Professional-Technical Common Courses (P/TCC) General Rules

P/TCCs are designated by the first 4 letters of the department/division, the ampersand symbol "&" and the 3-digit course number (e.g. AUTO& 135).

Getting Started

Colleges developing a P/TCC will:

  • Review the list of currently existing Common Course Matrix. 
  • Collaborate to identify a unique department or division designation, course number and/or course title.

Some basics about numbering:

  • Introductory and foundational courses should be assigned numbers lower than more advanced courses within the same department or division designation.
  • It is recommended unique college courses be renumbered and renamed to prevent course number or title confusion between P/TCC and unique courses at the same college.
    • Example: A college should avoid having both a WELD& 101 (P/TCC) and WELD 101 (unique).

NOTE: New criteria consistent with ctcLink will be adopted or revised as system requirements change.

  • Due to limits in the Student Management System, the common course title field is 24 characters total (including punctuation and spaces).
  • Common course titles use upper and lower case letters. 
  • Optional: After the common course title (24 characters), colleges may use a colon (:) and then append a custom title, using an additional 24 characters for a total of 48 characters in the title field. 

NOTE: New criteria consistent with ctcLink will be adopted or revised as system requirements change.

Rules governing use of three-digit common course numbers:

000-099  Below college-level

101-199 First year courses

100-119 Introductory and exploratory courses
120-189 Series and discrete courses

200-299 Second year courses

200-209 Standard second year offerings
210-289 Courses ending in:

1-3   Courses in series, with prerequisites. For example, MACHINING I, II, III
0, 4-9 Discrete offerings (stand-alone courses), or a series with no prescribed order. For example, AUTO I, II, III

190-199 and 290-299 Work-based and similar

Should be used for work-based learning, including internship, cooperative learning, field experience, service learning and similar.

Also for individual research, special seminars, special topics and independent study.