University of Oregon
AC-1: Academic Courses

Course data comes from a list of all courses offered from Spring 2019 through Fall 2022. This data is from the Office of the Registrar, who ran the report with the date parameters we provided.

To apply a definition of "sustainability" (so that the courses could be coded as "sustainability-focused" or "sustainability-inclusive"), we used the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals and their 5Ps: People; Planet; Prosperity; Peace; and, Partnerships. We evaluated whether a course took elements of these goals as its primary focus ("Sustainability-focused"), or to a lesser degree, if the course engaged the skills, concepts, practices, or ideas fundamental to achieving these development goals ("sustainability-inclusive").

Foundational courses and specific tool courses (eg, chemistry or GIS), were not counted as sustainability focused or inclusive unless sustainability challenges were specifically integrated into the course.

Once compiled, we used excel pivot tables to identify the number of "focused" and "inclusive" courses for graduate and undergraduates. We also used pivot tables to identify the number of unique departments that offer either a "focus" or "inclusive" course.

To reduce the extremely arduous process of reviewing over 12,000 courses, this year we use R code to compare our current course dataset to the previous dataset of our last submission (Fall of 2017AY to Winter of 2019AY).

R code used in STARS Courses Update - Fall 2022 parsed courses that had already been reviewed for sustainability content (i.e., courses that were offered during both time spans: Fall 2017 through Winter 2019 and Spring 2019 through Fall 2022) from courses that had not yet been reviewed as such (i.e., courses that were offered from Spring 2019 through Fall 2022 but not from Fall 2017 through Winter 2019).
 
The courses that needed reviewing were provided to Student Sustainability Center professional staff, who reviewed and classified them regarding sustainability content. Those data were then combined, using the R code, with previously reviewed courses to compute STARS-relevant metrics for the Spring 2019 through Fall 2022 time frame.

Finally, in order to ensure data accuracy, Dr. Taylor McHolm reviewed the courses marked as "Inclusive" and "Focused."

Only counted once.

Per the STARS Technical Manual guidance, we made the following decisions:
- Courses for which the course title and/or description indicate a primary and explicit focus on sustainability (pursuant to the UN Sustainability Development Goals) were marked as "Focused."

- Courses for which the course title and/or description did not explicitly focus on sustainability but clearly incorporate sustainability challenges, issues, and concepts in a prominent way, were marked as "Inclusive."

- Special topics courses that are not offered on an ongoing basis were included in the course offerings. If there was enough information present to make a determination, courses were evaluated as either "Sustainability-Focused" or "Sustainability-Inclusive" (per the evaluation process above). If there was not enough information in the course title or description to positively determine that the course was "focused" or "inclusive," the course was "Not Sustainability Related." Due to the volume of coruses, there was no effort to reach out to departments to add additional details.

- Courses that do not relate to sustainability per the above guidelines were colored blue and marked as "Not Sustainability Related."

Data Standards
Following the technical manual, the following decisions were made to limit the data set:
- Required courses for which content is directed by external bodies (eg, legally mandated courses on research ethics) were excluded (marked as "Do not Qualify") from the total course count.

- Courses that are strictly practice-oriented (such as PE and performance courses) were excluded (marked as "Do not Qualify") from the total course count.

- Individually directed courses (Readings, thesis credits, dissertation credits, practicum, independent study, etc) were marked as "Do not Qualify." These courses were excluded from the total count of courses offered.

- In instances where the same course is offered multiple times in a quarter (for example, WR 121, which is the college writing requirement), the course was only counted as offered ONCE that quarter.

- In instances where the same course is offered multiple times in an academic year (for example, ENVS 201, which is offered in the Fall and the Spring), the course is counted multiple times.