Curriculum Operations Plan

About this template

Fixing the shape of a term before enrollment opens

One Word sheet that locks down how many weeks a course runs, how many sessions that comes to, and on what terms a student completes it. The label above the title reads Curriculum operations plan, and the gray line under the title reads “Complete it in order, from Course outline and completion rules through Completion and feedback.” The page runs label, title, gray lead, a four-cell information table, three numbered sections, a Key metrics table, and a Confirmation and approval row.

Filling order

1. Overwrite the four information cells. They ship as Term “2026 academic year, 1st semester”, Course “Data analysis basics”, Operating dept. “Lifelong Learning Center, Program Operations Team”, and Plan No. CUR-2026-018. A plan number that carries the year keeps revisions findable.
2. Write 1. Course outline and completion rules first. The calendar and the completion terms drive everything below them.
3. 2. Week-by-week plan is the body of the document, and it can only be written once section 1 is fixed.
4. 3. Assessment and instructors comes last, because the assessment weeks have to sit inside the calendar you just fixed.
5. Fill the Key metrics table, then print the Confirmation and approval row – Prepared (program officer), Reviewed (curriculum committee), Approved (director) – empty for signature.

How the three sections read

• Course outline and completion rules. The default line is “15 weeks total · twice a week · 100 min per session”, followed by credits earned and prerequisite courses, then “Cap of 24, and 12 enrolled for the course to run”. The minimum matters more than the cap: it is the number that decides whether the course opens at all, so agree it with the department that pays for the room.
• Week-by-week plan. The shipped split is “W1-W5 concepts, W6-W10 lab work, W11-W15 project”. Fix the mid-term and final assessment weeks before you distribute topics, and leave one week free at the end of term for make-up classes. A plan with no spare week turns every cancellation into a negotiation.
• Assessment and instructors. The weighting ships as “Attendance 20 · assignments 30 · assessment 50”, beside an assignment table for instructors and teaching assistants and a substitute-and-make-up procedure for a canceled class. Settle the weighting and the teaching roster in the same pass; changing one later usually forces the other.

The four metric cells

Key metrics is a two-row, four-column table with values on top and labels below: 15 wks / Run period, 30 sessions / Total sessions, 24 / Class size, 70 / Completion mark. Weeks and sessions are separate numbers on purpose – 15 weeks at two sessions a week is 30 sessions – so changing the weekly frequency changes both cells. Word does no arithmetic, and editing the body will not touch these four. The completion mark of 70 is the number students ask about first, so check that it agrees with the weighting written in section 3 before the plan circulates.

Where these plans go out of sync

• Changing the number of weeks in section 1 and leaving 30 sessions in the metrics table.
• Writing a completion mark that no line in section 3 explains. If 70 is a weighted total, say so in the body.
• Leaving the operating department as the sample text while the plan number is already your own.
• Booking assessment weeks after the topics are distributed, which is how the final ends up in the same week as a project deadline.
• Naming instructors who have not confirmed. Note the booking status next to the name instead.