Official Publications | Request for Change in Course Inventory

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The Prerequisite page.

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This page helps you use the Prerequisite page while adding a course in the Request for Change in Course Inventory system. The page is designed to help you prepare prerequisites that can be checked by the registrar's office prerequisite checking system. If you are adding a graduate course, you can skip most of these instructions and go down to Graduate courses.

For undergraduate courses, prerequisites can be entered as specific pieces of data that can be compared to a student's transcript during registration. If your prerequisite contains items that cannot be checked by the prerequisite checking system, you can enter them into a text box.

Official Publications will make every effort to code your prerequisite so that it can be checked. All prerequisites, whether they are checkable or not, will be printed in the catalog.

The Prerequisite page has two sections: the first deals with any courses students need, and the second deals with other required items.

Section 1: Enter any courses students need before taking this course.

Students need:

Start by choosing one of two options: All or Any.

• All of the following. Choose this if the course you're adding has one or more prerequisite courses, and every one is required. Examples:

  Studio Art 303K, 303L, 304K, and 304L.
  
  History 356 and 366.
  
  Biology 325 and Chemistry 302.

• Any of the following. Choose this if the course being added has more than one prerequisite course, but only one is required. Examples:

  Geological Sciences 404C or 405.
  
  Mathematics 305, 306, or 610.
  
  Architectural Interior Design 311K or Architecture 311K.

If your prerequisite contains only one course, you don't have to choose an "All" or "Any" option.

Courses:

In the boxes, enter every required course. Note that switching between "all of the following" and "any of the following" changes the connectors between the boxes from "and" to "or."

• If a required course is a topic, type the topic number in the Topic box. (Note that for now, the prerequisite checking system cannot check topic prerequisites.)
• Choose Cred or Reg if a student needs either prior credit for the prerequisite course or to be currently registered for it. An example follows.

  Credit or registration for Geological Sciences 404C or 405.

• Choose a Grade from the pulldown menu if a student needs a minimum grade in the prerequisite course(s):

  Geological Sciences 404C with a grade of at least C.
  
  Geological Sciences 404C or 405 with a grade of at least B .
  
  Geological Sciences 404C and 405 with a grade of at least C in each.

• If you have more than four required courses, your prerequisite is too complex for this form. Type the prerequisite in the Additional Prereqs text box at the bottom of the page.

Coursework hours:

For this row, enter any hours needed in a particular field of study. If there are many fields, choose Any or All, and a level if needed.

• Any of the following. Choose this if students need hours from any of a number of fields of study, as in this instance:

  For twelve semester hours of coursework in government, history, or philosophy, enter 12 hrs in GOV or HIS or PHL.

• All of the following. Choose this if students must have the same number of hours in two or more fields of study. (This situation is rare.)
  
  
• Level. Choose a level from the pulldown menu if the required coursework must be of a certain level. For example:

  Twelve semester hours of upper-division coursework in English.

  Your choices will be limited by the level of the course you are adding.

Section 2: Enter any other items required of students.

In this part, enter any other requirements students must fulfill before enrolling in the course.

Level.

If a student must have a certain level of academic standing, choose from this pulldown menu.

Minimum hours.

If a student must have completed a certain number of college hours, enter that number.

For forty-five semester hours of college coursework, enter 45 hrs here.

Minimum GPA.

If a student needs a minimum grade point average, enter it here.

Additional prerequisites.

Enter any remaining prerequisite statements here. (Note that most additional prerequisites can't be checked by the prerequisite checking system.) Some examples follow.

or the equivalent

or consent of instructor

and consent of instructor

concurrent enrollment in

admission to the X honors program

consent of the departmental internship coordinator

consent by audition

course X is recommended but not required

If your prerequisite is complicated, or contains items that can't be checked against a student's transcript, the text box is the only way to enter your data. Examples of complicated prerequisites and items that cannot be checked against a student's transcript are available in the glossary.

Official Publications will review the information in the text box. If it can be used by the prerequisite checking system we will make every effort to enter it for you.

Saving your work.

Once you've entered data, check it by pressing Save changes. This will save your data and generate a prerequisite statement that appears at the top of the page. The system changes your data into sentences and builds a statement for you. Verify that this statement matches your intent accurately.

If it doesn't, change your data and select Save changes until your statement is correct. You do have the option to press Edit prerequisite statement to go to a new page and edit the statement directly. Do this with caution! Once you make changes there, you can't return to the first page to enter new data. So edit your prerequisite only if the generated statement is truly incorrect. Remember that Official Publications edits all prerequisites, and will fix punctuation, spacing, capitalization, and other minor errors generated by the system.

To finish, press the Save changes button at the bottom of the page.

Once you're saved your last change, press the Back to summary button. Your prerequisite will appear in the prerequisite row of the summary page.