.
4. Select Submit.
5. If you need assistance with the access tool please use the “Need Help?” or FAQ section of the access provisioning tool.