Course Bundling

Overview

When creating a proposal in CIM-Courses, users will have the opportunity to identify a course as part of a Bundled Group.

Courses which are part of a bundled group are considered a single entity. A change initiated on 1 course in the bundled group will automatically be applied to all other courses in that bundled group. Courses in a bundled group are always equivalent to one another.

Example:

  1. Course A, B, and C are in a bundled group.
  2. A user initiates a proposal to change the credits on course B.
  3. Course A and C will automatically be included on the proposal to indicate that the change applies to all courses in the group.
  4. Once the proposal is approved, the credits of Course A, Course B, and Course C will all be updated.

Bundled Course Groups may include 2 or more courses. All courses in the group must be equivalent to each other, and all details of the course must match exactly, including:

  • Level (all courses in the group must be either all graduate or all undergraduate)
  • Title (both Banner title and Catalog title)
  • Credits
  • Schedule (instruction) type
  • Description
  • Hard-coded prerequisites (‘required’ in the Catalog)
  • Text prerequisites & corequisites (‘recommended’ in the Catalog)
  • Restrictions (college, major/minor/concentration)
  • Specialized course designation (e.g. Green Leaf, Mason Core, Writing Intensive)

Implications

Once designated as part of a bundled group:

  • a course cannot be removed from the group unless all of those courses are inactivated. (Per existing practice, course numbers may not be re-used until a period of 5 years has passed.)
  • a course within the group cannot be updated independently from the other courses in the group.
  • changes requested to any course in a bundled group must be approved by all associated departments and colleges who own any course in that bundled group.
    • g. if both CRIM 720 and GOVT 728 are in a bundled group and a change is proposed to CRIM 720, both CRIM/CHSS and Schar must approve that change in CIM.

Please carefully consider the above implications before making any decisions about which courses to designate as part of a bundled group. Contact your college catalog contact to discuss bundling before you make any changes.

Benefits

  • A single proposal will modify all courses in the bundled group – no need to create proposals on each individual course.
  • All courses within the bundled group will always remain in sync with each other – no need for constant review to verify that the data matches.
  • When creating a new course, the user can indicate at that time whether other new courses should join the first course in a bundled group. CIM will then automatically create the other courses – no need for separate course proposals for the other items in the group.

 

!!!IMPORTANT!!!

  • Once designated as part of a bundled group, courses may not be removed from this group unless they are all inactivated.
  • All changes to one course in a bundled group will automatically be applied to other courses in that same group.

Creating a New Bundled Course Group

These instructions apply only if none of the courses in the group have yet been created.

  1. Go to Course Admin.
  2. Select Propose New Course.
  3. Fill out all required fields of the form for one of the courses in your proposed group. It does not matter which course you choose from the group. Do not select Submit Workflow until you proceed with the rest of the steps.
  4. Scroll down to the Bundled Course field and select Add.
  5. The Enter Course Code pop-up will display. Select the subject code from the drop-down menu, and enter a course number. Select Ok.
    1. If the course you have entered already exists, an error message pop-up will appear: Code is in use. Existing courses may not be added to become part of a bundled group with another existing course.
    2. If the course you have entered does not exist, you will see it next to the Bundled Course label. Additionally, you will also see the following linked labels:
      1. (Remove): Select this link if you made an error in entering the course.
        1. Once you select this link, the initial course you entered will appear crossed out. You will also see a linked label for (Reactivate…). Select that link if you did not mean to remove the course and to reinstate it as joining the bundle.
      2. (Make Primary): Ignore this field.
  6. If you have another course to add to the bundle (remember that you may only add courses which do not yet exist), repeat steps 4 and 5.
  7. Verify that your proposal is complete.
  8. Once you are finished, select Start Workflow (you may also select Save and come back to work on your proposal at another time). Do not create any more additional proposals for the other courses you selected to be part of the bundled group.
  9. When your proposal is fully-approved, CIM will automatically create all of the new course(s) which you added in steps 4 and 5. All of the courses in the bundle will be created with details identical to the information you entered into the proposal.

 

Adding a Course to an Existing Bundled Group

These instructions apply only if the course you are adding to an existing group has not yet been created.

  1. Go to Course Admin.
  2. Enter the name of one of the existing courses into the Search bar and select Search.
  3. Select the course from the results. The course details should show beneath the results menu. If the course is already in an existing bundled group, you should see all of the participating courses listed in the Title area separated by back-slashes, followed with the title (e.g. CSI 676 / STAT 656 : Regression Analysis).
  4. Select Edit Course.
  5. From the Modification Type field, select Substantial.
  6. Follow steps 4-6 listed above.
  7. If you have other changes to make, proceed through the rest of the form and make your modifications. Remember that any changes you make will apply to ALL courses in the bundled group.
  8. Once you are finished, select Start Workflow (you may also select Save and come back to work on your proposal at another time).
  9. When your course is fully-approved, CIM will automatically create the new course(s) which you added in steps 6 and 7. The new course(s) will be created with details identical to the existing course(s).

Creating a New Bundled Group from an Existing Course

These instructions apply only if a maximum of one of the courses in your proposed bundled group already exists.

e.g. if you would like to bundle Course A, Course B, and Course C, you will be able to do so only if only one of A, B, or C currently exists and the other two do not exist.

  1. Follow all instructions listed for Adding a Course to an Existing Bundled Group above.

Bundling Existing Courses Into a Group

Courses which already exist cannot be bundled at this time.

Moving a Course Out of an Existing Bundle and Into Another Bundle

Once in a bundle, a course cannot be made part of a separate/additional bundled group or switched to another bundled group.