How to add a new course

Enter a course you already offer, or propose a new one and send it through approval.

8 min read · For: Curriculum developers and institution admins

Play the video — How to add a new course

Courses → Add course opens a seven-step wizard. The rail down the side lists the steps, and you can click any of them to jump straight there — the order is a suggestion, not a lock. Course Progress beside it shows the step you are on and how many are done. Where a field needs explaining, an (i) beside its name opens the explanation — on hover, on focus or on a tap — rather than crowding the form with it.

The seven steps

1. 1. Basic InformationCourse details, Description and tags, and Status. How the course appears in the catalog — code, name, description, academic level, the academic unit it belongs to, credits, and the effective date, which is the first term this version applies to. Course code and Course title are the two the step marks as required.
2. 2. Academic StructurePrograms and Course relationships. Choose every program that uses this course: this matters beyond bookkeeping, because the learning outcomes of those programs become the ones you can link your course outcomes to on step 3. Relationships are the requisites — what a student needs before, or alongside, this course, and the courses that count for it. These print in the calendar and are what the catalog shows students.
3. 3. Learning OutcomesWrite each as something a student can do, and drag to reorder them. Under each outcome, tick the program outcomes it supports — those come from the programs chosen on step 2. At least one outcome statement is required.
4. 4. Course DesignTopics and the weekly schedule, contact hours, learning resources, and external certification. Contact hours are counted either in total or per week — most institutions say “45 hours” rather than “3 hours a week”, so a new course starts on In total, with the number of weeks beside it. Each kind of instruction has its own box — lecture, seminar, tutorial, lab, field experience, other and online — and they add up to the total. Other delivery modes here records the hours that differ for a mode offered another way.
5. 5. Assessment & GradingThe assessment components and what each is worth, the grading basis and scheme, and the passing grade. Three things are required: at least one component, weights adding up to 100%, and a minimum passing grade. Other delivery modes again takes only what differs for another mode.
6. 6. Policies & Additional InfoThe syllabus policies — standard wording written once in Settings and chosen here, so the same policy reads the same way on every course — along with Other information, Other details, and any fields your institution has added of its own under Settings → Courses and syllabi. On a revision this step also asks What is changing?, and on an editorial change, the reason for it.
7. 7. Review & ApprovalEverything in one place to read through, with anything still missing called out, and the one button that actually submits.

Submitting it

• Save as Draft keeps it private to people who can edit curriculum. Nobody is notified.
• The button on step 7 reads Submit for Approval for a newly proposed course, Save course for one you marked Approved, Resubmit for a course a reviewer sent back, and Save editorial change for an editorial change.
• Submitting a proposal starts the course approval process at level 1 and emails the person responsible for that level.
• While it is in review the course page shows how far it has gone and who it is waiting on, and the form is read-only. If something is wrong, the reviewer sends it back to you.

The course page afterwards

The tabs

Course is the record itself. CLO–PLO map shows where this course sits in each program’s map. Versions lists every approved version. Activity log is everything that has happened to it.

Outline and Syllabus

Print-ready documents built from the record — the course outline as approved, and the syllabus for a section. The selector beside them chooses which delivery mode you are looking at.

Propose official revision

Starts a new version through the approval process. The approved version stays in effect until the revision is approved.

Make Editorial change

For institution admins and plain errors only. It saves straight to the current version, asks for a reason, and is recorded in the log and in version history.

Retire course

Sends a retirement request through its own approval process.