Bridge and Cap Course Proposal Instructions
Deadlines
- College curriculum committees should approve bridge and cap courses by the end of Fall Quarter 2025. (Note that the information needed on the course proposal form for bridge and cap courses is greatly abbreviated since the course content has already been approved during semester conversion.)
- Each college curriculum committee should identify a deadline for bridge and cap course submissions that allows review and approval of the courses by the end of Fall Quarter 2025.
- To facilitate planning by college curriculum committees, by October 20, 2025, department curriculum chairs should notify their college’s curriculum committee chair of an estimate of the number of bridge and cap courses that they may submit. This is only an estimate, but to help college curriculum committees to prepare a timeline for submission, it may be better to err on the high side than the low side.
Before reading these instructions, please read: “Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion” to understand the Senate rules regarding bridge and cap courses.
Requirements for Bridge and Cap Courses
Bridge and cap courses are only intended to replace missing course content due to the interruption of quarter calendar course sequences. Stand-alone courses do not qualify for the creation of a cap course.
Bridge and cap courses may only be proposed if a program can answer “Yes” to one or more of the following questions:
- The major’s external accreditation agency requires all the course content from the quarter sequence.
- A student who graduates without having exposure to all the content from the quarter sequence would not have fulfilled the course learning objectives (CLOs) necessary for undergraduate-level expertise in their field at the time of graduation.
- A student cannot be successful in the next semester course – either within the sequence or in a course for which the sequence is a prerequisite – without a bridge or cap course.
Departments may opt not to offer bridge or cap courses even under situations when they are allowed.
If a department answers “No” to all three questions above, it cannot offer a bridge or cap course.
Implications of Opting-Out of Bridge and Cap Courses
- If a department decides not to offer a bridge course, then it must communicate to the Office of the Registrar (catalog@calpoly.edu) whether the prerequisite of the next course in the sequence (1102) includes the preceding quarter course (101 or 1101) or whether only the preceding semester course will be accepted (1101).
- If a department decides not to offer a cap course, students can only finish the quarter sequence by taking the last semester course in the sequence (1102) in its entirety.
Scheduling of Bridge & Cap Courses
- Bridge and cap courses may use any teaching modality. (To complete the proposal form, you will enter “FT” for in-person, but this is only to complete the form. Any in-person or online modality is allowed at the department’s discretion.)
- If a bridge or cap course meets in-person, the course must use department or college meeting spaces. University meeting spaces will not be available for bridge and cap courses.
- A bridge or cap course may be proposed for either 7.5 weeks or 15 weeks but not both. The length of the course is specified in the week-to-week outline on the proposal form.
- 7.5-week courses must meet in the first half of the semester,
- For 7.5-week courses, the final assessment is on the last day of class.
- For 15-week courses, the final assessment is
- on the last day of class for 1-unit lecture courses,
- on the last day of class for lab or activity courses regardless of unit count,
- during the assigned final exam period for courses with more than 1 lecture unit.
- These final assessment periods apply based on the type of unit assigned to the course, which may differ from the actual course content for bridge and cap courses. (See the directions about unit types in Attachment 1: “Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion”.)
Contacts for Questions and Clarifications
The Senate’s bridge and cap course resolution (AS-993-25) is based on the conversion of a linear quarter sequence (e.g. 101-102-103) to a linear semester sequence (e.g. 1101-1102). Some departments have sequences that do not follow this pattern. If you have questions about how bridge and cap courses would work with your department’s course sequence, please contact either your college’s ASCC representative or the ASCC Chair as listed below.
- BCSM Representative: John Jasbinsek
- CAFES Representative: Amy Lammert
- CAED Representative: Carmen Trudell
- CENG Representative: Aaron Keen
- CLA Representative: Thanayi Jackson
- OCOB Representative: Katya Vasilaky
- ASCC Chair: John WalkerBridge and Cap Course Proposal Instructions
Submitting Course Proposals for Bridge and Cap Courses
To see a copy of a blank course proposal form before you begin the process, see the blank course proposal form here.
Many boxes in the Course Proposal Form are required. If this information will not be reviewed for bridge and cap courses, the instructions below describe what to enter on the form to bypass these fields.
If you have questions about how to complete the course proposal, please contact the ASCC representative or curriculum chair for your college.
The Course Management system will be down for maintenance from October 6-17. Bridge and cap course proposals may be entered after Friday, October 17.
Go to Course Inventory Management in the Academics tab of the Cal Poly Portal to begin the course proposal. Click “Propose New Course”.
1. Proposer and Course Information
Enter Proposer Information, Subject Prefix, Department, College as you normally would.
Catalog Number
From:“Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion”
Bridge courses have the same number and title as the quarter course that they follow in the course sequence but with a ‘B’ appended to the end of the course number and ‘Bridge’ appended to the end of the course title (e.g. 101B, _____ Bridge). For example, if the bridge course follows UNIV 101 and readies the student to take UNIV 1102, the course number is UNIV 101B.
Cap courses have the same number and title as the quarter course that they follow in the course sequence but with a ‘C’ appended to the end of the course number and ‘Cap’ appended to the end of the course title (e.g. 102C, _____ Cap).” For example, if the cap course follows UNIV 102 and completes the material in UNIV 103, the course number is UNIV 102C.
2. General Information
Type of Proposal—Choose “New Non-GE, Significantly Revise”.
Requested Start Term—Choose “Fall 2027” (leave as the default—although courses will be taught in AY 2026–27, that is not an available choice on the form).
Course Title
From:“Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion”
Bridge courses have the same number and title as the quarter course that they follow in the course sequence but with a ‘B’ appended to the end of the course number and ‘Bridge’ appended to the end of the course title (e.g. 101B, _____ Bridge). For example, if the bridge course follows UNIV 101, University Studies I, and readies the student to take UNIV 1102, the course title is UNIV 101B, University Studies I Bridge.
Cap courses have the same number and title as the quarter course that they follow in the course sequence but with a ‘C’ appended to the end of the course number and ‘Cap’ appended to the end of the course title (e.g. 102C, _____ Cap).” For example, if the cap course follows UNIV 102, University Studies II, and completes the material in UNIV 103, the course title is UNIV 102C, University Studies II Cap.
Course Description
From:“Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion”
For bridge courses: “Bridge from (preceding quarter course number) to complete (semester course number). Prepares students for (next semester course number).” For example, the description for UNIV 101B would be “Bridge from UNIV 101 to complete UNIV 1101. Prepares students for UNIV 1102.”
For cap courses: “Completes the material in (final semester course number) for students with credit in (preceding quarter course number). Covers material from (final quarter course number).” For example, the course description for UNIV 102C would be “Completes the material in UNIV 1102 for students with credit in UNIV 102. Covers material from UNIV 103.”
This is the only text to go into the course description. Do not include course topics or other descriptions.
For nonlinear course sequences, please contact your college ASCC representative or the ASCC Chair if you feel the standard course numbering and description will not work for your course sequence.
Cross-listed—fill out as you normally would
Replacement Course —“No”
On/Off Campus—fill out as you normally would
Field Trips—fill out as you normally would
3. Course Requirements
Requisites
For Bridge courses: Prerequisite = previous quarter course in sequence.
For Cap courses: Prerequisite = next-to-last quarter course in sequence.
Non-course requisites—“No”
Units per mode of instruction
From:“Guidelines for the Creation and Review of Bridge and Cap Courses for Semester Conversion”
Total units
- Round all units to whole numbers.
- For bridge courses, total units should equal approximately 1/3 of the units for the semester course being completed Example: UNIV 101B completes the material in UNIV 1101 (4 units) for students in the UNIV 1101-1102 sequence. UNIV 101B should be 1 or 2 units (4*1/3 = 1.33) at the department’s discretion.
- For cap courses, total units should equal approximately 2/3 of the units for the semester course being completed. Example: UNIV 102C covers the material in UNIV 103 and completes UNIV 1102 (4 units). UNIV 102C should be 2 or 3 units (4*2/3 = 2.67) at the department’s discretion.
The type of unit is selected based only on desired contact hours—NOT course content.
- A bridge course with 1 lecture unit would have 15 contact hours (1 hour per week).
- A bridge course with 1 activity unit would have 30 contact hours (2 hours per week).
- A bridge course with 1 laboratory unit would have 45 contact hours (3 hours per week).
Example: A 1-unit, 15-week bridge course for a laboratory class that needs 2 contact hours per week (30 contact hours total) should be proposed as a 1-unit activity—even though the course has labs—not activities. A 1-unit, 7.5-week bridge course that needs 2 contact hours per week (15 contact hours total) should be proposed as a 1-unit lecture.
Grading Type—as appropriate
Repeatable—“No”
Subtitles—“No”
4. Purpose of the Course
Required—“Yes” (only required courses are eligible for bridge and cap)
Specify program—“NA”
Elective—“No”
Credential Program—leave blank
Need—Briefly explain the bridge or cap course’s placement in the semester course sequence. This will allow the bridge course to be inserted as a prerequisite in the appropriate semester sequence
5. GE, USCP, GWR, SUSCAT
Answer “No” to all.
6. Course Delivery and Resources
Estimated enrollment number of students—leave blank.
Primary modality checkboxes—“FT” (all modalities are allowed for bridge and cap, but we only need to check one to submit the form).
Other modality checkboxes—leave blank
All modality hours and methods fields—leave blank
Instructor names—“NA”
7. CLOs and Assessment
Program—Select correct program or Other (if not listed)
CLOs—Put “NA” in all three boxes on Line 1
Academic Integrity Measures—“NA”
8. Expanded Course Content
Textbook/Materials—Enter the textbook that you plan to use. If you plan to use a course packet or selected articles, enter “Course Notes” or “Selected Articles”. You do not need to list them.
Week-to-Week Outline—
Enter an outline week-to-week plan to bridge or cap the content (as you would for any course proposal). This should list topics covered and assignments but does not need to go into great detail. Week-to-week plans were already submitted and approved for semester courses, so the purpose of this outline is to define which parts of the previously approved content will be included in the bridge or cap course.
A single bridge or cap course may be proposed as either a 7.5-week or 15-week course but not both.
If you plan to teach the course over 7.5 weeks:
- Enter only 7.5 weeks of content on the form
- The course must run during the first 7.5 weeks of a semester
- The course must match an established semester meeting pattern
- Final assessments must occur on the final day of class.
Final Assessment—Enter your planned final assessment for the course Will the final assessment occur during the designated time period? – Answer “yes” or “no” based on the final assessment schedules described in “Scheduling of Bridge and Cap Courses” at the top of this document.
9. Consultation
Leave blank
10. Instructional Materials
Check the box
