The University of Iowa Tippie College of Business will reduce the amount of semester hours within two of its preexisting and prominent courses in order to support students and increase efficiency.

Beginning in the Fall of 2020, two previously separate three-semester-hour classes — “Information Systems” and “Operations Management” — will transition into two two-semester-hour courses.

Talk of this merge has been in the works for two years: one to see if the idea was feasible and another to figure out the best way to implement the course, said Director of Undergraduate Studies for Business Analytics Michael Colbert.

Colbert said this change will enable new opportunities for delivery of existing classes and foster a space for creating new courses. Each course has updated content to reflect what students have learned and can further shape the teaching methods of their professors, he said.

“Combining the classes reduces the number of required semester hours and length of time to complete the existing business core. This reduction allows students to get into their major courses sooner and have meaningful internship experiences earlier,” Colbert said. “These internship experiences are vital to both our students and companies who hire them.”

Tippie updated and added new core requirements that aim to allow students to remain competitive with graduates from peer colleges, Colbert said. Reducing the required hours in these two courses will enable students to meet new core requirements without adding additional time to their graduation plans.

Students who have completed one course but not the other may enroll in the new course and only attend half designated for the course they have yet to take. Additionally, there will be no honors sections or online options for this course, Colbert said.

Patrick Johanns, a UI business analytics lecturer, said they found overlap in information throughout courses and really analyzed the courses to make the combination of the classes possible.

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“We were focusing on process analysis and info that carries over to all different majors of business,” Johanns said.

Johanns said the semester will be split between the two course topics. One half of the semester will teach Information Systems with a specific professor, and the other half will teach Operations Management with another professor.

“Ultimately, we always think what will be best for the students, and this is just a change, but I think students are happier whenever we get the opportunity to cut down on things like classes,” said Johanns.

Colbert said that due to this change being implemented for Fall of 2020, students with a plan to enroll in the courses in Spring 2020 should do so because delaying the courses could impact their ability to get into higher level classes.

On average, 400-500 students take these required courses every semester, Johanns said.

AJ Smith, a third year UI accounting student, said combining two courses might mean losing some information from the original course, but if the new classes complement each other, this merge would work well.

“Having the option of the combined course, rather than two separate courses, would be a great way to get credits out of the way in order to begin on more major focused courses,” Smith said.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article stated that the two courses would combine into one. This was incorrect, and has been changed to reflect the accurate course change in the Tippie College of Business. The Daily Iowan regrets this error.