V.18 Directed and Independent Study
Section Summary: The L&S Curriculum Committee is the key curricular committee for the college, and in that role, develops and interprets policy in curricular areas important to the faculty. This section was substantially revised following an extensive review and report on the use of Directed Study (Recommendations Regarding Appropriate Use of Directed Study ). In it, we provide the following:
Inquiries: curriculum@ls.wisc.edu Also of interest:
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In recent years, several questions have come up regarding the use of Directed Study course numbers (usually X98 and X99). Directed Study experiences are considered high-value research opportunities for students, and the campus observes the rate of participation in these experiences as part of our efforts to ensure that students obtain a rich and varied "Wisconsin Experience." To facilitate this effort, the L&S Curriculum Committee has developed a series of guidelines to support departments' ability to offer these important instructional opportunities.
Procedures and Use of Directed Study Courses
As noted in the Undergraduate Catalog, several regulations apply to how students may use Directed Study. These regulations apply to three general categories:
- Procedure: Prior to registration and before the end of the second week of classes, students are responsible for making all arrangements with the faculty member who agrees to direct their work. The student and faculty member should prepare a study plan, determine the time and place for regular meetings, the number of credits to be earned, and how to enroll in the course. The instructor is responsible for evaluating student performance and assigning a grade appropriate to the work completed. Requests to add a Directed Study course after the normal enrollment period should be referred to the Assistant Dean for Policy; since these courses are always offered at the discretion of the supervising faculty member, requests to add Directed Study after the add/drop deadlines are considered to be faculty recommendations to grant this exception.
- Limitations on how Directed Study credits may be used toward completion of graduation and other requirements: Directed Study courses do not satisfy basic or breadth requirements; they count toward the maximum number of credits that may be counted in the major if taken in the major department; they may be subject to restrictions related to the number of Directed Study credits that can be earned in the major. Undergraduate students cannot take or earn degree credit for graduate-level coursed designated as Directed Study, Independent Reading, Independent Study, or Individual Enrollment.
- Allowances: Directed Study courses may generally be repeated for credit if course content is not duplicated. Directed Study courses taken in non-L&S departments may be counted as Liberal Arts and Science (C) courses provided that they are offered at the 300-or-above level.
When the L&S Curriculum Committee surveyed faculty members who had recently taught Directed Study courses, many respondents asked for more guidance about best practices for these courses. Aware that practices will differ widely both between and within divisions, the Committee was reluctant to issue regulations beyond the criteria described above; however, the committee encourages the faculty within departments and programs to discuss their collective expectations for Directed Study courses taught within their Timetable subject listings. These discussions should help to ensure consistency with respect to important features of Directed Study (e.g., nature of projects, per-credit workload, sharing of model “learning contracts”), and may help the faculty work with students to design projects appropriate to a given discipline.
To help the faculty match students and projects to appropriate courses and levels of instruction, a range of Directed Study numbers are available. If these courses do not already exist in the Timetable subject listing, they may be created using the standard course proposal process (see Chapter I.3, section “Course Proposals”).
- 198 or 199 : these courses have a credit range of 1 to 3 credits, are considered elementary level, and are intended for freshmen and sophomores. In exceptional cases, juniors and seniors may be admitted if the nature of the course allows. These courses, if offered by departments outside L&S, do not count toward students’ Liberal Arts and Science requirement under the BABS07 curriculum.
- 298 or 299 : these courses have a credit range of 1 to 3 credits and are considered intermediate level. They may include supervised reading in foreign languages and in subjects related to students' major fields. These courses, if offered by departments outside L&S, do not count toward students’ Liberal Arts and Science requirement under the BABS07 curriculum.
- 398/99, 498/99, 598/99, 698/99 : These courses have a credit range of 1 to 6 credits, are considered advanced level, and are offered primarily for juniors and seniors. In unusual cases, freshmen and sophomores with exceptional preparation and motivation may be admitted. At this level, it is a prerequisite to have had previous or concurrent exposure to the subject on an intermediate level. Programs may, at their discretion, restrict the use of certain numbers to their own majors. Finally, these courses, if offered by departments outside L&S, do count toward students’ Liberal Arts and Science requirement under the BABS07 curriculum.
Do not use Directed Study courses for group instruction. By definition, “Directed Study” experiences assume an individually mentored or directed learning experience. Such experiences are qualitatively different from group instruction, and the student’s transcript reflects this difference. Furthermore, per L&S policy, students are allowed to pursue, and count for degree credit, advanced-level Directed Study experiences regardless of the college in which they are offered: this policy reflects the belief that experiences in which a student is engaged in one-on-one interactions with a member of the faculty are inherently of value to liberal education. The substitution of a group instruction experience is contrary to the spirit of Directed Study.
This perspective is expressed in the L&S Student Academic Affairs Policy Book:
Every professor determines the content of his or her Directed Study courses. Nonetheless, there is no suggestion in the course descriptions that indicates that it would ever be appropriate for a professor to allow a student to register for Directed Study when the student was actually taking a course. The University's intention generally is that registration and the transcript should accurately reflect what actually occurred. (See p. 230 ff of http://www.lssaa.wisc.edu/intranet/pubs/Policy%20Book%202008-09.pdf .)
Thus, when a Directed Study course is used, it should be taught as Directed Study. These course numbers are not intended to provide a regular mechanism for teaching variable topics in a group instruction format. Topics courses (at various levels) can and should be proposed and approved via the usual course proposal process, described in Chapter I.3 of this Handbook.
Use of Directed Study for Internship and/or Service-Learning Experiences
Some departments and faculty use Directed Study as a vehicle for linking academic work – when pursued in direct consultation with an instructor – to student internships or service learning experiences. Other departments have created internship and/or service learning courses to capture this sort of “high impact” learning experience, as a regular recurring course or as a variable “topics” course. (Of course, departments may set enrollment limitations on such courses - for example, restricted to declared majors, or to students who have completed appropriate coursework - and they may establish criteria for the types of learning experiences the courses provide.) Either approach is acceptable, and is left to the discretion of the department and faculty, provided that, as with any Directed Study course, the number of credits, projects undertaken, and procedure for and evaluation of the students’ work are the responsibility of the department and/or faculty member rather than the organization with which the student is working.
It is up to individual academic departments to determine who may oversee Directed Study courses within their Timetable subject listings. Some departments allow only faculty to supervise independent study; some allow long-term and short-term instructional academic staff and/or emeritus faculty/staff to take on this role. In all cases, Directed Study is taken on as a volunteer activity or as part of the overall teaching load; there is no expectation of increased remuneration for such activity.
Once the department has determined to allow a particular individual to supervise a Directed Study experience, the department should ensure that the individual has a valid instructor ID and that the student registers for the course using that instructor's ID. Doing so not only ensures that the student record accurately reflects with whom she or he studied, but also that the university has an accurate record of instructional activity and instructors at work within the department and college. It is the department's responsibility to maintain accurate lists of who is allowed to teach Directed Study; at a minimum, departments should remove inactive short term instructors from the lists of instructors teaching each semester.
In the event that an instructor overseeing an independent study is not a member of (or payrolled through) the department in which the student hopes to register, his or her ID may simply be entered into the list of instructors via usual Timetable procedures (i.e., adding a section using that instructor's ID, through which the student would register). New instructors must be entered into the Integrated Appointment Data System (IADS) before their names can be added to the course in the ISIS database. Departments should work with department and college-level human resource staff to initiate the process of adding instructors into IADS. If the individual is not on the payroll (as may be the case with emeritus faculty or staff), this may mean establishing a formal relationship with that person as a volunteer (see Section III.11, Policy on Use of Volunteers) or via a short-term zero-dollar or honorary appointment.
Assignment of Instructional Responsibility for Directed Study
In recent years, a variety of “interest groups” have developed “action plans” that advise students that they may pursue internships or service opportunities when they participate in the groups’ political, social awareness, or other activities. These groups vary in size and scope: some resemble political action groups; they may or may not be related to university or academic activities; they may be connected to local, state-wide, or national organizations; and, finally, their goals may not be easily discerned by outsiders (instructors or students). All seek to harness students’ personal engagement on particular topics by creating opportunities for them to take action.
The Curriculum Committee and L&S hold no particular opinion regarding these activities, per se; however, we note that some of these entities encourage students to earn college credit for their work by persuading members of the faculty to supervise Directed Study experiences. Some of these groups offer to assist the faculty in designing internship projects, overseeing student performance, and even recommending grades. Each of these activities is the responsibility of the faculty member overseeing the student’s learning experience, and it is the responsibility of the faculty to ensure that credit awarded is linked to projects appropriate to a UW-Madison learning experience. Just as participation in any Directed Study is at the discretion of the faculty member, any instructor who is approached with a request to participate in one of these arrangements may decline the request; or, if she or he agrees to participate, the instructor should establish the criteria for student projects (which should, of course, emphasize the learning experience and not merely the act of volunteering), evaluation, and performance. Students who participate in these activities should be aware that these instructional responsibilities will not be delegated to others.
Reviewed and recommended for inclusion in the L&S Handbook by
L&S Curriculum Committee, February 23, 2009
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