This is a portion of the final report to the President of the Course Renumbering Task Force. It represents the work and considered thought of over 150 people at some point and about 30 on a continuing basis over about a year's time.

In the early Fall of 2003 the Office of Planning and Policy Analysis (OPPA) brought forth a recommendation to the Provost and President that a complete restructuring of the current course numbering system was needed. What was once a fairly standard system had become a school and discipline based system with little overall standardization, similar numbers being used in different ways by different colleges, and an outmoded three-digit system structure. These concerns had been previously discussed by OPPA informally with the Provost and several of the deans and all agreed that the course numbering system needed some revision.

In early Fall of 2003 both the Provost and the President agreed that the OPPA proposal should be pursued with a university-wide committee under the aegis of the Provost's Office and that the Executive Director of OPPA should chair the committee and carry out the work necessary to form a proposal that would be widely representative of university thinking.

Later in December of 2003 a task force was appointed by the chair to carry out research that would clearly identify the weaknesses of the current system and to survey other course renumbering efforts that had occurred at universities similar to Temple. This task force was led by Ms. Jacqueline Resavage. Also, in December of 2003 an announcement of the project was made by the Provost to the Council of Deans and a presentation of the project need and anticipated tasks and timelines was presented by the course renumbering chair in a question and answer session with the deans. All deans were asked to appoint a member to the committee that would propose the content, procedures and timelines for this university-wide effort. The initial proposal was also presented and discussed at the December 2003 meeting of the Data Management Council.

Starting in January of 2004 several persons from around the University were asked to participate in the Course Renumbering Committee in addition to the deans appointees. The full committee was appointed and apprised of the on-going work of the task force by the beginning of March, 2004. On April 7, 2004 the full committee had its first meeting and the task force presented its findings to the full committee. Prior to the first meeting a structure of three sub-committees, and their associated charges was presented to the full group along with chairs of the following committees who had previously agreed to serve:

1. Renumbering and Standardization Committee - chaired by Ralph Jenkins of the College of Science and Technology.
2. Systems Impact Committee - chaired by Barbara Dolhansky of Computer Services.
3. Communications and Procedures Committee - chaired by Vicki McGarvey of the Provost Office.

At this initial meeting, the membership of the sub-committees was filled in by volunteers and subsequently expanded to include others whose critical areas were felt to be needed on the subcommittees.

In August of 2004 the findings and recommendations of these sub-committees was presented to the full group. In order to solicit as much feedback as possible at this meeting two things were done:

1. All recommendations were submitted to the full committee over a week before the meeting and members were informed that the purpose of the meeting was to solicit their feedback on the proposals.
2. In order to get feedback from as wide a net as possible, all members of the Data Management Council (about 22 people from the schools and colleges) were asked to join the Course Renumbering Committee (approximately 25 people also from the schools and colleges) to respond to and discuss the proposals of the subcommittees.

To begin the next phase of the effort, the overall course renumbering committee was thanked for their work and a new working group was formed and charged by the OPPA Executive Director with finalizing the details of the renumbering policy and studying in more depth the impact of the proposal on all university constituencies and forming a timeline for implementation. This group co-chaired by Ralph Jenkins and Barbara Dolhansky, included representatives from collegial administrations, academic advising units, Computer Services, Academic Records, the Provost's Office and several other units that were invited in to help determine university-wide impact. In addition, the Communications sub-committee under Vicki McGarvey was asked to continue their work until the proposal was final.

In September of 2004 a presentation was made to the Provost's staff of the numbering system and anticipated timelines. In November of 2004 a presentation of the system was made to the Council of Deans in a question and answer session and Deans were asked to contact the OPPA Executive Director if any other thoughts came to them after the meeting.

In late November 2004, this working group made its initial recommendations to the OPPA Executive Director at which time a number of refinements were made and represented in this final report.

These assumptions underlie the proposed policy:

• That Temple will support a consistent university-wide course numbering policy that requires significant work and significant change in evolved local practices.
  
• That the General Education program presented to the Board of Trustees will replace the current Core Curriculum categories and requirements, eliminating the need for numbering conventions previously used to distinguish Core Curriculum courses.
  
• That the professional schools will not be required to participate in the proposed renumbering except for graduate courses they offer, but the policy should allow them to be included at some future date.
  

The criteria guiding the details of the proposed policy are these:

• A new policy should achieve maximal consistency and minimal redundancy.
• A new policy should be intuitively understandable to all University constituencies, especially students.
• A new policy should be capable of offering solutions to long-standing problems of institutional data reporting.
• A new policy should be consistent with best practices in universities of size and complexity comparable to Temple.
• A new policy should not restrict the number of optional distinct course numbers available to departments more than the current policy.
• A new policy should be defined precisely enough to ensure longevity.
• A new policy should be both capable of implementation in our existing computer systems and capable of easy adaptation to potential replacement systems.

A survey of national practices supported the conclusion that a true 4-digit numbering policy best fits the criteria given above. Such a policy can be implemented in Temple's existing computer system, and can be conveniently transported to a future system allowing for 5-digit numbers. Although many universities were researched, the proposed numbering system is based with some modifications upon the course renumbering policy of the University of Minnesota, an institution of greater size, at least equal organizational complexity, and at least equal variety of course offerings. The successful application of the UM policy to their large course inventory provides assurance of feasibility and offers a readily available model for collegial and departmental application at Temple. The proposed policy has been empirically tested against a sample of Temple's departmental course inventories, and no insoluble, or even difficult problems of application have been found. We conclude that there are no systemic obstacles to implementation of the proposed policy.

We propose that the renumbered course inventory and schedules be made available for student registration in mid-March 2007 for courses offered in the Summer 2007 and Fall 2007 semesters. Registration of continuing students into both Summer and Fall semesters traditionally begins in mid-March, and is followed in June, July, and August by registration of incoming students into Fall semester courses. To achieve implementation by March 2007, all re-coding of the Course Inventory must be completed by September 2006, so that the Summer and Fall 2007 schedules can be created in October and November 2006 using the renumbered courses. The timeline displays the schedule of tasks that must be completed by all the impacted units of the University and its constituencies before this proposed date. Most important is the lead time for notification to students, advisors, articulation institutions, and to make both paper and on-line documents current with the new policy.