Curricular Build

At UW-Madison, the academic calendar is made up of three terms: fall semester, spring semester, and summer term. Sessions are a subset of time within a term in which specific course offerings are taught. Sessions are defined by when they begin in the term, how many weeks they span, and how many weeks of instruction take place. Most instruction in fall and spring semesters happens in what is called the regular “A1” session. Many sessions will be created in preparation for Initial Call, and departments can request a new session during the schedule build as needed.

It is essential that classes be scheduled in the correct session that reflects when instruction is actually occurring, as this has many downstream impacts. These include add/drop deadlines and other key enrollment and student-record dates; tuition-refund calculations; classroom assignments and availability; enrollment reporting; effective emergency response; veteran-benefit determinations; and more.

The A2 session is reserved for courses that are the UW equivalent of courses students take during Study Abroad programs. Mid-semester, Curricular Services will term roll the A2 courses from the previous like-term. Reps should ignore these sections- do not make edits to any courses in A2 sessions.

General Assignment (GA) classrooms are rooms that have been designated by the campus Space and Remodeling Policies Committee as primarily for use in for-credit instruction, open to all academic departments, and centrally scheduled by the Office of the Registrar. Technology in many GA classrooms is supported centrally by Classroom Media Support of the Space Management Office in the Division of Facilities Planning & Management. The School of Business supports the media systems for GA classrooms in Grainger Hall, and the College of Engineering supports the media systems for GA classrooms on the Engineering campus.

The University Curriculum Committee has the final decision on any course proposal changes, including course title changes, new course proposals, course deletions, and more. All course proposals are created and approved in the Lumen online course proposal system. Once the department has approved a proposal to change an existing course or create a new one, proposals should be sent to the School/College Curriculum Committee. If the course proposal is approved, it is then sent to the University Curriculum Committee.

When departments are part of a combined section course (cross-listed, meets-with, etc.), one department is designated as the ‘Primary’ department. It is the Primary department’s responsibility to communicate to all secondary members the course offering information, enrollment requirements, enrollment capacities, and more. The Primary will create the course section(s) initially, and the crosslist sync that Curricular Services runs will create the secondary sections. Secondary departments will then edit the details as needed.

To find out who is Primary, click on the Combined Section link that can be found in SIS in Maintain Schedule of Classes (either on the Meetings page or Enrollment Control page), or on Update Sections of a Class in the Enrollment Limits page. After the Combined Sections ID is the name of the Primary Department.

When departments and programs assign instructors to courses, they will also determine what role that instructor has in the course. It’s helpful to be familiar with the Policy on Minimum Qualifications for Instructional Staff to understand the specific definition of a “qualified” instructor. Keeping in mind that EACH section of every course must have a Principal instructor listed, you can refer to this KB to assist with determining the appropriate type of instructor: Qualified Instructors and Instructional Roles

No. Each section of a course must have a unique section number. For instance, if you you are offering an IND course 699 sections 001, 002, and 003 in the regular A1 session, but the same instructor is teaching another IND section in the AHH session, they must use a different section number. Some departments rely on a numbering scheme such as 001 (A1 session), 101 (second session), 201 (third session, if necessary).