Your First Proposal

Your First Proposal

Curriculum changes at your institution start as proposals. A proposal is its own
record, separate from the published catalog, so nothing you draft here touches
what students see until it has been approved. In this tutorial we will create a
brand-new course proposal, describe the course, submit it, and watch it enter
your institution’s review queue.

What you will achieve

By the end of this tutorial you will have created a New Course proposal for an
introductory accounting course, saved it as a draft, submitted it for approval,
and seen it move into review with its own approval route and a current step
waiting on the first reviewer.

Before you start

• You are signed in with a Catalog Editor account (or an administrator account).
• The Curriculum module is enabled for your site.
• Your institution has at least one catalog year with a status of draft or
  active. A brand-new install already has this.

Step 1: Open Curriculum

Switch to the Curriculum module. The sidebar changes to the Curriculum
navigation: Overview, Proposals, New Proposal, My Work, Workflows, Meetings,
Reports, and Curriculum Settings.

Click Proposals in the sidebar.

You will see the Proposals list. On a fresh install it is empty, with the
message “No proposals yet.”

Step 2: Start a new proposal

Click New Proposal at the top right of the Proposals list.

The proposal editor opens. Its title reads “New Proposal,” and the Proposal
type field is already set to “New Course.” Leave it there. This is the
simplest kind of proposal: it introduces a course that does not exist in the
catalog yet, so there is no existing course to select.

Step 3: Choose the target catalog year

Look at the Target catalog year field, next to Proposal type. If your
institution has an active catalog year, it is already selected. If the field
is empty, open the dropdown and choose a year with status draft or active.

This is the catalog year the course will be written into once your proposal is
approved.

Step 4: Write your rationale

In the Rationale field, write the plain-language reason for this course.
For this tutorial, type:

New introductory accounting course requested by the Business division for Fall 2026.

Step 5: Describe the course

Scroll down to the Proposed course section.

Fill in:

• Course Code: ACC-120
• Course Title: Accounting Principles I
• Description: An introduction to financial accounting concepts, the accounting cycle, and preparation of financial statements.

Step 6: Set the hours

In the Hours section, enter:

• Credits: 3
• Class: 3

Leave Lab, Clinic, and Work at their default of 0. This course has no lab,
clinic, or work component.

Step 7: Add a prerequisite

In the Prerequisites & Corequisites section, type ACC-101 in the
Prerequisites field. Leave Corequisites blank.

Step 8: Save your draft

Click Save in the top right (or press Cmd+S on a Mac, Ctrl+S on Windows).

Notice the page title changes from “New Proposal” to “Edit Proposal,” a
Draft badge appears next to the title, and a new Submit for Approval
button appears in the header. Your proposal now has a permanent record: if you
navigate back to the Proposals list, you will see it there as “New Course:
Accounting Principles I,” in the Draft state.

Step 9: Submit for approval

Back in the editor, click Submit for Approval.

A confirmation dialog appears, naming the workflow your proposal will be
routed through and listing its steps in order, for example: Department Chair,
then Curriculum Committee, then Chief Academic Officer, then Board of
Trustees. The dialog tells you the route is frozen at submission.

Click Submit.

Step 10: Watch it enter review

Notice three things change on the page:

• The badge next to the title switches from Draft to In review.
• The page now shows an Approval route card listing every step in order,
  with the first step marked as the current one.
• A Decisions card appears with a single entry: “Submitted.”

Your proposal is no longer editable. It is waiting on the reviewer assigned to
the first step of the route.

Open Proposals in the sidebar again. Your proposal now appears in the list
with a state of “In review” and its current step shown in the Current step
column.

You have created and submitted your first curriculum proposal. From here, a
reviewer moves it through the rest of the route one step at a time until it is
approved and written into the catalog.

What’s next

• Create and Submit a Proposal covers revising and discontinuing existing courses, and what happens when a validation rule blocks submission.
• Run Committee Review and Meetings covers deciding on proposals assigned to you and running committee votes.
• Why proposals stay isolated until approval explains why the proposal you just submitted cannot be edited anymore, and what happens when it finishes its route.
• About substantive change flagging explains the advisory signals your proposal was checked against when you submitted it.