High Level Overview

• Approvals must be completed in the "Approve Pages." Direct links are available via e-mail notification, or can be curated by utilizing the user approver role name (see below).
  • https://next-guide.wisc.edu/courseleaf/approve/ (requires authentication)
• Approvals must be entered, even if they don't necessitate approval from specific governance groups.
• There are multiple approvers in each role, so if a proposal is no longer in  your queue, it may already have been advanced/approved or rolled back.

How to Find Your Approval Role and Approve Pages

Entering Approvals

Department
School/College
GFEC
UAPC

Context

In order to document the governance process of all program proposals, each proposal needing governance approval requires an entry in the Approvals section at the bottom of the form indicating which governing body approved (e.g. "Approved at the L&S APC meeting on November 14, 2018"), who entered it, and the date the approval was entered. If this section of the form is not filled out/completed, it will be rolled back.  The approval fields for each of the governance workflow steps will only be enabled when the proposal reaches the approval step in workflow for which an approval should be entered. If there are notes or comments that would previously have been included in an approval memo, this is where they should be entered. Complete information allows the Lumen Program Proposal section to replace the dean's memos that were required in the pre-Lumen environment. Some types of proposals (e.g. adding 2 new courses to the requirements of a major) may not require governance approval at all steps. In these cases the person entering the approval would note "Reviewed by [name]. Does not necessitate review of [insert committee name]" with their name and date.

How to Find Your Approval Role and Approve Pages 

1. Navigate to the Pages Pending Approval. This will open the page without selecting a specific role. Approvals are tied to roles within the system, so there will never be approvals in "your" queue as there is no queue tied to individuals. If you have been authorized by the dean or department chair to be an approver in a specific role you can request to be added to a role here.

To create a direct link for convenience, follow this convention:

• URL stem: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/courseleaf/approve/?role=[role name]
• Example: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/courseleaf/approve/?role=ALS College Approver

NOTE: The role names must be exact and are case sensitive.

2. Select the role in which you need to approve items.

3. Click on the program you want to approve.

4. Click Edit. A new window will open.

5. Scroll to the "Approvals" section. Enter the approval in the appropriate box. See below for the specific tiers of approval. This will need to be filled out for each approval tier. When the field background is white the fields are enabled and you are able to enter text to provide the key information noted above.

6. When finished entering the required information, scroll to the bottom and click to 'Save Changes' to the proposal. The proposal will reload.

7. Finally, approve the proposal. You must enter the above approval text information on the form prior to hitting the green approve button. Once you click "Approve" the form will disappear from your workflow step.

Entering Approvals 

Only the four workflow steps that represent governance body approval require an entry in the Approvals section. Clicking the green approval button means that the approver has verified that the statement included with each of the four steps is accurate and true. For more information about roles and responsibilities, see the Roles and Responsibilities KB. The four governance approval steps are:

1. Department Approval Department Approval  - This proposal has been approved by the faculty at the department/academic unit level. The program faculty confirm that the unit has the capacity and resources (financial, physical, instructional, and administrative) to meet the responsibilities associated with offering the program, including offering the necessary courses, advising students, maintaining accurate information about the program in the Guide and elsewhere, conducting student learning assessment and program review, and otherwise attend to all responsibilities related to offering this program

• The department chair, or designee, must fill in the approval notes indicating there was some level of discussion within the department for the proposed changes.

Examples of good notes about approval: 

• Approved by ALC Executive Committee October 3, 2017
• per email discussion with Folklore Studies program lead (Janet Gilmore) and CLFS Department Chair: approved by the Folklore Program Working Group on 3/7/2019 and by CLFS on 3/7/2019
• This policy change was approved by the EP faculty on 7/29/17 through an e-mail vote
• Approved by the SJMC Curriculum Committee on Nov. 7, 2018 and endorsed unanimously by faculty and staff on Nov. 21, 2018.

Examples of inadequate notes about approval:

• Department approval.
• Approved October 12, 2018
• No approval is needed for this correction to a course listing.
• Submitted to remove inactive courses.
• No approval entered.

2. School/College Approval - This proposal has been approved at the school/college level and it is submitted with the Dean’s support. The Dean and program faculty confirm that the unit has the capacity and resources (financial, physical, instructional, and administrative) to meet the responsibilities associated with offering the program, including offering the necessary courses, advising students, maintaining accurate information about the program in the Guide and elsewhere, conducting student learning assessment and program review, and otherwise attend to all responsibilities related to offering this program.

•  The school/college dean, or designee, must fill in approval notes indicating the discussion or review of the program and whether it needs approval from an APC.

Examples of good notes about approval: 

• Approved by the L&S Curriculum Committee on December 11, 2018, contingent on clarifications about some wording in learning outcomes (which have been revised accordingly).
• The SoE Programs Committee voted to approve the suspension of the World Languages minors and implementation changes at the 3/1/19 meeting. The SoE Academic Planning Council voted to approve the suspension at the 12/19/18 meeting.

CALS Academic Planning Council approved request on October 16, 2018. Informational item for CALS Curriculum Committee on October 23, 2018.

• These are minor changes that do not need to be reviewed by the L&S Curriculum Committee

Examples of inadequate notes about approval:

• Approved
• No governance required
• No approval entered. 

3. GFEC Approval - This proposal has been approved by the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee and the Dean of the Graduate School.  

• GFEC approval will only appear available for graduate level programs.
• The Graduate School dean, or designee, must fill in approval notes indicating the discussion or review of the program and whether it needs approval from a GFEC.

Examples of good notes about approval: 

• The request for doctoral minor opt-out was approved by Associate Dean Ramanathan. The approval memo is attached to the proposal. The other changes do not require further approval.
• Approved by GFEC November 2018
• These changes do not require a GFEC vote.

Examples of inadequate notes about approval:

• No approval entered. 

4. UAPC Approval - This proposal has been approved by the University Academic Planning Council and the Provost.  

• UAPC Approval will always be filled in by DAPIR on behalf of the Provost. Approvals indicate whether an item needs review at UAPC.