The instructions below explain how to successfully complete the proposal form for a course edit. This includes credit courses, credit common courses, and non-credit courses. If you want to propose a new course, please follow the instructions for how to submit a proposal for a new course. If you want to drop a course, please follow the instructions for how to submit a proposal to drop a course.
Go to the CourseLeaf CIM Course Management dashboard at: https://psu-next.courseleaf.com/courseadmin/.
Log in with your Penn State user ID and password.
A dialog box will appear requesting that you complete your login to CourseLeaf. Click the circle icon in the dialog box to proceed to the CourseLeaf CIM Course Management dashboard.
Once logged in, you will see the CourseLeaf CIM Course Management dashboard. In the Search field, enter the course subject abbreviation, course title, or course code (course subject abbreviation + course number (e.g., ENGL 15)) of the course that you want to edit. Then click the green Search Button.
A list of matched search results will appear in the results table. Select the course that you wish to edit from the results table.
Below the results table will be a preview panel of the currently approved proposal for the course. To propose changes to the course, click the green Edit Course Button that appears in the upper right-hand corner of the preview panel.
The course proposal form will open in a new browser window.
The CIM course proposal form is a large form with several fields, which are described below. Before starting on a course proposal form, please read the following tips and guidelines to help you successfully navigate form features and requirements.
The CIM course proposal form is a dynamic form. The fields that appear on the form will change depending on your answers to certain questions. For example, if you select "Undergraduate" for the Academic Level, a new section for General Education designation will appear further down in the form. This section will not appear when any other academic level is selected.
Fields that are required are outlined in red. You cannot start workflow (i.e., begin the review and approval process) on your proposal until all required fields have been completed. You can, however, save changes to your incomplete proposal and return to complete and submit the form later.
Instructions for each question appear in italics above the question heading and field. Please read these instructions carefully before entering your information into the form.
You can save your changes to the proposal form at any time by clicking the Save Changes button at the bottom of your screen. This will save all changes made but will not submit the proposal to the approval workflow process. Saving changes allows you to come back to your proposal and finish editing at a later date.
Clicking the Cancel button will close the proposal without saving any changes made.
Once your proposal is finished and ready to begin the review process, click the Start Workflow button to submit the proposal to the approval workflow process.
Some of the form fields on the course proposal form already will be pre-populated with information from the LionPATH Course Catalog. To satisfy all required fields, you may need to include information from prior approved proposals available in the Curriculum Archive.
When proposing to edit an existing course, the course proposal form contains all the form fields used when proposing a new course. Detailed information on each of those form fields can be found on the How to Propose a New Course User Guide.
In addition, the following new form fields also will appear on the form when proposing an edit to an existing course:
Enter an explanation of the proposed changes along with a justification for the changes.
If you are submitting a request to recertify the course's General Education status, select Yes.
If you select Yes, the Justification for Changes Proposed form field will appear for you to enter an explanation justifying the request for General Education recertification.
The CourseLeaf CIM Course Management dashboard includes a feature called the Ecosystem. The Ecosystem shows courses, programs, and pages from the University Bulletins that are related to the course being changed and Bulletin pages that reference the course. The Ecosystem allows you to see what other courses and programs reference a specific course as a requisite or program requirement. In other words, the Ecosystem shows you a complete list of courses and programs that will be impacted by a course change proposal.
When proposing to change a course, reviewing the information presented in the Ecosystem will help you build your consultation list. Units with courses and programs that reference the course being changed will have an interest in what changes are being proposed so they can determine if a change proposal is necessary for any impacted course or program.
Instructions on how to view the Ecosystem for a course are available in the Understanding the Ecosystem User Guide.
Form Fields that are pre-populated by the LionPATH Course Catalog with information from the last approved proposal for the course include the following:
The first time you propose a course change in CIM you may need to include information from prior approved proposals available in the Curriculum Archive to satisfy all required fields.
You only need to provide the information that is to be changed on the form. All other form fields can be left unchanged. For example, if the course currently is a 3-credit course and you wish to change it to a 4-credit course, you change the values inputted in the Min Credits and Max Credits fields from "3" to "4".
The original pre-populated entry appears as follows:
The edited entry appears as follows:
In addition to changing the appropriate form fields, remember to provide an explanation of the proposed changes in the Brief Overview and Justification for Proposed Changes form field.
When reviewers are reviewing the proposal, they can identify proposed changes by the red-green markup of the text. Red strike-through text is used to indicate deletions and green text is used to indicate additions.
The automated approval process in CIM is called the workflow. Once you click the green Start Workflow Button, your proposal will begin this approval process.
The required workflow steps are defined by each academic college. As reviewers in each step approve the proposal it will move to the next step of the workflow. As the proposal moves to the next workflow step, the appropriate user(s) will be notified via an automated email that the course proposal is ready to be reviewed, edited, approved, or rejected.
You can log in to the CourseLeaf CIM Course Management dashboard at any time to see where your proposal is in the workflow process. Once you have located your proposal in the dashboard, the preview will include the full list of workflow steps the proposal must complete. The current workflow step for the proposal will be in bold orange text. Completed workflow steps will be in bold green text.
At any point in the approval process a reviewer might have questions about the proposal. You will have the opportunity to address these questions and/or provide additional information about your proposal at various steps throughout the workflow. You cannot directly edit your proposal until it returns to you in the workflow process. You will be notified via email when the proposal has reached the workflow step for you to review and address reviewer feedback.
A reviewer may also choose to rollback the proposal to a previous step in the workflow. In this case, the proposal will need to repeat the workflow steps from the point the proposal was rolled back to.
More information about proposal review can be found in the Workflow Management User Guide section.
Once the proposal has been fully reviewed and approved, the last step of the workflow (PeopleSoft) is an automated sync process to add the course changes to the LionPATH Course Catalog. Some course data, such as changes to enforced prerequisite information, will be manually added by the Office of the University Registrar. The effective semester for the course changes will be determined by the Office of the Faculty Senate based on the timing of the final approval.
Note: The LionPATH sync process does not add the course to the LionPATH Schedule of Classes or schedule course offerings of the course. It only adds the course to the LionPATH Course Catalog. Class Scheduling is a separate process managed by the Office of the University Registrar each semester. For questions about class scheduling, please contact your unit's designated class scheduler(s).
Once the proposal has completed the approval process, the proposer will receive an automated email message notifying you of the proposal approval.
