In the Course Catalog Editing system, the Department Chairs have a special role: No new course proposal or existing course undergoing major revision can move forward for consideration by the CEP without the explicit consent of the chair.

In the system, once a department has signed off on a course--whether it is an existing course with no changes or only minor revisions, an existing course with major revisions, or a new course proposal--the department coordinator will change the worflow of the course from either Proposal or ADC/Faculty to Dept. Chair.

What happens to a course next depends upon its Status for this Year:

Existing courses without changes or with minor revisions will move automatically to the Publications workflow. One moved--there's usually a delay of a few hours--such courses will no longer be available to members of academic departments for further editing.

Existing courses with major revisions and new course proposals will remain in the Dept. Chair state until the department chair checks the box in the course editing screen that reads "As department chair, I approve this course." When the chair then clicks Save, the course will move to the Committees workflow for approval by the CEP, Committee of Six, and Faculty.

Consequently, during the course catalog editing process, it is important for the chair to periodically check for courses in the Dept. Chair worflow and to approve such courses so they can move forward in the approval process. Here's how to do it:

  1. Go to the academic year in question (e.g. 1011) in the course catalog editing system, then to the subject area(s) that come under the auspices of your department.
  2. Click on the Workflow heading, which sorts the course list by workflow state.
  3. Scroll down the list until you see the courses in the Dept. Chair workflow. Note that you may have to click the Next or page number links at the bottom of the page if the list of courses doesn't fit on a single page.
  4. Having found the courses in the Dept. Chair workflow, you can edit the ones you wish to move to the CEP, click the approval box, then click Save.

Where the department chair has delegated the responsibility for checking the approval box to the ADC, it is understood that the chair has read and approved the course information.