Concepts and Terms

Academic Requirements Outlines according to the current and to the preceding academic year’s catalogue are posted in LOCUS. AROs amount to a static listing of the information the Academic Requirements Report (ARR) is programmed to look for in students’ course-records, tracking their satisfaction of Core and other requirements, including the major(s) and minor(s, if any) they have declared. AROs offer the most accessible way to check the programming in LOCUS of majors and minors. Please recall that students are subject to the requirements programmed for majors and minors as of the time they declare them in LOCUS: students who declare a given major/minor in different academic years may be subject to different requirements for it.

• In the context of the CAS Academic Council’s collective oversight by faculty of curricular matters in the College, the term application may refer to a curricular request or to the standardized form on which the application is submitted for the Council’s review.
• A group of applications submitted together under a single Unique ID is called an application-package.
• The main types of curricular change requested in the College have evolved as application-types
  • New Major/Minor
  • Change in Major/Minor
  • New Course
  • Course Change
  • Permanent Tag and Inclusion in an Interdisciplinary Major/Minor
  • Permanent Cross-Listing and Inclusion in a Departmental Major/Minor
• Additionally, the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform is used for Temporary Tag/Cross-List Requests to credit a specific class-section of a course not otherwise included in the applicant academic unit’s major/minor, on a semester-specific basis. These requests are reviewed and approved by the Dean’s Office, not by the Academic Council.

Complete, accurate records make it possible to reconstruct intentions and understandings in force at the time curricular changes (among other things) were made, so that any problems arising later can be unpicked and corrected: the archival function of the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform, preserving the records of curricular review, is of vital lasting value to the College.

• The 2023-24 edition of the Provost's Office's Program Modification Form now includes an option for submitters to propose a change in the CIP Code that best describes the academic program being modified.
• "CIP" is the acronym for "Classification of Instructional Programs," a taxonomic scheme originally developed by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
• As a schema, the CIP is intended to "support ... the accurate tracking and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity." (Definition posted at CIP user site (ed.gov); see too the information-sheet posted by Loyola's Office of Institutional Effectiveness.)
• Browse CIP Codes at the NCES website, https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/browse.aspx?y=56. 

The term cross-listing is used for several related ideas that may be useful to distinguish by their operation in LOCUS:

• If courses are coded as equivalent, students who have completed a class under one Course Number will be blocked from registering for the equivalent course under the other Course Number, because LOCUS will read the enrollment-request as an unauthorized repeat of the class. Equivalency of courses is sometimes referred to as cross-listing.
• If one of a pair (or more) of equivalent courses is specifically required by a given major or minor, or included in a requirement-option list, students in that major or minor who take the equivalent course under the other Course Number will receive credit for it as if they had taken the listed course. But if a course would be picked up by a major or minor as an elective, that is, by wildcard programming only, any equivalent courses must be explicitly coded into the Academic Requirements Report as alternatives to the wildcard in the Electives list, in order to ensure that the equivalencies are correctly cross-credited. Cross-crediting commonly motivates cross-listing of courses in different Subject Areas.
• When equivalent courses are scheduled as a Combined Section, so that both Course Numbers appear in the Class Schedule (whether or not both are offered as enrollment sections), their joint appearance in the Class Schedule is often referred to as cross-listing; some people also refer to non-equivalent classes being offered in a Combined Section as being cross-listed, but this usage is less happy.
• LOCUS preserves records of cross-listed courses in Subject Area Codes of Interdisciplinary Programs, but since tagging began to be used to identify courses serving interdisciplinary majors and minors, most of these courses have ceased to serve a practical purpose: they may be inactivated. (The historical record of the inactivated course is preserved in LOCUS, so that past students' academic records continue to be reported fully.)

It is advantageous to cross-list courses in departmental Subject Area Codes when members of the faculty of either department can be expected to teach substantially the same class to students pursuing major(s) or minor(s) in either academic field (thus for example, our fictional Department of Forestry cross-lists TREE 134, Peaches, with FZZZ 134, Peaches, in the Department of Things with Fuzz). Typically the section of the course in the Subject Area of the home-department of the faculty member teaching the course is used as the enrollment section. Provided the equivalency of the cross-listed courses is correctly cross-credited in the applicable major(s)/minor(s), all students will receive the appropriate credit, whether or not the other cross-listed/equivalent course also appears in the Class Schedule in a Combined Section. (It is perfectly possible to include non-departmental courses in departmental majors and minors without cross-listing: the Department of Forestry requires its majors to take FZZZ 201, Bees, from the Department of Things with Fuzz, but never teaches an equivalent course).

• Submitters bear the responsibility to formalize all approvals of their proposals with their home unit and all second units through the appropriate internal processes of those academic units, before submitting any applications for consideration by the College's Academic Council. The College's curricular-review process presumes that proposals are submitted to the Academic Council only after they have received the full backing of the submitting academic unit(s).
• When filling out the Summary Memo, please ensure all partnering second-units are listed in items 3 and 4, and all curricular-change types are identified in item 6, before clicking "submit," so that DocFinity's routing system will direct the application-package to all stakeholders correctly. (Stakeholders added later can still use the Search function and manual Diary-entries to review applications and record their approvals, but the more complete the application-package can be from its start, the more efficiently the process will work.)
• No application-package shall be vetted by the Curriculum Committee or reviewed or voted on by the Academic Council as a whole, unless the Chairperson/Program Director of the academic home-unit submitting the application(s) in question shall have recorded approval of the submission in the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform no later than the submission-deadline for the month. Successfully-recorded approval shall appear, time-stamped, in the Diary of the Summary Memo for the application-package. The Chairperson/Program Director records approval in the Tasks panel of the Jobs workspace in DocFinity, after carefully reviewing all documents to ensure the proposed curricular changes are presented clearly and fully, with no errors or inconsistencies in the documents; the record of approval is completed by clicking the "Complete Job" icon to sign out of the Tasks panel.
  • Application-packages approved by the submitting home-unit's Chairperson/Program Director later than one month's deadline may be reviewed in the following month.
  • If late recording of the submitting home-unit's approval causes the application-package to miss processing deadlines, it is the submitters' responsibility.
  • Because errors, inconsistencies, and unclarities need correction but correction takes time, it is preferable for the submitters to secure all parties' approval in principle in advance of submitting, and to proofread all documents rigorously.
  • It is preferable for submitters to submit application-packages, and for the submitters' Chairperson/Program Director to record approval on behalf of the academic home-unit, before the submission-deadline.
• No applications within an application-package shall be voted on by the Academic Council as a whole or shall receive the Council's approval if voted on by mistake, unless all co-signatory stakeholders partnering in the application shall have recorded approval of the application in the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform no later than the day of the monthly meeting. Successfully-recorded approval shall appear, time-stamped, in the Diary of the Summary Memo for the application-package. The Chairperson/Program Director of each second unit partnering in the application records approval in the Tasks panel of the Jobs workspace in DocFinity, after carefully reviewing all documents pertaining to the second-unit's interest in the proposed changes to ensure they are correct and acceptable; the record of approval is completed by clicking the "Complete Job" icon to sign out of the Tasks panel.
  
  • The interval between the application's submission and the monthly meeting, as a cutoff for co-signatory approvals, allows for inclusion of appropriate stakeholders by recommendation of the Curriculum Committee or other reviewers during the Academic Council's review-process; but no application can go forward if it has not received approval by all its stakeholders.
  • It shall be the responsibility of the Curriculum Committee, as its Chairperson shall delegate, to double-check the application-package for outstanding approvals on the day of the monthly meeting, and to withhold the Committee's recommendation from any applications still lacking their full sets of approvals.
  • The Council may determine that applications lacking approval of certain co-signatories can be voted on with the deletion of the non-approved partnership if it is secondary rather than integral to the application (e.g., a New Course proposed for cross-listing may go forward without an unapproved cross-listing, but a New interdisciplinary Major/Minor may not go forward without the approval of all its participating academic units). If such a determination is made, the submitters may accept such a deletion as a friendly amendment and, if the Council votes to approve the amended application, the submitters must undertake to amend all pertinent documents during the cleanup period.
  • It is preferable for submitters to submit application-packages only after securing approval in principle from all partnering stakeholders in advance, and for the stakeholders' Chairpersons/Program Directors to record approval on behalf of the academic second-units, before the monthly meeting.
• Curricular changes that will necessitate new or changed programming in a major/minor must be approved by the Academic Council no later than the December meeting of one academic year, in order to be on-track for effectiveness the following Fall term. Changes in majors and minors normally are made only for effectiveness the following Fall term, for the sake of clarity and consistency in all communications with students about their major(s)/minor(s). Please recognize that this timetable limits the "effective date" that can be requested for any proposed curricular change.
• New or changed course programming must be approved by the Academic Council no later than the February meeting of one academic year, in order to be on-track for effectiveness the following Fall term, or no later than the March meeting of one academic year, in order to be on-track for effectiveness in the Spring term of the following academic year. Please recognize that this timetable limits the "effective date" that can be requested for any proposed curricular change.

• Most members of the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences hold appointments in an academic department; a few hold joint appointments between different departments. The term thus refers to an organizational structure of the College by its academic focus.
• DocFinity uses the term department to refer to any subdivision of a business, so that not only academic departments but also interdisciplinary programs, the University Libraries, and the Dean’s Office are sometimes referred to as departments in the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform.

• LOCUS’s programming-structures for Academic Requirements Reports mean that the term elective should be restricted to courses included in a major/minor by wildcard programming, e.g., TREE 3##, any 300-level course in the Subject Area Code for the fictional Department of Forestry.
• Since ARRs cannot read tags (a tag indicates that a course is included in an interdisciplinary major/minor, but tags function only in Class Search), most interdisciplinary and interdepartmental majors/minors must be programmed with requirement-option lists. Therefore the distinction between true, wildcard-programmed electives and requirement-options of an interdisciplinary or interdepartmental major/minor affects the timetable Academic Council’s curricular approvals must meet: a new course TREE 358 Ecofeminism would be picked up as an elective in the Forestry minor by the pre-existing wildcard rule TREE 3##, but would need to be specified, and therefore explicitly programmed, in a list of (elective-like) options for the interdisciplinary minor of the Gender Studies Program. (Ecofeminism will be an option for the Theory requirement of the GSP-BA and an option for the Ethics requirement of the TREE-BS, requiring explicit programming in both majors.)
• Optional courses not included in students’ declared major(s)/minor(s) as specifically required courses, requirement-options, or electives earn credit as hours toward graduation, but not in the major(s)/minor(s).

Before-and-After Major/Minor Grids lay out the current structure and proposed changes in a given major or minor in a clearly legible, comprehensive graphic form. They enable reviewers to understand how individual elements fit together in students’ studies, and thus to contextualize curricular requests. One grid is required for every major and for every minor that will be affected by the curricular changes being considered in an application package; please consolidate grids so that only one grid per major or per minor involved in the application-package is submitted, each accounting for all changes in which it is concerned.

The basic format of the grid tabulates

We recommend submitters consult the Academic Requirements Outlines posted in LOCUS so as to confirm that the current programming of the Academic Requirements Report for each major and for each minor involved corresponds to their understandings, give or take approved changes currently in processing for effectiveness at a later date. The Current Major/Minor column should show the structure of the major/minor as most recently approved. Please list specifically required courses and courses in requirement-option lists individually, and electives by their wildcard-programming rules. If the changes requested in the application package will not affect a given area of the grid, please mark “n/a” in that box of the Proposed Changes column.

• The indexing function in DocFinity allows submitters to attach metadata to a document in the platform, by which it becomes possible for the Search function to find the document.
• Because metadata recorded in the index, not information inside the document itself, are what the Search function can identify, it is urgent that all pertinent metadata be indexed completely and accurately. See instructions in the item "Uploading documents to DocFinity and Indexing documents in DocFinity" on the page About the Platform.

LOCUS is the student information system used by Loyola University Chicago. Functions important for curricular purposes include the Course Catalog, Class Scheduling, and academic records including the programming of students’ Academic Requirement Reports.

LOCUS uses Plan Codes to identify specific majors and minors. Plan Codes typically consist of 4 alphabetical characters, which may or may not correspond with a Subject Area Code administered by the same academic unit as the major/minor in question, plus a suffix indicating the degree: thus for example the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry administers the BIOC-BS, BIOC-BA, CHEM-BS, CHEM-BA, and CHEM-MINR, B.S. in Biochemistry, B.A. in Biochemistry, B.S. in Chemistry, B.A. in Chemistry, and Minor in Chemistry, respectively. The Academic Requirements Outlines in LOCUS are a convenient place to verify Plan Codes.

• The verb submit is used to refer to two different steps in the processes of the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform:
  • Initial Submission: After all the applications and supporting documents have been prepared and the eForm of the Summary Memo drafted, to submit the Summary Memo formally begins the application-process. Please remember that DocFinity's ability to send application-packages to all stakeholders depends on the information in the heading of the Summary Memo and in its items 3, 4, 5, and 6: ensure that all these elements are complete and correct before the initial submission, or your application-package will not route successfully. When the Summary Memo is completed, including both the Table of Contents and all co-signatories, scroll down to the Submit button at its bottom and click. Do not repeat this step. Do not (re-)perform this step at any other stage in the process. This step will generate an automated e-mail message to the submitter, confirming the Unique ID generated at the top of the Summary Memo for the application package. It will also make the Summary Memo visible to other users in the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform: the Job Queue will label it an “Initial Submission.”
  • Submission Complete: When the applications and supporting documents have all been uploaded to the CAS-AC DocFinity Platform and indexed, go to the Jobs Queue, check all the tasks in the task-menu, then check the box “is the Submission Complete?”, select “Submission Complete” in the pop-up window, and then sign off with the “Complete Job” icon in the toolbar. This step is also known as submitting the application-package. It sends the package forward to departmental and interdisciplinary co-signatories with the job-status “Submission Complete.” (Any co-signatories added after this point will have to work outside DocFinity's routing system, through e-mail, DocFinity's Search function, and manual Diary-entries.)
• The noun submitter refers, according to context, either to the individual who fills out the eForm for the Summary Memo and whose UVID is incorporated in the autopopulated Unique ID, or to the academic home unit initiating the application-package.

• Tags mark courses in LOCUS’s course-catalogue, or class-sections in particular terms’ class schedules, as possessing specified “class attributes” such as Core or Engaged Learning credit. The tags of greatest pertinence in the College of Arts and Science’s curricular review, however, identify class-sections’ carrying credit toward interdisciplinary major(s)/minor(s). Tags appear in the Enrollment Information box of the Class Detail display.
• The Class Search function in LOCUS can read tags, so that they make it possible to search across different Subject Area Codes for class-sections bearing particular tags.
• Academic Requirements Reports cannot read tags: the inclusion of a course in an interdisciplinary major or minor is entirely separate within LOCUS from the marking of a course as so included (although certainly no course should be tagged with information that is not true).
• Interdisciplinary Programs may apply to tag departmental courses and include them in interdisciplinary major(s)/minor(s) on either a permanent or a temporary, semester-specific basis.
  • Permanently tagged courses should also be programmed permanently in students’ ARRs as specifically required courses, courses satisfying specified requirement-options, or (wildcard-programmed) electives. Permanently tagging a new or existing course and adding it to an interdisciplinary major/minor requires approval by the Academic Council; the request-type is familiarly called Permtag.
  • If a permanently tagged course is removed from an interdisciplinary major/minor, the submitters should seek the course's home unit's approval and should provide in the application package a Course Inventory Form providing for the removal of the tag. (NOTE: dowload current CI Form from R&R's Administrative Forms list)
  • Temporary Tag requests (and requests to cross-list departmental courses on a temporary, semester-specific basis; the request-type os familiarly called Temptag/Tempcross) are processed through the DocFinity Platform in application-packages structurally similar to the permanent requests reviewed by the Academic Council. Please see the Instructions. Temptag/Tempcross applications are reviewed by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Classes temporarily included in students’ major(s)/minor(s) must be hand-credited by students’ CAS Advisors via Individual Directives. Please advance Permanent Tag requests as soon as it is determined they are appropriate, so as to avoid the inefficiencies of the temporary process.

The Temporary Tag/Cross-List Request is made on a semester-specific basis, for the purpose of crediting to specified major(s)/minor(s) a specific section of a course not ordinarily included. Please file Temptag/Tempcross requests separately from requests involving permanent course-coding or major/minor coding. Please see the Instructions.

• Temptag/Tempcross requests most commonly arise in the case of variable-topics courses, not all of whose potential topics would be suitable for the major(s)/minor(s) in question.
• Temptag/Tempcross requests may be used to fill in the processing-lag between approval of Permanent Tag or Permanent Cross-listing requests and their becoming effective.
• Temptag/Tempcross requests are processed through the DocFinity Platform in application-packages structurally similar to the permanent requests reviewed by the Academic Council, but see the Instructions. Unlike permanent tag or permanent cross-list requests, temptag/tempcross requests do not involve Course Inventory Forms, since no permanent change is to be made in the coding of the course itself. Since neither is any permanent change made in students' ARRs, classes temporarily included in students’ major(s)/minor(s) must be hand-credited by students’ CAS Advisors via Individual Directives.
• Temptag/Tempcross requests require co-signatory authority of all stakeholders, just like permanent tag or permanent cross-list requests.
• Temptag/Tempcross requests are reviewed by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, not by the Academic Council. Although they can be turned around relatively quickly, please submit them with enough lead-time before registration for the term the class will be offered that Registration and Records can process the information to appear in the Class Schedule.
• Please advance Permanent Tag or Permanent Cross-list requests as soon as it is determined they are appropriate, so as to avoid the inefficiencies of the temporary process.