Requirements

Course Lists

Course lists are built using tables that include a variety of features intended to help organize information and automatically calculate credit totals.

Structuring a Course List

Organization

Programs should follow the guidance provided in these resources:

• Lumen/Guide: How to Add Tables (Table Help)
• Lumen/Guide: How to Add/Edit Course List Content (Table Help)
• Lumen/Guide: Course List Table Formatting (Headers)

Use the table’s text formatting options to organize information within the Course List. Text formatting is intended to organize information in a hierarchy; it should not be used to emphasize specific words or phrases. Three text formatting options exist in Course Lists: Area Header, Area Subheader, and Indent. When creating Course Lists, use the Area Header and Area Subheader text formatting options to organize your requirement groups. The name of any top-level requirement should be styled as an Area Header.

Area Headers are best suited to organize requirement groups within the curriculum—Introductory Studies; Core; Literature & Culture; Statistics, Research, & Writing; etc.—which can then be populated with courses. Area Headers should be used as the default top-level of organization on a course list.

Area Subheaders are best suited for naming and organizing sub-requirements or groups of courses  under an Area Header. Area Subheaders are organizational—not text formatting—tools; they should correspond to an Area Header appearing further up the list.

Indenting Course Lists

If students must take all courses in the list, or within a particular requirement group, do not indent them. This will (when the Sum Hours feature is enabled) automatically include these courses in the summed hours. If students are free to choose any courses in a requirement group’s course list, indent all the courses in the list. This excludes the courses’ individual credit values from the total credits calculated by the automatic summing feature; a credit total for the requirement group should be summed instead.

Summing Credits in a Course List

Use the Sum Hours feature to automatically calculate the total number of credits expected within the table. When requirements with Area Headers/Area Subheaders have a credit expectation (for example, when indicating students must complete 9 credits from a course list), add the credit expectation to the “Credits” field for that Area Header/Subheader to contribute to the total computed in the table. This total will not be used to encode degree audit requirements, but it is an informal aid to students and other audiences.

Ordering Courses in a Course List

Lengthy course lists are difficult to manage in Lumen. Consistently ordered lists support accessibility, readability, and search efficiency, which benefits students, departments, the College, and campus partners. The recommended order for courses in a list is: alphabetically by subject, and then from lowest to highest catalog number within each subject, with the following endorsement: the department or program’s subject listings should appear first. All courses that meet requirements must be discretely listed, and not described as a range.

Headers

All L&S undergraduate programs will use the header list below to organize the Requirements page. The headers are required for every program are “Requirements for the [Program Type]” and “Residence and Quality of Work.” Otherwise, only include the header when governed criteria exist for the program, using the order below:

• Requirements for the [Program Type]
• Named Option[s]
• Residence and Quality of Work
• Honors in the Major
• Footnotes

Text formatting for Headers

Use Heading 2 headings for all required and optional headings listed above. Departments may use Heading 3 and Heading 4 formatting to further organize their requirements. For headers to be accessible, they must cascade (or flow) from level to level (Heading 2 to Heading 3 to Heading 4). Text in Heading 2 formatting creates “quick links” at the top of a Guide page.

Toggles for Headers

Toggles collapse sections of a page grouped under a header. Toggled headers may not be used to minimize or “streamline” the presentation of information about program requirements. The use of toggled headers is reserved to stand-alone lists of more than ten courses, such as a discrete list of courses that are upper-level in the major or are electives within the major.

Residence

Only courses taken in residence are computed in any GPA calculation at UW–Madison. A course is considered in residence if the student enrolls for credit through UW–Madison. This would include any course that is offered:

• through in-person instruction at UW–Madison;
• via online or hybrid modality by UW-Madison; or
• through a UW–Madison administered program at a distance, either domestically (e.g., the Political Science semester in Washington D.C.) or internationally (e.g., Study Abroad through International Academic Programs).

A course is not in residence when credit is earned via:

• a course transferred from another institution
• a course completed at other UW System schools;
• a course taken abroad through another institution;
• credit awarded according to scores earned on AP (Advanced Placement), IB (International Baccalaureate), or other approved exams; or
• credit by UW–Madison departmental examination (which includes retroactive language credit).

“On Campus” Courses

A course is considered “on campus” when it is taken physically or virtually for credit in a UW–Madison course offering. The UW–Madison campus has both physical and digital instructional modalities. Any course for which a student pays UW–Madison tuition — whether it is taught exclusively via in-person instruction within a UW–Madison building, virtually by a UW-Madison instructor using a learning management system, or in a hybrid modality — is “on campus.”

Quality of Work

All academic programs in L&S must include requirements for quality of work. These are defined as a minimum GPA across a specific set of courses. Sections detailing the quality of work requirements for L&S majors should include a GPA for the entire scope of the major, and a GPA for at least 15 credits of upper-level work, taken in residence.

Standards for Expressing GPAs

The University and L&S compute GPAs to the thousandth of a point (third decimal place). When specifying a GPA in official L&S publications like Guide and the degree audit, express the GPA to the thousandth of a point to remain consistent with approved requirements.

Major GPA

L&S requires a minimum major GPA of 2.000 across all courses in the major’s subject area(s) and all other courses that meet the minimum requirements in the major.

Upper-Level GPA

L&S requires that students achieve a minimum GPA of 2.000, to be computed on at least 15 credits of “upper-level” major courses. While L&S sets this standard, program faculty determine which courses are “upper-level” in the major. This definition must be included in the Residence and Quality of Work section in Guide.

Standard Language

Residence & Quality of Work (Majors)

All three components must be included, as a bulleted list, with this wording. GPAs must be carried out to the thousandths of a point. The definition of upper-level in the major must be included after the bulleted list.

Example:

• Minimum 2.000 GPA in all [SUBJECT(S)] and major courses.
• Minimum 2.000 GPA on at least 15 credits of upper-level work in the major, in residence.
• At least 15 credits in [SUBJECT(S)], taken on the UW–Madison campus.

Upper-level in the major includes [definition of upper-level for the program].

Residence & Quality of Work (Certificates)

Certificates must state the minimum number of credits in residence and minimum required GPA. These should be stipulated in a bulleted list. The GPA must be carried out to the thousandths of a point. Some certificates may have additional rules, such as whether pass/fail courses may meet requirements; those should also be stated after the bulleted list.

Example:

• Minimum 2.000 GPA on all certificate courses. [This is for most certificates. If another GPA requirement was approved, substitute the GPA.]
• At least [#] certificate credits must be completed in residence.

Bullets vs. Ordered (Numbered) Lists

Use bullets unless the list is intended to prescribe information or processes with a specific, consecutive order, or to define a hierarchy. The individual components of a bulleted list are considered co-equal. Only use numbers when stipulating information with a specific order or hierarchy.

Footnotes

All Information about how or which courses meet requirements must be in the either the requirement table of an Integrated page or in text under the heading of the relevant requirement of a Distributed page. Footnotes may not contain additional context or information about requirements and should be used rarely because they are not accessible. Unlike a word processor, Lumen does not update the numbering of footnotes automatically.

Footnotes are collected in one section placed at the end of the page. When referring to specific courses in footnotes, use the Inline Courses tool to link them to the course database.