Catalog Process Guide

This page provides information regarding the Undergraduate Catalog update process to faculty and staff who are responsible for reviewing catalog content for accuracy. Each year's Undergraduate Academic Catalog is published directly before Bobcat Student Orientation. This timeline ensures incoming students are aware of program requirements for the upcoming academic year, while taking into consideration the University Curriculum Council (UCC) approval timeline. 

Once published, the Academic Catalog should not be edited; this ensures students, staff, and faculty can confidently make decisions based on academic requirements as stated at a point in time for a full academic year. Students should be able to refer to the Catalog from their first academic year as a degree-seeking student (known as "catalog year") throughout their time at Ohio University to see the requirements of their academic program. With rare exception, the only edits made to a live Academic Catalog should be for updating incorrect contacts/contact information, to correct broken/incorrect website links, or to resolve minor typos. This is why it is extremely important for assigned faculty and staff to thoroughly review academic program pages, college/departmental pages, and informational pages for accuracy during the yearly editing cycle which runs from approximately early January to mid-April each year. 

Editing Process

At the beginning of the update cycle, the Catalog Editor will reach out to the main point-of-contact as designated by each college. A primary responsibility of these main points-of-contact is assigning of editors and/or reviewers from within their college. New editors are required to attend individual training via Teams with the Catalog Editor. Each college should have no more than three editors. This helps ensure consistency across program pages and other academic content. Additionally, fewer people in editing roles limits the chances for formatting errors occurring. Such errors include using copy/paste without using the special catalog interface, using the wrong heading size (or adding unneeded headings) for content, and utilizing incorrect spacing. The Academic Catalog feeds information to the www.ohio.edu/majors page. However, the /majors page will not function properly if the aforementioned issues are present in a catalog page. A college can have any number of individuals in the "reviewer" role that it wishes. These reviewers will look over program pages/content and send any needed edits to either one of the college editors, the main college point-of-contact, or the Catalog Editor for implementation in the draft catalog. 

Program Pages

Editors and reviewers should make sure to look over each academic program page within their area each cycle. The update cycle is the time to ensure both contacts and contact information (phone numbers, websites, emails, etc.) are accurate. Of equal importance, editors and reviewers should be checking the text within the "Program Overview", "Admissions", and "Opportunities Upon Graduation" sections for any needed updates. The "Program Overview" and "Opportunities Upon Graduation" sections should be at least a paragraph (four sentences minimum) each and should try to refrain from being more than three paragraphs in either section. A good example of content for each of these sections is the Project Management page (opens in a new window). 

Content under the "Requirements" section of the page is updated based on approved curricular changes. As such, it should be checked for accuracy, but should not be edited by college personnel. Any needed changes to the program requirements should be forwarded to the Catalog Editor. The Catalog Editor is responsible for updating program requirements based on approved curricular changes. If something was overlooked, the person in this role needs to be informed to a) research and make the change based on approvals and b) to ensure there are no other impacted pages which also need corrected. If a program change has not been approved by UCC, it will not be made in the Academic Catalog. 

Program pages with UCC-approved changes will be forwarded to both the OCEAN program contact and the college's main points-of-contact for review after edits have been by the Catalog Editor. This ensures that the approved changes are formatted in a manner consistent with the wishes of the program contacts while making the points-of-contact aware of the changes. Requested edits that are either inconsistent with catalog formatting practice or contrary to the UCC-approved documentation will not be made.

College and Department Hierarchy Pages

Due to access limitations within Acalog (the Academic Catalog software employed by Ohio University), editors cannot be given direct access to these pages. It is the responsibility of the Catalog Editor for forward these pages out for review to the main catalog points-of-contact within the colleges at the beginning of the editing cycle. These points-of-contact can then forward these pages to whomever is considered responsible for ensuring accuracy of the page content. Any needed edits should be returned within the stated timelines to the Catalog Editor for implementation. The Catalog Editor will send a final draft with implemented edits before the catalog goes live to ensure changes have made as desired. An example of a Hierarchy page is the College of Business page (opens in a new window).

Informational Pages

Informational Pages (also known as Custom Pages within Acalog) suffer the same limitation as Hierarchy pages - access cannot be given to editors within the colleges/units. Because of this, these pages will be forwarded to points-of-contact for review at the beginning of the editing cycle in January. Any needed edits should be returned to the Catalog Editor within the stated timelines. It is the responsibility of the Catalog Editor to return a final draft of these pages before the catalog goes live to make sure everything meets the expectations of the point-of-contact. An example of an Informational Page would be the Services for Students page (opens in a new window). With this particular page, multiple units across campus are responsible for the content. The Catalog Editor will make sure (when possible) to send only the sections of a page a unit is responsible for to each point-of-contact to limit confusion.

Undergraduate Catalog Production Timeline

The 2025-26 Undergraduate Catalog will be published no later than May 27th, ahead of Bobcat Student Orientation (BSO) starting on May 28th. If you have questions about specific dates or deadlines, or if you would like to request access to the Acalog system please reach out to Kathleen Pugh at brownk16@ohio.edu.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about the information above, please reach out to the Office of the Registrar (registrar@ohio.edu). 

Please note that the Graduate Catalog is the responsibility of Graduate College. The above timelines and information pertain only to the Undergraduate Catalog. For questions about the Graduate Catalog, please reach out to grad-catalog@ohio.edu (opens in a new window). Likewise, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine Catalog is handled by Brooke McClain (mcclainb@ohio.edu).