Streamline Curriculum, Catalog, and Syllabus Management in Higher Ed

Managing curriculum, catalog, and syllabus processes in higher education is essential to supporting efficient academic operations and enhancing the student experience. For Provosts, Registrars, and academic administrators, adopting a digital solution like Kuali Academic Operations offers a streamlined approach to handling curriculum updates, accurate catalog production, and organized syllabus management—all crucial to institutional success.

We’ve identified four core challenges in curriculum management. If not addressed with robust software, these challenges can lead to inefficiencies, high administrative costs, and even negative impacts on students. Here’s a closer look at these challenges and how Kuali Academic Operations—including curriculum management, catalog management, and syllabus management tools—can help solve them.

Curriculum Committee Meetings: Reduce Approval Time with Automated Curriculum Management

Reviewing, collaborating, and approving curriculum changes often require numerous meetings, and managing hundreds of programs and courses across an institution can quickly add up to countless hours. Deans, chairs, and provosts at Murray State University in Kentucky, for instance, spent around 200 hours each cycle on approval meetings, at a cost of nearly $7,000.

This meeting time became even more problematic during the pandemic, as remote work introduced “Zoom fatigue” and made real-time collaboration more challenging.

Solution: Automate Curriculum Management Workflows

With Kuali Academic Operations’ curriculum management features, colleges and universities can design approval workflows that decrease—or even eliminate—the need for face-to-face meetings. Asynchronous reporting, editing, and commenting allow administrators to manage curriculum approvals on their own schedules, reducing administrative burdens.

At Murray State University, Kuali Curriculum Management helped administrators eliminate approval meetings entirely. Collaborative agendas and user dashboards allowed them to monitor proposal progress, check the status, and ensure they were working on the most up-to-date version—all without the need for in-person check-ins.

“I never felt the lack of face-to-face meetings prevented us from moving forward with anything,” said Ashley Rogers, Assistant Registrar for Curriculum Management at Murray State University.

Manual Data Entry: Integrate Curriculum and Catalog Management for Error-Free Data

Curriculum updates need to flow across multiple systems, from the student information system to the academic catalog. Without the right tools, this can mean hours of manual data entry, a process that’s both time-intensive and prone to error.

Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) experienced this firsthand. In 2016, as SNHU began developing curricula in languages other than English, they quickly realized how manual data entry was slowing down their expansion. With paper-based forms and manual updates, they were spending an average of 18 days per year entering curriculum changes.

Solution: Reduce Data Entry by Integrating Curriculum and Catalog Software

With Kuali Academic Operations, paper forms and manual data entry are a thing of the past. Changes made within the curriculum management tool flow directly into catalog management—no re-entry needed. This integration not only saves time but also ensures consistency across systems.

SNHU streamlined data entry by adopting Kuali Curriculum Management, which enables one-click updates to Kuali Catalog Management. They’ve even automated addenda population, which saves additional time. The result? A streamlined process that allowed SNHU to expand its non-English curriculum offerings.

“We wouldn’t have the resources to do this kind of project if we were managing everything manually,” said Mike O’Connor, System Analytics Director at SNHU.

Maintaining Versions and Records: Simplify Record-Keeping with Automated Version Control

Curriculum proposals often undergo multiple rounds of review, and ensuring that everyone is working from the latest version is crucial. Additionally, capturing comments and revisions in an organized way for reporting can be challenging when relying on email chains or paper forms.

The University of Victoria in Canada faced similar challenges with their approval process. Proposals were circulated through email and paper forms, which made it difficult to confirm the current version and track revisions.

Solution: Use Curriculum Management Software to Maintain Historical Records

A digital solution like Kuali Curriculum Management automates version control, keeping everyone aligned with the most current proposal. Kuali’s syllabus management tool similarly supports faculty with automated updates and historical records, making both day-to-day work and reporting easier.

Using Kuali’s curriculum tools, University of Victoria admins can track all changes with time-stamped edits, comments, and approvals. Kuali’s user dashboard and workflow visibility make it easy to know where proposals are in the approval journey.

“The beauty of Kuali is that we’re always looking at the right proposal. There’s no chance that somebody is looking at an outdated source,” said James Wigginton, Curriculum and Calendar Manager at the University of Victoria.

Curriculum Relationship Management: Identify and Manage Course Dependencies

Your institution’s curriculum is a complex web of interconnected courses and programs. A single change in one course—such as learning outcomes or prerequisites—can affect many others, often in unexpected ways. Without structured data, these “hidden dependencies” are hard to track, making curriculum management even more challenging.

Leeward Community College in Oʻahu, Hawaii faced these difficulties in their homegrown curriculum management system. Paper-based proposals made it nearly impossible to identify dependencies among courses, which could impact student retention or time-to-degree.

Solution: Deliver Structured Data with Curriculum Management

Kuali Curriculum Management provides structured data capabilities, enabling curriculum administrators to maintain these connections and receive alerts when changes impact other courses or programs. Leeward Community College now uses Kuali to streamline curriculum relationship management and eliminate hidden dependencies.

Through Kuali’s Dependency and Prerequisite Analysis feature, the college can see how modifications to one course ripple through other areas, allowing proactive adjustments. The curriculum committee has even been able to identify and remove hidden prerequisites that weren’t previously documented.

Key Takeaways: Solving Common Curriculum Management Problems with Kuali Academic Operations

Consider adopting Kuali Academic Operations to start streamlining curriculum, catalog, and syllabus management across your institution. This comprehensive suite simplifies everything from workflow automation to dependency tracking, bringing a host of benefits:

• Integrated Workflow Automation: Save time across curriculum, catalog, and syllabus management with efficient workflows.
• Enhanced Data Accuracy: Eliminate redundant data entry by integrating catalog updates automatically.
• Version Control and Compliance: Ensure accurate, up-to-date records for easy reporting and accreditation.
• Dependency Tracking: Gain visibility into curriculum dependencies to prevent issues that affect student outcomes.

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Ready to see how Kuali Academic Operations can streamline your institution’s curriculum processes? Schedule a Demo

Kuali is software for the future of higher education.

Recognized as a leader in higher education software, Kuali has been creating innovative solutions exclusively for higher ed for more than 20 years. Kuali delivers affordable, modular cloud solutions that enhance institutions’ teaching and research missions. The Kuali suite includes Kuali Research for research administration, Kuali Academic Operations to manage curriculum catalogs and syllabus creation, Kuali Build for no-code online forms and workflow automation, Kuali Financials for financial management, and Kuali Ready for robust business continuity planning. Trusted by hundreds of institutions, Kuali supports higher education's drive toward efficiency, compliance, and innovation.

For more information, visit www.kuali.co.

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