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Undergraduate BA, Certificate, and Minor Programs

Facilitating Public Health DeCal Courses

So, you want to create a DeCal course and offer it through Berkeley Public Health? Great! As a facilitator of a DeCal course, you will assume a lot of the responsibilities and will need to create a positive experience for all of the participants in your course. Getting a DeCal approved through Public Health requires several steps which must be completed accurately and on time.

We strongly encourage you to stay in close communication with your faculty sponsor, fellow facilitators, and your undergraduate major advisors through this process, and to seek help if needed.

Whether you are hoping to facilitate the same course again or create a brand new course, the following information is here for you as a resource and will provide you the best chance of having your course approved.

Important Deadlines

  • BPH DeCal Proposal Submission Deadline for Fall courses: April (exact date will be posted in March)
  • BPH DeCal Proposal Submission Deadline for Spring courses: October (exact date will be posted in September)

Our departmental deadline is earlier than the final COCI deadline (usually in July and November) to give our department time to review, suggest edits and approve your proposed DeCal course. Student facilitators will be responsible for submitting the department-approved course proposal to COCI by the deadline.

Student Facilitator Requirements

Any student interested in facilitating a DeCal course for Berkeley Public Health must review and follow these requirements:

  1. Student facilitators may only facilitate one (1) student-facilitated course per semester.
  2. The lead student facilitator must be a declared undergraduate Public Health major or Global Public Health minor (with at least 4 completed minor courses).
  3. There cannot be more than three (3) total student facilitators for each BPH student-facilitated course.
  4. Student facilitators must be registered students at the time the course is taught.
  5. All first-time student facilitators must have completed or are enrolled in and will complete a UCFTR training prior to the semester in which they are facilitating a DeCal course. Note: The UCFTR training date(s) for each student facilitator must be included in the COCI Course Proposal Form at time of submission.
  6. Student facilitators cannot enroll in their own BPH DeCal course. Instructors of Record can approve the student facilitators to receive PH 199 units for their work on this DeCal course and the instructors will provide a grade for the PH 199 units.
  7. The lead student facilitator will be “hired” to facilitate the DeCal. This involves completing additional paperwork, but does not come with pay.

Instructor of Record Requirements

Any BPH faculty member interested in sponsoring a DeCal course for Berkeley Public Health must review and follow these requirements:

  1. Instructor of Record is a current BPH faculty member with an active teaching title (i.e. will be able to submit grades for the course).
  2. Instructor of Record may only sponsor one (1) student-facilitated course per semester.
  3. Instructor of Record must provide a letter of sponsorship for the DeCal.
  4. Instructor of Record should be available to meet with student facilitators to discuss the course syllabus, assignments, student issues, and anything else related to the DeCal.

DeCal Course Requirements

Here are some additional DeCal course requirements to keep in mind as you plan and prepare for your course.

  1. Purpose: BPH DeCals must have an academic purpose. The course must be taught from a public health perspective, and be of significant relevance to the major.
  2. Course Approval: Each BPH Student-Facilitated DeCal Course Proposal is valid for only one (1) semester. Even if a student facilitator has taught the course multiple times, it will still need to undergo the same approval process every semester.
  3. Unit Requirement: BPH DeCals should bear between 1–2 units each. No DeCal should have more than 2 units. 1 unit equals 3 hours of work per week, or at least 45 hours over the course of a 15-week semester.
  4. Grading Option: All DeCal courses are offered as a Pass/No Pass grading option only. Students will not be able to receive a letter grade for any BPH DeCal course. While the DeCal might show variable units in the class schedule, students should only enroll in the exact number of units listed in the course description.
  5. Enrollment: Student facilitators and instructors of record must adhere to all campus enrollment guidelines and deadlines. Grades are due in CalCentral five (5) calendar days after the final exam period ends.
  6. Course date and time: When planning your preferred course date and time, all DeCals must be offered after 6:00 PM due to limited classroom space on campus during the day.
  7. Note: Student facilitators and the Instructor of Record will not sign the COCI proposal paperwork before submission to the BPH submission form. We will send an email through DocuSign with your approved proposal to solicit all signatures at once.

Required Documents for the DeCal Course Proposal

A course proposal must be completed each semester, and approved by the sponsoring department, for every student-facilitated course (PH 198) offered for academic credit. The following must be submitted for review by the Public Health Undergraduate Advisors, and will eventually be submitted to the Academic Senate for full approval:

  1. COCI Course Proposal Form for Student-Facilitated Courses: This is a formal proposal to the Committee on Courses of Instruction (COCI) for DeCal approval. The form can also be downloaded from the Academic Senate website, under the Required Documents section. This form also includes the Unit Value Worksheet, which will require you to calculate the number of units for the course based on in-class time, assignments, projects and exams. When completing the Unit Value Worksheet ensure that the minimum total work hours are equivalent to the unit value of the course (e.g. 1 unit equals at least 45 hours of work, 2 units equals at least 90 hours of work). Also ensure that any requirements outlined on the Unit Value Worksheet are explained fully in the course syllabus. Note: Do not sign this document until after it is approved by BPH.
    1. Please list the UCFTR training date for each individual student facilitator for Section #6.
    2. Please list Lauren Magsanay and Patricia Cruz for Section #7.
  2. Faculty Sponsor Letter of Support: This letter must be updated for the current semester in which you plan to offer the DeCal by your faculty sponsor or Instructor of Record. This letter is required for all student-facilitated course proposals and should be written on departmental letterhead and signed by the instructor. It should also address the five questions explaining the role and relationship the instructor has with the course.
  3. DeCal Course Syllabus: One of the most important parts of the proposal is a thorough and complete syllabus. The syllabus should be reviewed by all members of your DeCal and should match your Unit Value Worksheet. Some helpful tools for crafting your fully developed syllabus can be found under Additional Resources below and at the website for Undergraduate Course Facilitator Training & Resources. A fully-developed syllabus should include:
    1. An outline of course content
    2. A reading list (include course texts, readers, links to articles or videos, etc.)
    3. A statement of frequency of class meetings
    4. A clear description of all assignments and requirements for passing the class (usually would need 70% to pass)
    5. Key learning outcomes
    6. Method(s) of instruction
    7. Method(s) of evaluation of student performance
    8. Be sure that any requirements outlined in the Unit Value Worksheet are fully explained in the syllabus. The syllabus and unit value worksheet must match.
  4. Note: Facilitators should submit a combined file of the COCI Proposal Form (including the Unit Value Worksheet), Faculty Sponsor Letter and Course Syllabus, which will eventually be used to sign and submit to COCI.

DeCal Course Proposal Submission to Undergraduate Advising for Approval

Review all steps of our process before submitting your proposal.

  • Step 1: PH academic advisors will send information to all PH majors about the DeCal proposal deadline, submission information, and required proposal documents.
  • Step 2: Gather your proposal materials and make sure you have every required piece of information in order to submit the proposal
    • Work on your course syllabus (update former syllabus if teaching the course again, keeping in mind changing holidays or changes to deadlines)
  • Step 3: Submit all DeCal proposal documents to the Google form by the BPH deadline.
    • Typically submissions are due in mid-October for Spring courses, and mid-April for Fall courses.
  • Step 4: PH academic advisors will review DeCal documents and provide feedback, if necessary, before the packets are ready for final signatures from all parties involved. If your DeCal requires updates to the submitted documents, there will be a deadline given to complete the required updates. Student facilitators must make the necessary updates before the DeCal proposal is approved and resubmit the documents by the requested deadline.
  • Step 5: PH academic advisors will send the DeCal proposal to all parties that must sign the final proposal through DocuSign. This will include the student facilitators, Instructor of Record, and Assistant Dean for Students for PH.
    • Please be timely with the signatures so that the final proposal can be submitted to COCI by their final deadline.
  • Step 6: Once all signatures are received, the PH academic advisors will send the final proposal back to the student facilitators and Instructor of Record for them to submit to the COCI portal by the final deadline.

Hiring Lead Student Facilitator of Each DeCal Course

Once the DeCal is approved by BPH and your proposal is submitted to COCI, the BPH team will send only the lead student facilitator and the Instructor of Record the non-employee hiring agreement to complete via DocuSign. This will happen a few weeks prior to the start of your DeCal course. Pay attention to your email. This is a requirement of COCI.

Academic Credit for Facilitating a DeCal Course

If a student facilitator would like to receive academic credit for their work facilitating a PH DeCal course, they must indicate it in the Google form for BPH, and must solicit the approval of the Instructor of Record before submission. This is important because the Instructor of Record will need to submit a grade for the student facilitator at the end of the semester. The student facilitators receive PH 199 units for their facilitation and should not enroll in the PH 198 DeCal course as a student. When the DeCal course is approved by COCI, the PH academic advisors will share the 5-digit course number for the PH 199 units, and facilitators can then enroll in those facilitation units.

For DeCals that Require an Application

(Skip this section if your course does not require an application.)

Why require an application to enroll in your PH DeCal course? You might not be able to accommodate a large class size or because the students need to meet certain requirements to be successful in the course. Perhaps your DeCal course requires some type of out of class participation that has limited space. Or maybe there are limited resources per student facilitator and you are not able to accommodate adding additional students. Whatever the case may be, this is something that should be discussed among the student facilitators and faculty sponsor and finalized before the course proposal is submitted to BPH.

In the BPH Student-Facilitated DeCal Course Proposal Form (BPH Google form), the student facilitators must indicate whether or not there is an application required for the DeCal and must provide the application link (or application process), application deadline and contact information so that students can reach out to the facilitators if they have questions about the application. The application deadline should also follow the Office of the Registrar’s course enrollment add/drop deadlines. After the second week of instruction, students will be charged a fee (between $5–10) to drop each course, and after the third week of instruction, students will be charged a fee (between $5–10) to add each additional course. The final add/drop deadline is in the fourth week of instruction and no changes can be made after that unless a student uses a late change of schedule request. All of this is important to consider when including an application for your DeCal course. This means that facilitators must review, select and enroll students in their courses before the deadlines, or inform their students that a fee might be added depending on when the student roster is submitted to the course scheduler for enrollment. Remember, all add/drop course enrollment deadlines are final.

It’s important to know that your course requires an application while we review the proposal, so we can prepare on the backend to close your course enrollments once your course is officially approved by COCI. When we receive confirmation that your DeCal was approved by COCI then we can add all of our PH courses to the website and share with students. But DeCals that require applications would need to close their enrollments so that the applications can be processed and the students selected.

Something else to consider is that the course scheduler for BPH must hand enroll DeCal students, which can take time. Ideally, students are selected for the course prior to the course add deadline (third week of instruction) to avoid any fees the student may incur. The list of approved students for your DeCal course must include (in separate columns): first name, last name, and SID. We cannot guarantee that your students will be enrolled by the add/drop deadlines because this process can take time. Your application deadline should be set accordingly.

Student facilitators hoping to have an application for their course should plan to meet with the PH academic advisors prior to their proposal submission to discuss the entire process.

For specific questions or concerns regarding DeCal applications, please email both sphug@berkeley.edu and sphcourses@berkeley.edu.

General DeCal Proposal Tips and Tricks

  1. List all student facilitator names with their UCFTR training dates on the proposal form in the appropriate section. COCI needs to confirm that each facilitator has completed at least one UCFTR training.
  2. The unit value sheet and syllabus should complement each other. Make sure all of your readings, assignments, exams, and activities are documented in both the unit value sheet and syllabus.
  3. Provide your reading lists/materials and/or links to readings in your syllabus for submission. COCI wants to see what you’re requiring your students to engage with and read.
  4. Do not use DocuSign or Adobe to sign the COCI proposal form. We will send the final approved forms to all parties (IOR, student facilitators, Assistant Dean for Students) to sign through DocuSign.*
  5. Start your marketing materials early. Once we send the student facilitators the course information (i.e. the class day, time and location), you can just update this and start sharing with students. We will even include your marketing materials in the PH newsletter. Just let us know!

Additional Resources

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