Curriculum development

Academic planning cycle

2025-2026 Academic Planning Cycle
Process and Instructions

The academic planning process is designed to initiate any of the following actions:

• establish a degree, minor, concentration or certificate program, or a department, division, school or college
• rename a degree, minor, concentration or certificate program, or a department, division, school or college
• disestablish a degree, minor, concentration or certificate program, or a department, division, school or college
• move a degree, minor, concentration or certificate

Step 01: Units may submit Academic Plan proposals for the 2025-2026 plan in Kuali Curriculum Management starting February 5, 2024.

• Go to https://asu.kuali.co/cm/ to submit academic plan requests.
• Contact curriculumplanning@asu.edu with any questions.
• Access to Kuali can be requested via this form.

Internal college or school review — Submissions that pass the college internal review must be moved to the next Kuali Curriculum Management approval level, AP Office of the University Provost Review, by the dean or the dean's designee by Friday May 10, 2024.

Assessment Plans — You will be notified if your program is selected to move forward to the ABOR assessment plan stage. ABOR assessment plans are due to the University Office of Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness no later than July 31st. Final drafts are due August 30, 2024. A new template for the ABOR assessment plan process will be available for the 2025-2026 academic plan cycle. The new template in the UOEEE assessment portal will allow units more time to develop full assessment plans in advance of the implementation process. See below for more details. 

Please note: An assessment plan is required in advance of ASU governance review for any new degree, concentration or certificate. Assessment plans are not needed for minors. New degrees require an initial assessment plan summary created for ABOR review and approval.

Step 02: Provost Gonzales will review all submissions and will pass forward any proposals that require Arizona Board of Regents approval. Units should expect this process to take approximately six months.

Step 03: Outcomes will be communicated by email to the academic deans. Approvals given during this process should be considered approval to plan for future implementation.

Step 04: Once approved, academic plan items must be submitted as proposals to pass through the following steps prior to implementation, as outlined on the Approval Process Matrix:

1. Development of full implementation proposal and submission in Kuali (CM for program establishments, Build for all other actions).
2. University Graduate Council (graduate programs only) or Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (undergraduate programs only) review and approval
3. University Senate and CAPC review
4. Provost's final approval

Approved actions must be implemented within three years. The effective date will be determined by the date of final approval following university governance.

Programs or changes may not be implemented or advertised until the Provost’s Office or Graduate College notifies the academic unit of final approval.

ABOR Assessment Plans

The assessment plan produced for programs requiring ABOR review and approval will now be a summary of the full plan. The summary will be required in advance of ABOR review of the proposed academic plan. The full UOEEE assessment plan is due at the time the program is proposed for implementation and university governance review/approval. The following items will be required for the ABOR assessment plan:

• program learning outcomes
• concepts
• competencies
• assessment process and measures summary

The assessment process and measures summary should include:

• Student Artifacts: The student artifact used for data collection and what class it is coming from
• Tool or Instrument: The type of tool or instruments being used (e.g., a rubric, survey, exam).
• Process: The steps describing how the assessment will take place.
• Continuous Improvement: A single statement that explains the data will be used for continuous improvement.

The assessment process and measures can be somewhat general. There’s no need to identify course numbers or subjects as you may not have those at this time, and performance criteria and rubric dimensions or scales are not required at this time.

You will submit the ABOR assessment plan in the UOEEE portal, where you may receive feedback or questions on the summary.

Note: Graduate degrees require one of the learning outcomes to be related to the culminating experience (thesis, dissertation, applied project, etc.), and the program’s core also needs representation in the outcomes. For example, the core and/or culminating experience should be used as student artifacts, although they may be referred to as course areas or general proposed titles. (Ex. “the statistics core course” or “Statistics for Research Administrators course.”