Lumen/Guide: Midcycle Updates

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Policy Number:
UW-1078
Responsible Office:
Academic Planning and Institutional Research

University Policy

Rationale/​Purpose:

To provide rules on midcycle updates and when they publish in the Guide. (Originally approved with the Lumen/Guide Promotional Pages policy by the Academic and Curricular Repository Action Committee (ACPRAC); administrative revision December 2020 to make the policy specific to midcycle updates.)

Policy:
  1. To support the Lumen/Guide: Update Principles by Tab policy, midcycle updates meant to refresh the course catalog (course changes effective spring or summer; “guide.wisc.edu/courses/”) and fix egregious errors that were missed for the June publication may be updated in the midcycle update. (These errors, if not corrected, have a negative impact on students in the current term and will adversely impact students by delaying the implementation of the change to the next Guide publication in June.)
  2. The Guide, to serve its purposes as a single source of truth, should be a stable and reliable resource that any advisor, student, prospective students, etc., can reference for an entire academic year, with minimal changes. Thus, changes for the midcycle updates should be small in nature. Additionally, sticking to as few changes as possible over the academic year outside the fall-effective June publication supports the original intentions of the single source project: to realistically manage the governance approval cycles within the limits imposed by the once-a-year publishing cycle of the Guide. The stability of the Guide also helps advisors and students plan for efficient and predictable progress to the student’s degree and educational goals.
  3. If program changes are required, the department owning a program impacted by changes to the course catalog (discontinuing courses, changes that involve the subject code and course number, or the creation of new courses) is responsible for making updates to that program in Lumen Programs so that the inclusion of specific courses in Requirements, Admissions/How to Get in, Four-Year Plans matches the current course catalog (per term). 
Related UW-Madison Policies:

Policy Administration

Approval Authority:
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Policy Manager:
Interim Director and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Institutional Research
Contact:
Associate Director -- Michelle Young, michelle.young@wisc.edu, (608) 262-2143
Date Issued:
12-16-2020
Revised Dates:

12-04-2020, 01-11-2021

Retrieved:
08-14-2022 00:38:04