Undergraduate Catalog Editing Process
Carnegie Mellon's Undergraduate Catalog, which is published in August each year, contains course descriptions and requirements for all undergraduate programs of study, including degree programs and additional majors and minors. The catalog also includes information related to academic policies and regulations, as well as student services, applicable to undergraduate students.
Partnership and collaboration among the following are necessary in producing a timely and accurate catalog:
- Academic departments are responsible for updating and ensuring accuracy of their curriculum lists and related departmental information. Departments update courses in S3 and other information directly in the catalog.
- The University Registrar's Office handles the migration of course information (course numbers, descriptions, prerequisites, etc.) from the S3 into the Courseleaf database; the registrar's office also updates content related to academic regulations and policies, degrees offered, and minors.
- Enrollment Services Communications manages the catalog production and publication process, and ensures consistency in language, tone and grammar, as well as appropriate formatting.
Questions? Email catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.
Editing Tips & Reminders
Review Courses in S3
Review your courses in S3 and set the catalog flag appropriately (to Catalog = Yes or Catalog = No). The catalog flag appears on the "Course Summary" page in S3 and shows whether a course is still actively taught and, therefore, will be displayed in the catalog. From the "Find a Course" screen in S3, you can view a list of all courses in your department based on catalog flag.
- The course outload from S3 to the catalog pulls course information based on the most recent semester for a course, even if it was in the past (unless the catalog flag is set to No).
- The course outload will always pull the latest semester's data for a course, so if a course has sections in fall 2022 and spring 2023, it will pull the spring 2023 information.
- If the information will change for a semester, you must create a new section for the course in S3. Use "TBA" as the Day, Building and Room on the meeting rows to save the course. This will populate a row on the course summary screen allowing you to make updates to the catalog flag and course description.
- Courses that do not have semester data later than Spring 2010 have been automatically set to Catalog = No, because it is assumed they are no longer being offered. If you have a course returning from a long hiatus, please email catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.
Course Descriptions, Prerequisites, Etc.
Edits to course descriptions, titles, prerequisites, corequisites, etc. should be made in S3. A course outload from S3 is run periodically to populate the catalog, so if you need to see a change reflected earlier, email catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.
- Cross-listing, prerequisite/corequisite, and website information should not be entered into the description; instead, a note such as "Some sections for Qatar campus only" or "Permission of the instructor is required to register" may be added, as applicable.
- Please do not enter any HTML tags into your descriptions. Also refrain from line breaks, as they will not be preserved.
Other Tips
- If you need to add a new page tab, delete a tab, or rearrange your page tabs, email catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.
- If you are referencing a course number, remember to not type it in. Use the Insert Database Field or Insert Formatted Table tool to pull the course from the database. This ensures that all data is accurate.
- Use the Accuracy Report button and look for red boxes on the page to find and fix bad course numbers or incorrect course units.
- Please do not use bold, italic or underline formatting on top of the standard heading styles.
- If you are linking to another page in the catalog, use a relative URL (/schools-colleges/collegeoffinearts/schoolofarchitecture/) instead of an absolute URL (http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/schools-colleges/collegeoffinearts/schoolofarchitecture/courses/).
Copying/Pasting from Word
Remember to use the Paste from Word tool if you are copying and pasting content from Microsoft Word or other content editor. Non-ASCII characters such as "curly" quotation marks will not be preserved and will display incorrectly.
Degrees & Minors
Remember to review the Degrees Offered list and the Minors list, and send any edits to catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.Shared Content
If you are editing content on a shared content page, which is plugged into other pages, and you are not the owner of the page where it is plugged in, you will need to edit it at the /shared URL. If you are unsure for which shared pages you are listed as an owner, email catalog@andrew.cmu.edu.