Creating and Revising Courses 

This document will go over how to create and revise courses within the eLumen system. 

Creating a Course 

To begin, you want to be in the Faculty role from the drop down next to your user icon and in the Department that you wish to Create the course. 

Navigate to Curriculum and then to the “ Curriculum Library ” tab. You will then select the blue “ New Course ” button. 

Once you select the “ New Course” button it will launch a window for you to designated the workflow you wish to use. 

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After you have selected the appropriate course workflow you will then be taken to proposal workflow to enter course information on each of the corresponding tabs (see below). 

All fields that are “white” are open/available fields for you to work within. Fields that have a search box (as you see with the TOP Code area above), you can type a minimal amount of letters for the subject you need and then scroll once you are able to see the selected content; OR you can disregard the search feature and scroll through the content that is listed.  

NOTE : Fields that are marked with an ( * ) are mandatory fields. You must enter information into these fields in order for the workflow to complete. 

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The Tabs 

Cover info 

The Cover Info has three main components on the tab: General Information, Faculty Requirements, and Proposal Details. 

General Information- contains the following information for faculty to complete: 

● Course Code● Course Title● TOP Code● CIP Code● SAM Code● Department● Course Description

Faculty Requirements- allows the faculty member to select the preferred discipline and alternate disciplines which are allowed to teach the course from a selector system. The pre populated data is from the California Community College Minimum Qualifications Guide. 

Proposal Details -includes the Author(s) otherwise known as the owner of the course, the ability to Add Additional Contributors, the Submission Rationale and the Proposal Start (this is a mandatory field that must be included in order for the course to be submitted and moved to the next stage.) 

At the very bottom there are three buttons. Delete Workflow, Save as Draft and Submit. The Submit button will not turn dark blue until the Proposal Start is filled in with a term date and all required or mandatory fields (*). 

NOTE: As a faculty, if you need to pause in submission of a workflow because you need to go teach, have an appointment, need to gather more information to include in the course, the recommendation action to take is Save as Draft . This will place the workflow into your Inbox so that you can come back and complete the workflow with the necessary information. IF you click submit, it will move the incomplete workflow onto the next stage and out of your inbox. 

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Course Development Options 

The second tab of a course workflow is the Course Development Options. This tab has multiple drop down boxes and fillable content boxes for you to complete. You may not need all of the boxes, however, if you are uncertain if you need to check the box, consult with the Curriculum Specialist on your campus. 

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More Options -contains the following content for faculty to complete: 

● Course Basic Skill Status● Course Special Class Status● Grade Options● Allowed Number of Retakes● Retake Policy Description● Allow Students to Gain Credit by Exam/Challenge● Rationale for Credit By Exam/Challenge● Allow Students to Audit Course

All content is CB code based and additional information can be found in the PCAH , the Data Element Dictionary and from your Curriculum Specialist.   

Associated Programs -will be blank and you will not be able to select. However, when you are creating a program or revising a program the next time that the course is revised this information will populate with the associated programs respectively. 

Transferability & Gen. Ed. Options- is where a faculty member can request for the course to be transferable and/or for it to be part of an articulation agreement. The status of the request will automatically be set to “Pending”. When/if the request is approved, the status will update when it is completed by the Curriculum Specialist under the Curriculum Technician tab. When a course is being revised, if the transferability is adjusted, the status will return to “pending”. 

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Request for Transferability -allows the faculty member to select if the course should be transferable to CSU and UC , CSU Only or indicate that it is Not Transferable . Once a selection is chosen the status will be set to “Pending”. 

Request for General Education Transferability - allows for the faculty to select all potential categories for a given System/Institution. You then will select the specified Categories associated with the System/Institution selected. Additional content can also be included for a comparison of courses or for inclusion of a specific course, say for C-ID purposes or for transfer specific course purposes. For example, if you are adding C-ID you may wish to add COMM 110 Public Speaking. 

Once you are satisfied with the selection you will select Add General Education Request at the lower left corner. 

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Units and Hours 

Credit/Non-Credit Options- The units and hours tab provides options for credit and non-credit courses, as well as variable unit courses. Non-credit options are selectable once the Course Credit Status is set to be non-credit. 

The criteria to complete in this section are: 

● Course Credit Status● Course Non-Credit Category● Non-Credit Characteristics● Course Classification Codes● Funding Agency Category● Cooperative Work Experience● Variable Credit Course - Another option to create variable credit courses

(seen below in the Profiles area) is to create a minimum set of values, and thenadd an additional profile for the maximum value.

Auto-calculation within eLumen for units and hours eLumen is set to auto-generate the number of units based on the weekly hours entered. The system uses a standard set of widely accepted ratios for lecture, lab, and activity hours*, along with the number of weeks (duration), and an hours per unit divisor to calculate the units based on the weekly hours.  

When auto-calculation is not needed, to accommodate courses that do not follow a standard units and hours pattern, it can be turned off or unchecked by toggling the checkbox. Once this is done, any values that have been entered with auto-calculation enabled will still be present, however, all values can be adjusted as needed from top to bottom of the page. This may be needed for courses like work experience, non-standard courses, some non-credit courses, etc. 

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*Some colleges may not use Activity hours. Disregard the Activity hours fields if your college does not use these type of hour designations. 

Additional Profiles - are available in the system and multiple unit/hour profiles for courses that need to display more than one set of units and hours. Common examples include minimum and maximum units for a course, and internships that might be paid or unpaid. 

 

To create an additional profile, select “ Add New Profile ”. Each profile can be titled as needed by the institution and each profile can choose to have the auto-calculation enabled or disabled. Add the unit values the same as you would on the first Default Profile tab. If you need to adjust auto-calculation on the additional profile tab, uncheck the box to adjust hours. The same functionality will apply on each profile tab. If a profile is not needed, select “ Delete this profile ” from the far right. 

Weekly Specialty Hours - for some courses will not be suitable. In circumstances when a course requires hours to be named in a particular way, the Weekly Specialty Hours fields can accommodate any title of hours needed. To add hours to this field, give a description, select the type, enter a number of in-class hours, then select “ Add ”. (If your college does not use Weekly Specialty Hours, then you can move on to the next field set). 

 

 

 

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Course Student Hours - are auto-calculated, unless that setting is unchecked. If you have untoggled the checkbox, these will be open for you to adjust manually. If you are unsure what the total unit values may be, consult with your Curriculum Specialist on your campus. 

Faculty Load - multipliers have been added for Faculty Load to the lecture, lab, and activity hours in System Settings area of the system by the Data Steward at your college. Faculty Load will automatically populate as information is being input into the course. A multiplier for extra duties is also used, adding a value to that space will also be added to the Faculty Load.  

Prerequisites, Corequisites, Anti-requisites and Advisories The requisites tab allows faculty to select courses, as well as build rules around those courses. There are four types of requisites within eLumen: 

Prerequisite : A course that must be taken prior to another course. 

Anti-Requisite : An anti-requisite is a course that one must previously complete with similar content to one that is required to be enrolled in . 

Corequisite : A course that should be taken at the same time as another course. 

Advisory : A course that it is recommended to be taken before a course.. 

 

As you work with eLumen and have multiple requisites for courses you can add rules, 

both AND and OR for the course. The following are steps for adding these rules 

within eLumen. 

Creating "And" Rules 

1. Select the “Add Rule Group” button 

2. Select the “Add Rule” button 

3. Next choose Requisite Type from the drop down and select your Course from the search option then select the “Add Requisite” button 

4. Choose any SLOs or Objectives, select the “Add” button 

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5. Select the “Add Rule” to add an additional course AND an “and” forinclusion between them

6. Select Requisite Type and Course

7. Select any SLOs or Objectives, select “Add”

8. Select “Add Requisite”

9. Continue same steps to keep adding “and” between courses

Creating "Or" Rules 

1. Select the “Add Rule Group” button

2. Select the “Add Rule” button

3. Next choose Requisite Type from the drop down and select your coursefrom the search option then select the “Add Requisite” button

4. Choose any SLOs or Objectives, select the “Add” button

5. Select “Add Rule Group” to add an additional “or” for a second course

Continue same steps to keep adding ANDs and ORs between. If you need additional assistance both the Curriculum Specialist and your eLumen Customer Success Manager can assist you. 

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Entrance Skills - can be are added by entering information into the “Skill description” field, then selecting the “Add New Skill” button. This will create an entry, and open a textbox for Content Review to be added if desired.  

Limitations on Enrollment - can be added in the same way the entrance skills are added to the page. 

Specifications 

The specifications tab includes information on what happens within the course, including the methods used for instruction and evaluation, sample assignments, textbooks and other instructional materials, as well as equipment and any materials fees. 

Methods of Instruction (MOI) and Methods of Evaluation (MOE)- are added using the same technique. To begin, select “Add Method of Instruction” or “Add Method of Evaluation”.   

Use the drop down menu that will appear on the left to select the corresponding MOI or MOE. The list presented is defined by the institution. Once the drop down is set, add any additional content to the open text box as desired. Continue adding additional MOI and MOE as it relates to the course. 

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Assignments - is a rich text editor box which is designed to allow faculty to enter as much content as required to be added and defined. 

Textbooks allows faculty to enter information for the author, title, publisher, date, and ISBN, then select “Add New Textbook”. The “Add New Textbook” button will not become active until the first four items are filled in. 

Continue adding as many textbooks as needed. To remove a textbook, select 

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the black X . 

Other Instructional Materials are any materials needed for a course that are not in textbook format and being used for the course. This can include non-textbook resources, packets from the bookstore, a website, etc. Add materials with at least a description, then select “Add Material”. Continue adding materials in the same way. 

Learning Outcomes 

The learning outcomes tab includes both course objectives and course student learning outcomes. 

Course Objectives -can be added by writing in the textbox, then select “Add New Course Objective”. Continue to add as many objectives as required. Once added, objectives can be re-ordered using the arrows on the right side of the entry. To remove an objective, select the black “X”. To edit the text of the objective, select the text. An editor will appear. Select the blue check mark to save your change.(If there are multiple objectives, enter them one at a time.) 

CSLOs- or The Course Student Learning Outcomes can be added in the same way the objectives were added. Enter the text of the SLO in the box, then select “Add New CSLO”. If CSLOs are already listed, select the text to create a 

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new version of the CSLO. Once the workflow is approved, and the term for which the course has been approved has come, the change made to the CSLO in Curriculum will be seen in the SLOs and Assessment module. Each CSLO should have its own line. 

Outline 

This tab contains the course content. It is separated into two areas: 

● course outline● lab outline

If the course has a lab component, toggle the box that says “Lab Component in this Course”. The lab outline box will open to include content in that area for the course. 

The textbox can be expanded so the information being entered is easier to work with. In addition, there is an expansion button on the editor box to open the text box to full screen. 

Step Templates (Honors Addendum, Distance Education Addendum)

You may see a tab or two added between Outline and Curriculum Technician.  These additional tabs are called Step Templates. This additional content is  information that the institution may need from you or that the course needs  from you. For instance, if you have a distance education course that you are  submitting you may have to enter information that pertains to the distance  education criteria needed to move the course forward. Depending on what  the tab may ask for, there are specific questions that the institution has  devised to have you answer. There is also a space to add attachments if the  area is in need of additional content. 

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Curriculum Technician 

The tab is for the Curriculum Specialist. This is an administrative tab that cannot be edited by the faculty member. The Curriculum Specialist can adjust the values, set dates and make any additions, such ad approvals for transferability.  

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Once you have completed all steps of the workflow and you are satisfied with the content you have input into the workflow select the blue Submit button. This will move the course on to the next stage in the workflow. 

Creating a Revision 

Creating a course revision is just a little different than creating a course from scratch. All approved courses are housed within the Curriculum Library. When you need to make a revision or modification to a course, you will want to take the following steps. This means that the courses will have content already in the course and any modifications that you do make will be able to be seen after you make the changes when the committee goes to review the course through the workflow. 

To begin, you will want to be in the Faculty role from the drop down at the top of the screen next to your user icon and in the Department that you wish to Revise the course. 

Navigate to the Curriculum button and then to the “ Curriculum Library ” tab. You will then go to the Course Code area and type the subject that you are wishing to revise (ie. Math) and choose enter. 

Next you will see the list of all courses that are within the Curriculum Library that are offered in the selected department.  

Select the course that you wish to revise by toggling the checkbox to the left of the course. 

You will see at the top of the course listing a New Revision button. Select that button. 

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Once you select the button it will take you to a tab where you will need to select the type of workflow to start at the college. These workflows have been designated for you and will contain information to include step templates. 

After you have selected the workflow you will continue to complete the course information by filling in or modifying content as you would a creation of course. If you have questions about what content goes where, review the pieces above under each of the areas or ask your Curriculum Specialist for further guidance. 

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