Course Cross Listing and Common Room Grouping Policy
Approved by GEPC 11/9/2015
Approved by EPC 1/19/2016
Cross-Listing
Course cross-listing allows the same course to be offered by two or more different departments or colleges, as well as the linking of upper-level undergraduate courses with their graduate-level version. In either case, cross-listing of courses indicates that the two (or more) courses in question are identical in content: Cross-listing of courses occurs for academic purposes rather than for enrollment management purposes.
To be listed as cross-list courses in the catalog, courses must
- Have the same title
- Have the same number of credit hours
- Have the same description and SLOs
- Preferably have the same number
In addition, the following parameters apply:
- No 600- or 700-level course can be cross-listed with an undergraduate course.
- Courses at the 500 level may only be cross-listed with undergraduate courses at the 300 and 400 level.
- Graduate courses cross-listed with undergraduate courses must have differentiated student learning objectives for the graduate and undergraduate versions of the course.
- With the exception of topic and seminar courses, cross-listed courses within the undergraduate program must be at the same 100, 200, 300, or 400 level.
- Topics and seminar courses being cross-listed on an ad hoc basis must also satisfy the conditions in the first three bullets. Their titles should be of the form Topic: <title of primary course>.
The intent of these parameters is to create zones within which cross-listing may occur. Thus 600 and 700 level courses are graduate student only courses; 500 level courses are graduate courses which may be cross-listed with upper-division undergraduate; 300 and 400 level courses are upper-division courses that may be cross-listed with 500 level courses; and 100 and 200 level courses are lower-division courses.
Deans and chairs are responsible for correctly identifying and submitting cross-listed courses as part of the schedule-building process. (i. e. Deans and chairs will need to ensure that the course information submitted to the Registrar is the same from both units.)
Instructors of cross-listed courses will receive the appropriate TLC for only one of the several cross-listed courses, as adjusted to account for the global enrollment.
Students who enroll in cross-listed courses and who need a specific course subject or prefix for their major should register for the proper section to avoid unnecessary CAPS petitions and/or substitutions on degree audits.
Common Room Grouping
Common room grouping permits sections of different courses to be taught by the same instructor concurrently. These courses offer sequential levels of material across discrete, lightly enrolled courses in the same narrowly defined subject matter (e.g., Japanese or Ceramics) or they offer significant, but not identical, overlap of content. Common room groupings are specifically intended to address enrollment management issues.
Sections of courses cross-listed with 500-level courses cannot be in a common room grouping with sections of courses at the 100 and 200 level. Graduate courses at the 600 and 700 level may only be in common room groupings with undergraduate courses at the 400 level.
Deans and chairs are responsible for correctly identifying and submitting common room groupings as part of the schedule-building process.
Instructors of sections within a common room grouping will receive the TLC for the section awarding the greatest TLC, as adjusted to account for the global enrollment. Instructors need to attend to the fact that the courses with sections within a common room grouping have different syllabi, student learning objectives, and different student activities.