Can different departments offer similar courses?

Question

Some courses at different departments are very related in content. Is it fine or a university should offer 1 specific course across all departments?

Answer 1

There are a number of reasons why a department would want to teach their own version of a class, even if it's very similar to a course taught by another department:

1. They think they can do it better. Imagine if most graduate students in your Department A end up taking a class in Department B. Department B views this as something of an imposition, not really interesting, not taken by many of their students, etc. so treats it as a dumping ground for new or poor teachers. Department A might decide to teach their own version to the level they think it warrants.
2. Different audiences. What one needs to know may differ by department in terms of sophistication or focus. For example, very few students in departments who use statistical methods might need to know the nuances behind how variance is calculated, or be equipped with the background to develop their own estimator, whereas a student in a statistics department might very well need to. Splitting these courses allows for fine-tuning of content and pre-requisites (do you need to know Linear Alegbra?).
3. Field specific focuses. Epidemiology, as a field, is by and large uninterested in prediction for its own sake, and so really doesn't do much with machine learning (see here). Other fields are keenly interested in exactly those methods. So rather than try to teach a course that's a little unsatisfactory to everyone, why not split them? Similarly, while an Applied Math department could very well teach a class on "Mathematical Modeling", the assumptions and methods needed in Physics vs. Chemistry vs. Ecology vs. Epidemiology vs. Engineering are all different enough that those departments might be well served by bringing their class in house, if for no other reason than to make sure most of the examples are relevant.
4. Geography. As @tomasz points out, the "logical" department for a course to be held in might be quite far from a department, leading to students not taking a class, not knowing about it entirely, or complicating their schedule. For example, a statistics or math department might be on the "main" Liberal Arts campus of a university, while many of the potentially interested students may be located on a specialized Health Sciences campus a considerable distance away (at the University of Iowa, for example, they would be across the Iowa River from one another).

Answer 2

It can be done, but it often takes political work from curriculum committees. The chief danger of different departments offering "the same" course (for certain values of "same," obviously) is that they split the enrollment, such that neither course is an efficient use of instructor time. Departments sometimes also guard their turf jealously against perceived encroachment.

Ways to avoid turf wars include:

• Clearly delineating audience. Taking the statistics example in Bill Barth's answer, "Statistics in Political Science" and "Biostatistics" can probably coexist peacefully; they're aimed at completely different audiences, neither of which would find the other's course congenial.
• Clear change in course intensity or focus. Some institutions, for example, have "computing for non-CS-majors" courses alongside standard CS introductory offerings. Some CS departments frankly turn up their noses at teaching non-majors anyway, so if it's going to be done at all, some other department will have to do it.
• Clear change in desired learning outcomes. I teach one of the abovementioned computing-for-layfolk courses; my department avoided upsetting CS by including a large "tech for social justice" component that our local CS department wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Sometimes conflicts can be avoided by crosslisting a course; this also allows the crosslisting departments to share the teaching load if the course becomes popular.

Answer 3

There are different approaches to this, sometimes within the same university. Until recently at mine, for historical reasons, the teaching of basic statistics was spread all over the university. Now a new department has been formed to deal with stats and a few related thing. Psychology had its own version, and so did physics. Calculus, on the other hand, was taught as a service course by the math department for students from all over the university. Physics teaches one version of each of the basic courses that students from all disciplines that need them come over to Physics to take.

Answer 4

In addition to other good answers: by-now-many years ago, in my math dept in a large state uni, it occurred to me to literally (!) do a poll of engineering (and some other) departments to see what they wanted from a calculus course (and related), ... and why they didn't just want to do it themselves.

Yes, this is an opposite issue to that in the question. But, in fact, as I've seen over a few decades, and, unsurprisingly, knowing how to answer one family of questions answers the other.

The reason they didn't want to teach basic mathematics was that they didn't want to spend their time that way. Bang. Oooookeeeeyyy, service department math, sure, ... Well, ok, we don't want to spend out time that way either, but somehow it seems advisable... maybe...

About calculus, then: the College of Biological Sciences here has a high reputation, does not want to teach calculus (because all the faculty there are doing something else, srsly, get-a-life, ...) and the math dept (despite some vulgar, stupid blunders) has generally been cooperative with that "College of...", so we have calculus courses tailored to their students. Yes, for some years various math faculty railed against this, or tried to sabotage it, or simply did a horrific job at it (while claiming good faith), ... but through the substantial (and risky!) efforts of a few of my colleagues, there appears to be a useful, stable situation. (Note to self and note to all: these sorts of things apparently depend on the on-going effort/energy of one or more individuals, not rules or policies...)

One opposite sort of example in my uni is about "numerical analysis"... especially when seen in some historical perspective. Years ago, this was not so much a dignified academic subject, despite WWII's illustration, and other, that literal mathematics/physics could matter in the world. Indeed, not all natterings in such directions are of any consequence. Things have certainly evolved in the last several decades so that "numerical methods" are "a thing" (as they say on the introwebs...) in many scientific pursuits. While several of my colleagues have very incisive mathematical (and more) insights into such things... it would be ridiculous to pretend that there should be homogenization across the uni in the explanation to students how these things work.

That is, in the end, the very descriptors of "content" are routinely so naive as to be irrelevant. So two things that get the same labels by external, uninformed parties (yet who control some PR aspects, course catalogues, ...) should not be interpreted as anything but ... a hint.

Answer 5

Around here you have to justify yourself to a committee if you try to step on someone else's territory. It can be done but you have to show that the "owner" of that territory is unable or unwilling to teach a course that meets your needs. (It is considered a pretty hostile act to suggest teaching it yourself until you've been around a couple of times in trying to work out an arrangement.)

An unwritten corollary is that if no one claims a subject as one of their own, then anyone who needs their students to know that subject will have to teach it themselves.