Add or Change Courses to Curriculum

When designing your course, think carefully about the items called for in the proposal form:

• Course description,
• Justification,
• Relation to existing courses,
• Overlap with other courses,
• Course outline, and
• Reading list.

When approving, the committee will carefully consider matters such as the nature, depth, and scope of the materials treated in each proposal.

Graduate-level courses should be more demanding, sophisticated, and rigorous than undergraduates courses.

A proper graduate course will emphasize theoretical, conceptual, methodological (as contrasted with technical), or systematic treatments of material, rather than factual data. It should deal directly with the research content of the field and with the discipline’s research methodologies.

In proposing a new course, consider the following:

• What is the rationale for this course? What factors led to its development? What changes occurred in the market demand or in the knowledge base of the field?
• What role does this course play in the overall curriculum of the program? Given the fact that no one unit can cover all aspects of a particular discipline, which one has the unit chosen to address? How does the proposed course meet those objectives?
• What makes this a graduate course? What is the level of knowledge required for admission? Each discipline should be able to describe and defend the characteristics of graduate study for its area. The proposal should show specifically how the proposed course would meet these criteria. Two components of the course proposal are helpful in determining the level of instruction proposed for a course:
  • Prerequisites in terms of specific courses, of number of accumulated hours in the field, or of class standing; and
  • The course syllabus, including a complete list of readings and other assignments. Download a sample syllabus.

New Course Requirements

The curriculum committee will not approve new courses if the following requirements are not met:

• An accompanying syllabus is required for all new courses. See below under New Course Syllabus Requirements
• The course description must not exceed 50 words.
• If the graduate course is taught in conjunction with an undergraduate course, clearly indicate the standards by which the graduate students will be evaluated, as opposed to those for the undergraduates. A key question to answer is, “What distinguishes this graduate-level course from an undergraduate course?” The committee may request to see the undergraduate syllabus.
• If the new course being proposed is similar to other courses in another school or department on campus, it is recommended that you contact that school or department to discuss the differences between the courses so that when it goes to remonstrance, it will not be challenged.

Course Change Requirements

The committee will review course change requests to verify that the changes do not constitute a new course, and to maintain academic consistency across campus.  A syllabus is not required for course change requests.

An accompanying syllabus is required for all new courses and it must include the following before the committee will approve the course:

• course description
• educational objectives written at a graduate level (see Bloom’s Taxonomy)
• graduate-level grading scale (see below for more information on the grading scale)
• IU Indianapolis Policy on Academic Integrity
• IU Indianapolis Policy on Disability Accommodations
• IU Indianapolis Policy on Sexual Misconduct
• IU Indianapolis Policy on Religious Holidays
• Education and Title VI

IU Indianapolis Policies - sample language for syllabi

Graduate level grading scale

To earn a degree from the IU Graduate School, students must have at least a 3.0 graduate GPA. For this reason, several IU graduate programs do not accept any grade below a B. A grading scale in the syllabus that includes C- and below is not considered a graduate-level grading scale and will require clarification.

Example of an IU Graduate Grading Scale

• A = 4.0
• A- = 3.7
• B+ = 3.3
• B = 3.0
• B- = 2.7
• C+ = 2.3
• C = 2.0

Download a sample syllabus that includes the IU Indianapolis policies

• Bloom's Taxonomy Guide
• How to complete the New Course Request Form
• Suggested Course Syllabus Format
• IU Indianapolis Policies - sample language for syllabi

IU Indianapolis’ Course Approval, Remonstrance, Maintenance, and Integration (CARMIn) system allows faculty members to submit these proposals electronically. The Course Approval System instructions explain how faculty members can submit a request and how administrators can approve a request.

Download the Course Approval System instructions.

Browser Type. The recommended browser for the CARMIn system is Firefox. Internet Explorer may also be used in Compatibility mode. Currently, the drop-down values do not always display when using Google Chrome.

To use CARMin to submit a request, do the following:

1. Log into: one.iu.edu.
2. In the Search bar, type "CARMIn" and press Enter.
3. Click on the Initiate New Course/Course Change Request task

After you’ve submitted your proposal and the request has received initial approval, the proposal will be placed on the CARMIn remonstrance list for 30 days.

To use CARMin to view the remonstrance list, do the following:

1. Log into: one.iu.edu.
2. In the Search bar, type "Remonstrance" and press Enter.
3. Click on the Review Remonstrance List task

Administrators may also use the system to approve requests.

The curriculum subcommittee reviews all graduate courses. Professional courses are not reviewed by the committee.

The review process for the committee begins the first working day of the month. In order to ensure a new course / course change request is on the committee's agenda, the CARMIn form must be received in the IU Graduate School Indianapolis no later than the first day of the review month. Any courses received after the 1st will be held until the following month.