Catalog Checklist

Goals for the catalog, as fed by Coursedog, are to:

• accurately record all requirements for all majors, minors, and certificates; including requirements at all levels (program, college, campus, university);
• describe requirements fully and clearly so they can be understood by students, advisors, prospective students, transfer students, parents; and will be clear in the future as well when students return; and
• document requirements in a manner that works in APAS to document a student’s progress toward and ultimate completion of requirements.
• requirements align with University policy (e.g. major and minor residency credit requirements align with the Campus-Specific Credit Requirements for Undergraduate Degrees policy).

• If there is not a fall 2024 version, create a fall 2024 version in Coursedog and make the necessary changes.
• If there is an approved fall 2024 version in Coursedog, review it to ensure that it meets the items on this checklist.
• Program requirements should be rebuilt in Coursedog to minimize any formatting issues that may have occurred during the data import. See Coursedog Catalog Guide for additional guidelines on how to enter this information.

Requirements must be clearly and consistently defined at all levels: campus, college, program, sub-plan (for example, major electives or a collegiate first-year experience course) so that:

• they can be easily understood by people outside of the department and the college (e.g., to advisors across campus and at transfer institutions; to prospective students, to transfer students);
• they can be useful well into the future (if a student is returning 25 years from now, we should be able to quickly ascertain which requirements were in place at that time);
• they can be represented accurately in APAS to keep a record of student progress toward degree (what is programmed in Coursedog will be reflected in APAS);
• the need for APAS exceptions is minimized by programming frequent exceptions into Coursedog and APAS;
• the use of descriptive, explanatory text is minimized by using Coursedog groups to increase clarity (e.g., the upper-division writing intensive in the major group);
• redundancy is minimized (e.g. it is not necessary to specify in Coursedog that major courses must be taken A-F or that grades of C- or better are required in prerequisite courses, those are in University policy).
• See Coursedog Catalog Guide for additional guidelines on how to enter this information.
• See Requirement Labeling Best Practices.

Prerequisite and admissions courses must be included so that:

• A student cannot be in the major, or complete the major, without them.
• APAS reports better display progress toward fulfilling major requirements. The courses will show as fulfilling major requirements, rather than as counting only for free elective credits. 

Be clear about variable credit courses if more than the minimum credit availability is required.

• As a simple example, admission to our hypothetical Alchemy B.S. requires two courses totaling 7-8 credits. The courses listed within the Program Requirements section total 60 credits. Therefore, the “program length in credits” is 67-68.

Courses offered for less than 1 credit (e.g. .5 credit courses) can be reflected as .5 credits in Coursedog. When .5 credit courses are present the program length in credits should reflect the accurate credit count. Please note: new courses for less than one credit should not be proposed.

For programs that have sub-plans (tracks that are posted to a student’s transcript), are the requirements complete, accurate, and up to date? Does the number or range of required credits included in the “program length in credits” accurately reflect the inclusion of any specific course credits required for the sub-plan(s), and reflect fall 2024 requirements?

What is the difference between a sub-plan and a focus area?

Sub-plan: a formal section of a program plan in Coursedog which must be approved by the Board of Regents. Sub-plans are entered in “Step 5” of Coursedog, labeled a sub-plan, and have corresponding sample plans.

Focus area: an informal way to group courses in a program.

If editing a sub-plan, please see the user guide: Coursedog Sub-plan Details card.

Major, minor, and certificate residency requirements should be clearly defined in Coursedog and not exceed that defined by the Campus-Specific Credit Requirements for Undergraduate Degrees and Majors, Minors, and Certificates policy. 

Majors: “at least half of upper-division (3xxx-level or higher) credits that satisfy major requirements…” be earned at the campus awarding the degree. Please make sure this requirement is defined in Coursedog under “Program Requirements” and in the “Other requirements” field.

For example, a program may have:

Minimum length in credits: 35

Lower division required courses: 8

Upper division required courses: 27

For this example, the program would enter into the other requirements field: “At least 14 upper division credits in the major must be taken at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.”

Minors and Certificates: The residency requirement does not need to be listed in Coursedog as it is standard for all minors and certificates in APAS. The policy states that “at least 3 upper-division credits that satisfy requirements for the minor must be taken through the campus that will award the minor” or certificate. Individual programs should not establish a higher minimum credit requirement than is defined in policy.

Sample plans are required for majors, but not for minors and certificates. Click here to review the sample plan procedure.

Sample plans for majors:

• must show how the degree can be completed within the specified number of credits (e.g., 120 credits or 15 credits a semester);
• must include all required courses and prerequisites for the major (including first-year experience courses and admissions course requirements);
• must show how the LE and WI requirements can be met;
• should clearly indicate if any summer term enrollment is required.

All identities (designators and numbers under which the same course is offered) must be listed so that students get credit regardless of the designator. All active versions (aliases) of the course must be listed in Coursedog. Here is a hypothetical example: for the Immortality B.S., ALCM (Alchemy) 101 is cross-listed with GOLD 101, but only ALCM 101 is currently listed in Coursedog. Everywhere ALCM 101 is listed as an option to fulfill a requirement, GOLD 101 must also be added.

Best practice is for departmental and collegiate websites with information about program requirements to link directly to the University Catalog. This ensures that current and prospective students can always access the most current requirements.

It is not acceptable to have a statement in Coursedog or on a departmental website that “APAS doesn’t work for this program.” Requirements should be described clearly enough and with adequate logic so the APAS system can track them and provide an accurate record of a student’s progress toward completion of requirements. Coursedog is the official “source of truth” for requirements in place in any given term. Requirements should be clear to current and prospective students, advisors on campus, and transfer advisors in other institutions; and should be written to be comprehensible in the future, when a returning student is working with an advisor to complete those requirements. APAS organization will follow the organization of Coursedog, so structure requirements in Coursedog as desired on APAS.

If the requirements of a program have so much overlap with those of another program that students will not be allowed to complete both, that should be stated clearly in Coursedog. For example, the CBS Biology major states

“Students completing another major in the College of Biological Sciences are not eligible for the BS in biology. In addition, students completing a degree in biology are not eligible for the following CBS minors, due to overlap: biochemistry, microbiology, plant biology, and behavioral biology.”

If yes, please update Coursedog to reflect the Integrated Degree Program as described in the Integrated Degree Program Guidelines.

For programs that are often paired with another program, such as popular double majors or a common combination of a particular major, minor, and/or certificate, consider providing a sample plan showing those combinations. This information is very useful to students and advisors.

Check with your academic advisors about what questions frequently arise, what information may be missing, and how the current information in Coursedog could be presented more clearly. Ask if the requirements as listed in Coursedog translate clearly into APAS reports used by students and advisors.