An academic discipline or field of study is known as a branch of knowledge. It is taught as an accredited part of higher education. A scholar's discipline is commonly defined and recognized by a university faculty. That person will be accredited by learned societies to which they belong along with the academic journals in which they publish. However, no formal criteria exist for defining an academic discipline.
Disciplines vary between universities and even programs. These will have well-defined rosters of journals and conferences supported by a few universities and publications. Most disciplines are broken down into (potentially overlapping) branches called sub-disciplines.
There is no consensus on how some academic disciplines should be classified (e.g., whether anthropology and linguistics are disciplines of social sciences or fields within the humanities). More generally, the proper criteria for organizing knowledge into disciplines are also open to debate.
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP 2000): Developed by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics to provide a taxonomic scheme that will support the accurate tracking, assessment, and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity.
