Do you want to teach a course with colleagues in other departments? Here’s how to do it.

Established Courses in the Curriculum

These courses can be:

• Co-taught by an unlimited number of faculty. Each faculty member is added to the CRN in Banner as the instructor of record. Each faculty member appears in the Class Schedule as one of the faculty teaching the course. All faculty have access to the class list, grading, etc., in both DuckWeb and BlackBoard, just as is the case when one faculty member is assigned to a course. Each faculty member is evaluated during the course evaluation period.
• Published (that is, listed in the class schedule) simultaneously under unlimited subject code headings corresponding to the departmental affiliations of the collaborating faculty. For example, a course with a Biology subject code (BI) might be taught by faculty in philosophy and biology, and listed, as a "BI" course in both the Biology and Philosophy sections of the Class Schedule. This procedure is called "Cross-publishing" at UO.
• Advertised as interdisciplinary in the class schedule via a number of methods (footnotes, longer course descriptions than are allowed in the printed catalog).
• Listed for students on their degree audits as a course choice to fulfill degree requirements for any major when appropriate.

Experimental Courses

When developing an entirely new course, particularly one with novel pedagogical features, it is useful to offer it initially as an "experimental course", using one of the numbers reserved for such courses (199, 399 or 410). This allows the course to be tested before it is submitted for systematic review by the university. Because of the tentative nature of experimental courses, however, there are certain restrictions on them -- one of which is that they cannot be approved for offering under more than one subject code. A single subject code must be used.

Nonetheless, experimental courses can be team-taught, cross-published, and the university encourages faculty who want to develop a new course collaboratively to take this approach, following the steps outlined below:

Step 1: Choose the appropriate experimental number for the course

199 for 100- or 200-level courses
399 for 300-level courses
410 for 400-level courses

Step 2: Write an informative course description

Step 2: Write an informative course description that clearly conveys the cross-disciplinary nature of the course and communicates effectively to the students you want to attract.

This is especially important for experimental courses because you will not have an array of subject codes with which to signal relevance to students in diverse disciplines. Since we are no longer restricted by the requirements of catalog copy, however, you can use a longer and more effective description, destined for the electronic Class Schedule, to show why students with different interests should consider the course.

Step 3: Make sure participating departments include the course in the lists

Make sure all of the participating departments will include the course in the lists from which their majors select courses (both in degree requirement lists and on the class schedule itself), even though the subject code is different.

Make sure all of the participating departments will include the course in the lists from which their majors select courses (both in degree requirement lists and on the class schedule itself), even though the subject code is different.

This kind of “cross-publishing” is not uncommon now (e.g. Biology students know that certain Chemistry and Anthropology courses count toward their major requirements) and Banner can track students’ fulfillment of major requirements independent of subject code. All of the course information (number, subject code, title and description) should appear in the Class Schedule and Degree Audit databases maintained by the Office of the Registrar, as well as in local departmental advising material, online and/or paper.

As with creating an effective course description, cross-publishing is especially important for experimental courses. You want to make sure that the course isn’t ignored simply because it doesn’t come up on a list of courses with a student’s major subject code.

Step 4: Decide how the credit hours are to be apportioned

Decide how the credit hours are to be apportioned among the participating departments, using one of two methods, and inform your dean's office.

• One way to share credit hours is give all of the credit hours associated with a particular offering of the course to a single department, but to rotate the recipient department over time. The change in credit hour allocation is handled within Banner and does not require any change in subject code.
• Another way to share credit hours is to distribute a proportion of the total to each department whenever the course is offered. In this case, manual intervention is required, however. Banner can identify courses in this category, but cannot perform the actual distribution of credit hours. Typically, a department’s share of total credit hours is proportional to the extent of its contribution to the course.

Step 5: Set up the course in Banner during the period for scheduling & data-entry

Ask administrative staff in the “home” department to set up the course in Banner during the period for scheduling & data-entry (including adding the course, subject, number, title, credits, publishing subjects, description, credit-department code, all faculty, etc). Staff who need help with any of these details are welcome to contact the Registrar’s Office.

New Courses in Which a Permanent Listing Under Two or More Subject Codes is Desired

Step 1: Request permanent course numbers

Request possible permanent course numbers from the Registrar’s Office (that is, a 3-digit number other than 199, 399 or 410) that is at the appropriate level and is available in each of the participating departments.

Write a single informative course description that clearly conveys the cross-disciplinary nature of the course and communicates effectively to the students you want to attract from different disciplines. Remember, in addition to the 25-word description required for catalog, you may also provide a longer description for the class schedule. Thus, for example, it’s possible to use an effective description to show why a course would interest both biologists and philosophers.

Step 2: Vet the new course through the usual channels (department, college, university curriculum processes)

Step 3: Offer the course

Once approved, offer the course using all approved subject codes. Administrative staff in the two departments need to coordinate their data entry to ensure that the course is entered into Banner under each subject code with the same day, time, etc.

Step 4: Make sure participating departments include the course in degree requirement lists

Make sure all of the participating departments include the course in the degree requirement lists from which their majors select courses (both the online degree audit system as well as paper/online information about course selection).

Step 5: Decide how the credit hours are to be apportioned

Decide how the credit hours are to be apportioned among the participating departments using one of two methods, and inform your dean’s office.

• One way to share credit hours is give all of the credit hours associated with a particular offering of the course to a single department, but to rotate the recipient department over time. The change in credit hour allocation is handled within Banner and does not require any change in subject code.
• Another way to share credit hours is to distribute a proportion of the total to each department whenever the course is offered. In this case manual intervention is required, however. BANNER can identify courses in this category, but cannot perform the actual distribution of credit hours. Typically, a department’s share of total credit hours is proportional to the extent of its contribution to the course.