Course Catalog Glossary

This section provides links to policies in the General Catalog and other resources that can be helpful to faculty and departments when creating new courses, managing existing course, and inactivating old courses. Below are only the policies most often asked for; a full list of policies can be found in the General Catalog. 

General Information & Definitions

Basic Overview

What is the General Catalog?

The General Catalog is comprised of the Courses, Calendar, Academic Programs, Academic Support, Policies, and Archived General Catalogs.  The current policies, structures, and setup of the University of Arizona are contained on this website.  The Courses and Policies section will be most useful to departments as they create and maintain their curriculum as the UA. The policies section contains course policies comprised of HLC, ABOR, and the University of Arizona policies.  These policies ensure a high-quality education to UA students across Campuses, Colleges, and Departments.

What is the Course Catalog?

The Course Catalog houses the structure of courses offered at the University of Arizona. The structure provides the course title, description, units, typically offered, grading basis, repeat for credit rules, course attributes, offerings, academic organization, requirement groups, requisite text (Catalog note), field trips, component type(s) (lecture, discussion, lab, etc.). It lives in UAccess and is used administratively by Departments and Colleges.

What is the Browse Catalog?

The Browse Catalog also provides the basic structure of a course offered at the University of Arizona. It is linked to the Course Catalog and the Schedule of Classes. It provides the overview of the course's learning outcomes, units, grading basis, and component type (lecture, lab, etc.). It lives in UAccess and is used by current and incoming Students.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Academic Organization (four-digit number) under the Offering tab in the Course Catalog will always give you the name of the department that owns the course.

Courses with multiple offering numbers are crosslisted; this means the course is displayed with two or more subject prefixes, and students can enroll under any of the available prefixes. Course offering number 1 indicates the home department.

  1. What is the Course ID and how is it used?
    • Each active Course is assigned a specific Course ID. It is used to trace the history or historical changes made to a course.
  2. What does the Effective Date of the Course Catalog mean?
    • The date in which a record of a course is/was valid. Always use the most recent Effective Date when scheduling. Moving forward, anything processed after the effective date must follow that record. 
  3. What does the Status of a course in the Course Catalog mean?
    • Inactive means course cannot be offered in the Schedule of Classes. Any Active course in the Course Catalog can be offered in the Schedule of Classes.  

Departments may email catalog@arizona.edu to request the creation of new Requirement Groups to enforce prerequisites on individual sections in the Schedule of Classes. Section Level requirements sent after the deadline are reviewed as Registrar workload permits. Once the Schedule of Classes has been published for a semester, any new requests will be processed for the next unpublished semester. 

  • Requests for Fall/Summer semesters must be emailed by February 1
  • Requests for Winter/Spring semesters must be emailed by September 1

Attributes are informational tags added to courses and sections, and in some cases may be used by students to filter classes in the Class Search. They indicate special types of courses (General Education, Writing Emphasis, Honors), as well as grading options and whether the course is crosslisted or mutually exclusive to another course.

  • Experimental Course:  Temporary course that is automatically inactivated after one year in the course catalog.  
  • Per Unit Fee: This field no longer in use at UA. 
  • Flat Fee: Determined by Academic Affairs through the Course Fee approval process.  Fees are charged to students taking an in-person or hybrid course. 
  • iCourse Fee: This field no longer in use at UA. iCourse fees are automatically applied to online sections offered outside of the Online campus. 
  • Other Fees: This field no longer in use at UA. 
  • Purpose of Fee: Course rationale for charging a fee to students on top of tuition costs (i.e. lab supplies, equipment refresh, trips, etc).  
  • Change of Course ID for GRO: Identifies previous versions of the course that may be considered equivalent for GRO purposes. Only used for courses taken prior to 2010.
  • Co-Convened: Indicates a 400/500 level combined course taught to both undergraduate and graduate students. The last two corresponding catalog numbers must match in order to be Co- Convened. 
  • Engineering Science Units: Used for College of Engineering accreditation. 
  • Engineering Design Units: Used for College of Engineering accreditation. 
  • Course Requisites: Prerequisites that students should complete prior to enrolling in the course. Course Requisites are display-only, and are not enforced by UAccess.   
  • Field Trips: Information about required field trips that take place outside the usual meeting pattern and location in the Schedule of Classes.
  • Course Component: The type of structure a course has (Lecture, Lab, Independent Study, etc).
  • Instructor Contact Hours: Instructors must meet with students a minimum of 15 contact hours per unit; see the Credit Definition policy for more information.
  • Default Section Size: Departments may input correct enrollment number and section size. This may be adjusted in the Schedule of Classes when scheduling individual sections.
  • Workload Hours: For single-component courses, Workload Hours should be identical to the Minimum Units for the course. For multi-component courses, the sum of Workload Hours for all required components should equal the Minimum Units for the course.
  • OEE Workload Hours: This field not in use at UA.
  • Final Exam: Yes/No option to indicate whether the course utilizes a synchronous final exam. If yes, each course is assigned a final exam time dependent upon the meeting pattern of the course during the semester.
  • Provider for Authentication: This field not in use at UA.
  • LMS Extract File Type: This field not in use at UA.
  • Auto Create: Selected to have components prepopulate on the Adjust Class Association in the Schedule of Classes.
  • Graded Component: The component of the course that is graded or where the student receives credit on their transcript. The Primary component and Graded component should be the same.  
  • Primary Component: the component of the course receiving/generating the most workload hours. The Primary component and Graded component should be the same.  
  • Optional Component: Departments may dictate whether or not to offer optional components for individual class offerings each semester. If offered, the department may choose to make the component required for that class in the Schedule of Classes.
  • Generate Class Mtg Attendance: This field not in use at UA.
  • Include in Dynamic Date Calc: This field not in use at UA.
  • Instruction Mode: This field not in use in the Course Catalog. Instruction mode is defined for each section in the Schedule of Classes.
  • Attendance Type: This field not in use at UA.
  • Room Characteristics Required: This field not in use in the Course Catalog. Room requests are defined for each section in the Schedule of Classes.

What is the difference between a single component and multiple component class?
The components used at the UofA are colloquium, discussion, independent study, laboratory, lecture, seminar, studio, workshop.  A single component course uses only one  component.  A multiple component course uses 2 or more of the components, i.e. Lecture/Laboratory. 

When should I use multiple components?
Multiple components are used when an instructor would like to use different instructional methods to present course content. Example: General Chemistry uses a lecture component to present general knowledge and concepts and a laboratory component to allow the supervised practical hands-on experimentation putting into practice the information being presented in the lecture.

  • Instructor Edit: This field not used at UA. Default selection should be "No Choice".
  • Add Consent: This field not used at the Course Catalog level. Default selection should be "No Consent"; consent requirements may be adjusted for individual sections in the Schedule of Classes if needed.
  • Drop Consent: This field not used at the Course Catalog level. Default selection should be "No Consent"; consent requirements may be adjusted for individual sections in the Schedule of Classes if needed.
  • Requirement Designation: Generally used for Honors College courses with the HNRS prefix. Some introductory level natural science courses also utilize Requirement Designations for transferring equivalent coursework from other institutions.
  • Equivalent Course Group: Logic attached to courses where content overlaps to the point that students should not receive credit for completing both courses. Students will receive a message during registration that credit will only be given for one course, but the system will not prevent them from registering.

The Description is the shortest version of the course title, which appears on the student transcript.  Character limit is 30.

The Long Course Title is the longest version of the course title, which appears in the Course Catalog and Schedule of Classes. Character limit is 100.

The Course Description is the long entry describing course content and structure. While there is no official character limit, most course descriptions are between 2 sentences and 2 paragraphs in length.

Courses may be designated as repeatable for credit when students receive different content or a different experience each time they take the course. Examples include Special Topics seminars/colloquia and Independent Study courses. 

Courses designated as repeatable for credit should display the total number of completions and total number of units an individual student may earn in the course; these totals include the initial completion and all subsequent completions.

  • Grading Basis: The type of grades that students earn for the course. Please see the General Catalog - Grades and the Grading System.
  • Graded Component: The component that the grade is assigned to.
  • Grade Roster Print: This field not in use at UA.
  • Minimum Units: The minimum number of units a student can earn for one completion of the course. 
  • Maximum Units: The maximum number of units a student can earn for one completion of the course. 
  • Academic Progress Units: Used to calculate students' in-progress units each semester. This field should be identical to the Minimum Units for the course.  
  • Financial Aid Progress Units: Used to calculate students' in-progress units each semester for Financial Aid purposes. This field should be identical to the Minimum Units for the course.  
  • Last Course of Mult Term Seq: Indicator on the last course in a multi-course sequence. This field not approved for general use. 
  • Enrollment Unit Load Calc Type: This field not in use at UA. 
  • Course Count: This field not in use at UA.  
  • Course Contact Hours: This field not in use at UA.  

The semesters in which a course is typically offered on specific campuses. Serves as a reference for students to plan their semesters. While departments are not restricted to scheduling courses only in the listed semesters, these fields should be maintained to provide students with accurate information.

  • Course Offering Nbr: the sequence of departments or subject that are Cross-Listed with one another. Typically, the first offering nbr is designated for the home department or department that owns the course. Each corresponding subject is filled accordingly as a new course offering nbr. 
  • Academic Institution: UAZ00 for the University of Arizona          
  • Academic Group: UA General for general University of Arizona course 
  • Subject Area: Area of profession or subject a course covers       
  • Campus: MAIN campus for Main Campus students, UA Online Campus for Online students, and DIST Campus for approved Distance offered sections. 
  • Academic Organization: the department that owns the course or is in charge of offering it for a semester/term. 
  • Academic Career: Undergraduate, Graduate, Medical, etc. 
  • Course Typically Offered: When a section of the course is most likely to be offered. Not restricted to these. 
  • Tuition Group: Tuition difference based off Tuition group. 
  • Dynamic Class Date Rule: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • Allow OEE Enrollment: This field is seen only historically on Correspondence courses.   
  • Course Approved box: If approved then checked 
  • Catalog Print: if the schedule print box is checked then the course appears in the general class search conducted by students. When unchecked, students will be unable to search for the class as the section is only made seen or available to department representatives. 
  • Print Instructor in Schedule: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • Schedule Print: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • Schedule Term Roll: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • Use Blind Grading: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • GL Interface Required: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 
  • Split Ownership: Delivered function of UAccess, not in use at UA. 

A 6-digit code that restricts enrollment to students with specific prerequisite coursework completed, in specific majors or student groups, or with specific placement exam scores. Requirement Groups can be included on the Course Catalog record (in effect for all sections of the course in all semesters) or on the Schedule of Classes record (in effect for specific sections in specific semesters).

Questions or concerns regarding the information on this page should be sent to Academic Catalog & Policy:

Email: catalog@arizona.edu