Lumen improvements continue to enhance cross campus communication
A few years ago, UW–Madison implemented CourseLeaf’s CAT and CIM, which we refer to as Lumen, to manage our course and program additions, changes, and discontinuations. Lumen is managed by the Office of the Registrar along with the Data Academic Planning and Institutional Research Office. Course and program proposals have a lot of moving parts. Implementing Lumen to streamline the proposal process and increase effective communication became essential to our overall success.
One way that we’ve been able to increase our communication using Lumen is right on the course or program proposal itself. Changes to a proposal can be tracked using red/green markup and reviewers can leave comments right on the proposal so that all stakeholders are aware of changes that are taking place and why. The main way that we use Lumen to create effective communication is through the workflow process itself. Each course proposal and program proposal must go through the same workflow steps prior to being approved and implemented. The workflow requires approval from departments, schools/colleges, and various committees prior to being implemented by the Office of the Registrar. The purpose of the workflow steps is to streamline the change process. Because of this process, we know that our student information system holds the single source of truth for each course. That single source of truth then gets communicated downstream to various systems including curriculum and program proposals, Course Search & Enroll, DARS, and The Guide.
In Spring 2019, the Department of Computer Sciences created two new courses, COMP SCI 220 and 320, with the intent to replace COMP SCI 301 to help meet the need of the growing data science major on campus. COMP SCI 301 was a major requirement in the School of Business and the College of Engineering but it was not to be discontinued until COMP SCI 220 and 320 were ready to be taught. The course proposals made their way through the workflow process where several people at multiple levels of curricular governance, including the Department of Computer Sciences, the College of Letters & Science, the General Education Committee, and the University Curriculum Committee, all gave their approval. However, the School of Business and the College of Engineering weren’t part of the workflow process so they were not aware of the upcoming changes. When the proposals were approved and implemented, majors within the School of Business and College of Engineering were left with a course in their curriculum that was no longer being offered, leaving students and staff scrambling to find solutions to meet graduation requirements. Through this process we discovered that a weak spot existed within our communication: departments that consume classes outside of their departments were not being notified when courses in their curriculum were changing or being discontinued. Additional steps have now been added to the workflow process. After a proposal is initiated, an email is automatically sent to departments whose curriculum may be affected by a course proposal change. Departments can then make necessary changes to their curriculum prior to the change taking effect.
Similar to course proposals, changes to curriculum also have downstream effects. Program proposals follow a similar workflow path as course proposals, requiring approval from departments, schools/colleges, and the University Academic Planning Committee prior to reaching the final step in the Office of the Registrar. Once the proposals reach the Office of the Registrar for implementation, updates are made to the student information system so that The Guide reflects the newly approved curriculum. The Degree Audit Encoders also do a final review prior to encoding the changes into DARS, effectively ending the workflow process. To enhance the workflow process outside of Lumen, we also utilize additional tools, including Microsoft PowerAutomate. Focusing on the workflow fundamentally changed our communication by closing gaps in our processes, increasing accountability, providing a process for validation, and creating a record for reference.