The UCC currently specifies the following guidelines concerning the creation of new Certificates or the revision of any existing ones:
-The purpose of a Certificate is to provide an alternative to the more traditional minor. Certificates should provide a brief but coherent experience in a set of curricular offerings in an academic discipline or a combination of more than one discipline.
-Certificates should generally be shorter than minors in related areas.
-Certificates should generally involve only courses already in existence, or proposed as a part of a major or minor. Courses should generally not be created solely for use as Certificate requirements.
-New Certificates or revisions of existing Certificates should be proposed by a department or jointly by several departments in the regular curricular process using designated curricular forms. This requires approval by the college(s) of the proposing department(s), the UCC, and the University Faculty Senate.
-An academic office must be identified which will be responsible for maintaining and publicizing the program.

Proposed are the following additions:
-Standard certificates should range between 2-18 credits with a minimum of 2 courses. However, a certificate may surpass the 18-credit limit (up to 24 credits for undergraduates; 27 credits for graduates) only if it contains a specialized combination of courses tightly focused on a specific set of skills or knowledge with an emphasis on professional-based requirements.
-To be a certificate at any level, the requirements must have a minimum of 2 courses.
-Graduate certificates must only contain graduate-level courses.
-Multiple certificates may contribute to a major or degree although this structure must demonstrate intentional integrated design through the combination that ties the certificates together as a program, OR require an additional course, project, paper, or other culminating experiences that draws the certificates together as a cohesive program. Students are responsible for declaring their intent to combine certificates by formally declaring the program in addition to completing the certificates.
-Certificates that link to a particular major cannot be required in a way that circumvents the maximum credit hour limits of a major.
-Certificates that bundle towards another credential must follow the credit hour limits for each program type.