On this page: Overview | Diversity Designation | Areas of Inquiry | Calculating Credit Hours | Curricular Overlap

Overview

New courses and course changes must be submitted online through the UW curriculum management (UWCM) system. Please find detailed directions for submitting new course proposals and course changes at the UW Office of the University Registrar's webste: https://registrar.washington.edu/course-applications/

Proposals for new and modified courses must first be approved by the voting faculty of the unit that will host the course. Next, other units anywhere in UW with the same, similar, or affected courses must be notified of any new or proposed courses.  Campus level review is conducted by the APCC (which meets monthly) and the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Following campus-level approval, final review is conducted by the UW Curriculum Committee. Approvals typically require 2-4 months to proceed through the process after the initial unit faculty vote.  

Please see the APCC Best Practices for Course Proposals if you are planning to create a course or planning to make a course change.

Please see the APCC website for new course and course change proposal deadlines.

Diversity Designation

Areas of Inquiry (Previously Areas of Knowledge)

Visit the UW Tacoma Office of Undergraduate Education website and the UW Undergraduate Advising website for an overview of the Areas of Inquiry.

Calculating Credit Hours

  • An hour of lecture a week = 1 credit, i.e. 5 hours is 5 credits
  • Outside works can be counted but this needs to be clearly indicated 

Curricular Overlap

Schools and programs will be asked to determine curricular overlap between courses. Please see below for the categories of curricular overlap and their definitions.

EQUIVALENT: Courses are similar enough in content to be considered equivalent. Equivalent means that one course can substitute for the other and that credit may only be given to one of the courses should a student complete both.
 
OVERLAPPING: Courses are not equivalent, but the content is similar enough so that students should receive credit for only one of the two courses.
 
Course content is not similar in any significant way and credit should be given for both courses independent of each other.