Online delivery of Creative Coding III

Requested action

Two changes to one existing course, filed together because each makes the other coherent:

1. Delivery mode. Approval to offer CRCP 3315 in an online delivery mode, scheduled as CRCP 3315-401 with the location field set to Online. The in-person studio section continues to run.
2. Catalog description. Revision of the description to remove the reference to a specific programming language and to name the engineering and AI-mediated development competencies the course now teaches. Title, credit hours, prerequisites, and the course's role in the B.A. and minor are unchanged.

This is a course modification, not a new course proposal. It is filed as one package with parallel requests for CRCP 1310 and CRCP 3305, the other two courses in the programming sequence; see § 9 for why the three should be counted together.

Why the number does not change

SMU's course code already answers this question. The catalog number encodes level, credit hours, and sequence within the department. It carries no information about how a course is delivered.

Because modality is expressed at the section level, an equivalent course delivered online is by construction the same catalog number. Creating a second number would assert that this is a different course — which would then need its own outcomes, its own catalog entry, and its own place in the degree, and would let a student take both for credit.

Why the language leaves the description

The same logic applies one level down. A programming language is to a course what a classroom is: the vehicle for a given offering, not the substance of the course. The learning outcomes of Creative Coding III — design patterns, abstraction and interface design, testing, resource reasoning, collaborative development in existing codebases — are the same in every language, and are assessed the same way. Naming a language in the catalog ties a three-credit degree requirement to a tool choice that should be revisited each term.

It also, at this moment, describes the course inaccurately. AI development agents now produce most of the code a student in this course once wrote by hand. The durable competency is no longer fluency in one language but the engineering judgment that decides whether generated code should exist: the pattern the problem calls for, the interface the code must honor, the test that proves it, the review that refuses what is wrong. The proposed description names that competency. Everything else in the current description is preserved, including its closing sentence verbatim.

The one word changed in the preserved sentence is exams → projects, reflecting the course's project-based assessment; if the committee prefers the original wording, it can stand. The reference language and environment for each offering are announced before registration and stated in the section syllabus, where such choices belong.

Rationale

CRCP 3315 is the third and final course in the programming sequence that anchors the B.A. It is where students move from building systems to engineering software others can use, extend, and repair, and its subject matter — patterns, interfaces, testing, tooling, collaboration in codebases — is not merely screen-native but network-native: the professional practice it teaches is conducted through repositories, pull requests, and reviews whether or not the participants share a room.

• The sequence has to be whole. An online section of CRCP 1310 without online sections of 3305 and 3315 strands the online student after one course. The three requests are filed together so that a student who enters the sequence online can complete it online.
• The work is already distributed. Code review, branching, continuous integration, and open-source contribution are inherently remote practices. The online section teaches them in their native medium.
• Access. A fixed studio block excludes transfer students, students carrying a conflicting major's required sequence, and students in other schools pursuing the minor. An online section reaches them without displacing anyone from the studio section.
• Capacity. Demand for the sequence is bounded by studio seats rather than by faculty capacity to teach it.
• Term flexibility. The course becomes viable in summer and intersession terms, where an in-person studio section is difficult to fill and staff. SMU Intersessions runs a summer online course development program that supports exactly this conversion.
• Currency. The description revision brings the catalog into line with how the course is actually taught and with the professional practice students will enter.

Equivalence of learning outcomes

This is the section reviewers will actually weigh. Every outcome is met in both modes, with the same assessments and the same rubrics. The online section runs as a flipped studio: asynchronous tutorials before class, one required 90-minute synchronous studio each week, and five projects — two four-week, two two-week, and a capstone. Every project may be realized visually, sonically, or interactively.

Critique and the engineering walk

Critique is the one outcome where the online mode is not a straightforward substitution, and the proposal is stronger for saying so rather than waving at it. An art-school committee will go here first.

• Required weekly synchronous studio. The online section is not primarily asynchronous. Every week has a required 90-minute live session, stated at the point of enrollment so students can commit before registering, and most of that session is breakout studio work — reviewing, testing, refactoring, pairing on pull requests — with the instructor rotating between rooms.
• The engineering walk. Because AI agents implement much of the code, every project includes a live session in which the student explains any part of the system, its tests, or its history on request. It is the course's primary integrity mechanism and its primary critique format, and it works identically over Zoom.
• Code review as critique. In this course the pull-request review is a critique format, and it is one the profession conducts remotely by default. Reviewing peers' pull requests is a required studio activity in both sections.
• Cohort visibility. All student repositories and releases stay visible to the section for the full term, which is closer to a studio wall than a submission portal.

Worth stating plainly: the tradeoff is real. A Zoom breakout loses some of the room's spontaneity and gains a screen-share that is, for software, a better view of the work than looking over a shoulder. At the 3315 level, where the object of critique is a diff, a test, or an interface, the online mode is arguably the native one.

Identity verification and academic integrity

Distance education carries a student-identity verification requirement that in-person sections do not. Address it explicitly:

• All coursework is submitted through Canvas behind SMU single sign-on; no additional student cost is incurred for verification.
• Coding work is submitted as Git repositories with branches, reviews, and staged commits rather than a single final artifact, so authorship is visible in the development history — a stronger integrity signal than most disciplines can offer.
• The weekly synchronous studio, the engineering walks, and office hours provide recurring synchronous, on-camera contact between the instructor and each student.
• The course's Generative AI Policy requires disclosure of AI contributions in every project, requires every agent-produced change to be reviewed and tested before merge, and makes the student the author of record for everything submitted.

Faculty qualification

SMU requires faculty teaching online to be certified to teach online, through Quality Matters training. Name the assigned instructor and their certification status — or the date they will complete it — in the proposal. An uncertified instructor of record is the most common reason a modality request stalls at the school level.

Accreditation footprint

One online section of one course does not make a program online, and it does not trigger the escalation path in SMU Policy 2.20 — that language governs initiating distance learning, hybrid programs and/or fully online programs, which runs through the Educational Programs Committee, the Provost, the Board of Trustees, and possibly SACSCOC, on roughly a year's lead time.

The exposure is cumulative rather than per-course, and it belongs to whoever owns the degree. This is why the three requests must be counted together rather than filed one section at a time:

• 25% of a program available online — SACSCOC notification. This package reaches it on its own, before counting any other online CRCP section.
• 50% — SACSCOC approval, which requires the year of lead time noted above.
• NASAD carries parallel distance-learning standards and substantive change reporting once a program is substantially available online.

Confirm before submitting

• File as one packageSubmit the 1310, 3305, and 3315 modifications together with a single online-hours tally, so the sequence is reviewed as a sequence.
• Approved outcomes on fileWhether the in-person section has approved learning outcomes that differ from the proposed syllabus; adopt one set for both sections, per § 5.
• Prerequisite languageThe current prerequisite (CRCP 3305 or CS 1342) is unchanged. Confirm CS 1342 remains the intended equivalence now that the description no longer implies a language.
• “Exams” versus “projects”The one-word change in the preserved sentence, per § 3; keep the original if the committee prefers.
• The correct Meadows formMeadows' own modification form and committee calendar, from the associate dean for academic affairs. A description change may route differently from a delivery-mode change; confirm both are covered by one filing.
• Instructor certificationQM certification status for the assigned instructor of record, per § 8.
• Current online share of the B.A.The baseline against which the 9-hour package is counted, per § 9.
• Term and fundingWhether this targets a summer or intersession term, which opens the Intersessions online course development support and may carry its own scheduling conventions.
• Reference environment for the first offeringThe syllabus states that the reference language, build system, and framework are announced before registration. Have them chosen before the section is listed.