Syllabus: Overview

What it does

The syllabus is the official outline for your course. As an instructor, if you or your department has prepared an online syllabus already, you can direct the Syllabus tool to link to it. Otherwise, you can enter material to post directly to your syllabus. You can make your syllabus visible to the general public or just to members of your course.

Some features of a traditional syllabus are divided between the Syllabus and Schedule tools. Some instructors use the Syllabus tool to display the department's official online syllabus, and use the Schedule as a detailed resource for students.

Key concepts

Content format: You can use the buttons at the top of the editing window to format your content. The buttons supply any needed HTML tags. You can toggle between viewing these HTML tags in your content or not, and you may enter your own HTML tags instead of relying on the buttons. See The WYSIWYG editor.

Attachments: You can attach files from your Resources folders. For more information, see Adding, editing, or deleting a syllabus item.

Things to consider

• You have several options for making web resources available. Before you link to a web resource, consider whether it would be better placed as a schedule item (such as a topic for the week or a dated assignment), or as a resource in the Resources section.
  
  
• If you attach a file from one of your other sites (including your My Workspace), your site participants won't be able to view it unless you chose Display to non-members (publicly viewable) in that file's properties. For more information, see Making your Resources items publicly accessible.

Help documentation

For help documentation about the Syllabus tool, see Syllabus.