Courses

The Dartmouth Course Approval Routing System (DCARS) is an online tool used to both propose new and update existing courses according to Dartmouth's governance structure. See the DCARS Course Approval Flow for reference. If your course has an international travel component, the Committee on Off-Campus Activities (COCA) must first approve the travel before DCARS can review the proposed course.

Users can follow course proposals through the process and, upon final approval, DCARS adds the new information directly into Banner, which then populates the Course Timetable and Course Catalog (ORC). New course information is also listed in a separate publication, the ORC New Course Supplement. Any curricular changes initiated by departments follow the guidelines in this document. 

The college’s catalog is online and is contained in Organization, Regulations and Courses (ORC). The ORC is published each September, and contains a full description of the curriculum at Dartmouth, requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and other regulations relating to courses of instruction. The catalog is updated before the beginning of each academic year, and a supplement is published each year containing any courses approved after publication of the ORC.

Your department is the best place to find information about previous versions of the course you will be teaching, as well as the courses that students take before or after your course if it is part of a sequence.

Additionally, Canvas sites are archived for all courses. With permission from the previous instructor or the department's chair, Educational Technologies can grant access to a Canvas site from a previous term. Contact Educational Technologies.