After you’ve had a great idea for a new course that you would like to develop, talk to your unit coordinator about the surprisingly long list of implications for pursuing your proposal. See Steps in Modifying or Developing a Course for a list of things to discuss.

If your unit coordinator gives the okay, it’s time to start the approval process. This is where people from around the university look at your idea and consider approving it. If the course is approved, it will become a part of the permanent curriculum.

After the course receives approval, you and your unit coordinator really get busy. The unit coordinator will schedule the course (this includes finding a room to teach it in) and monitor enrollment to see if there are enough students taking the course to justify offering it. You will prepare to teach the course by finalizing the syllabus and ordering books.

After you’ve taught the course for the first time, it’s time to assess the results. Whether or not this is part of your unit’s formal assessment process, you should have included some assessment measures (in addition to student evaluations and course grades) in your final course design. As you consider the results, think about whether you will need to maintain, modify, expand, or revise the course.
Significant revisions will need to go through the Course Approval Process. Your unit coordinator will also be assessing the results of the course to decide whether and how often to schedule it in the future. This decision will be made in the context of the unit’s needs and resources as well as in consideration of the success of the course in achieving its goals.