Units may need to review courses for Gen Ed eligibility for a variety of reasons. The most common are transfer and study abroad courses. This page provides guidelines and criteria for units evaluating courses for Gen Ed which fall outside of the Gen Ed Board review. Please contact gen-ed@illinois.edu with any questions about course eligibility and review, or if you need to discuss a course that falls outside of these three types of special Gen Ed course reviews.

Direct Course Articulations

Courses with direct course articulations (example: “ECON 102”) must always follow the current course attributes listed on the ILLINOIS course for the semester taken. No new/special Gen Ed attributes should be added to direct articulations and the course should not be evaluated for special Gen Ed credit or substituted into a Gen Ed. This ensures that all course equivalents taken through study abroad or transfer coursework follow the approved ILLINOIS course attributes. If the ILLINOIS course has the Gen Ed certification(s) removed, the course taken off-campus directly articulated as the course will no longer carry any Gen Ed attribute.

Indirect Course Articulations

Courses with indirect course articulations (example: “ECON 1–“) may be evaluated for Gen Ed credit only if there is a strong case the course aligns very closely with campus Gen Ed criteria. Most courses taken off campus with indirect articulations will not be approved as Gen Ed, but students will receive credit hours and the course may count towards other requirements. If indirect course articulations are granted Gen Ed approval, it will be for all Illinois students across campus who take the course off-campus. Typically courses taken off-campus with approved articulations are not re-evaluated, so these courses carry the articulations and any associated Gen Ed approvals for a long period of time without review. For this reason it is important units use caution when approving indirect articulations for Gen Ed credit and ensure the course is consistent with Gen Ed criteria where students gain similar learning outcomes as they would taking a campus approved Gen Ed course.

Special Approvals

In some cases a course taken and articulated as an indirect course may be reviewed and provided special Gen Ed approval by the student’s home college/school on a case-by-case basis or semester-by-semester basis rather than approved to be added to the study abroad or transfer database as a Gen Ed. This is typically the case for a topics course or a course that is taught in different formats where the instruction, content, and/or format of the course is not consistent enough to offer a consistent articulation to be added to the transfer or study abroad database. In these cases students may be asked to submit additional materials to the student’s home college/school for review, and if approved the college/school may substitute the course into the approved Gen Ed category for that student or all students within the college/school for that semester. In addition, the college/school may wish to share the special approval with the colleges/schools of other students completing the course that semester. Please note that any special approvals provided to an individual student will not automatically follow them to another college/school or receive the same special approval in the other college in the case of an intercollegiate transfer, dual-degree, or minor.

Limitations

Please note Gen Ed certification on a course does vary semester-to-semester, so it is very important to reference the particular semester to determine if Gen Ed credit should be awarded on a course. Each Gen Ed category has an ‘Effective Term‘ and it may be different for each of the categories on the course (if more than one) and there are some courses that have a lapse in Gen Ed approval. The student’s Degree Audit should automatically reflect Gen Ed credit correctly for any courses taken on campus (only exception is if the Degree Audit is set-up incorrectly where only certain courses pull into the Gen Ed requirements, rather than all Gen Eds). On-campus courses have active dates which correspond with the Gen Ed review approval and the Gen Ed course remaining in active Gen Ed status. Gen Ed Approval History should be used, as well as the Course Explorer for the corresponding term. Special Approvals should never be provided for courses taken on-campus during terms the course was not an active Gen Ed.

Please contact the Gen Ed Office gen-ed@illinois.edu if you have any questions.

Evaluating Courses for Gen Ed Credit

This process is only used for evaluating Transfer, Study Abroad, or Campus Honors Program (CHP) courses for General Education credit. All on-campus courses must be sent through the Gen Ed Certification process.

The course-associated department/unit typically makes a recommendation for a course to be reviewed for Gen Ed, but the college/school makes the final determination if a course should be approved.

Course Materials Required

Courses evaluated for Gen Ed must have a full syllabus that provides enough information about the course to review for Basic Gen Ed Requirements and Category Specific Requirements.

Gen Ed Criteria

Use the criteria for All General Education Courses and the Category Specific Criteria listed on the Gen Ed Course Details & Category Criteria page. Pay specific attention to the bullet points listing the criteria as this is what is used to evaluated courses on-campus, using the Gen Ed feedback forms (you may want to use the feedback form for your review).