Course ‘Syllabus’ Instructions for Faculty

Beginning with the Spring 2010 Term, Wilmington University is changing the way instructors prepare and distribute course information to students.

• New Syllabus Format
• Preparing Your Course Outline and Schedule (formerly 'personalized syllabus')
• Blackboard Tutorial

New Syllabus Format

Essentially:

• Instructors will no longer prepare a 'complete' personalized course syllabus document starting from the 'generic syllabus' document.
• Basic Course Information (formerly the 'generic syllabus'—standard information common to every section of a particuar course) will be contained in a separate document, housed on the University's web site accessed by students and faculty members from a link within each Blackboard course.
• Instructors will prepare a document called Course Outline and Schedule, containing only their 'personalized' course information, without duplicating or repeating any of the 'standard' course information or University Policies.
• Instructors should not reuse previous Syllabus documents from courses prior to Spring 2010. You may use the template below to guide you through preparing your first Course Outline and Schedule document if necessary.
• All Blackboard course sites will contain links to the University's web site for standard course information and University policies.

View the presentation below for more detailed information (10 minutes, self-running).

Preparing Your Course Outline and Schedule

Course Outline and Schedule Template

Faculty members can download the document linked below to use as a guide for creating their Course Outline and Schedule document. This template contains no course content. It is simply a suggested starting point for preparing your document for students. It is not required that instructors use this template, it is merely provided to guide instructors though the content they may need to prepare for their courses.

• Course Outline and Schedule Template
  • RTF/Word file, can be used by any word processor. If prompted, choose "Save" to save this document to your computer before editing.

Sample Documents

• Former 'complete' syllabus document
  • This is how a syllabus looked prior to Spring 2010, highlighting the various compenents of the document.
• New "Basic Course Information" document
  • This will now be provided on the University's web site, accessible through a link in Blackboard.
• New "Course Outline and Schedule" document
  • This will be prepared by each instructor, and added to Blackboard by each instructor.

Adding Your Course Outline to Blackboard

View the tutorial below to learn how to add your Course Outline and Schedule to your Blackboard site (6 minutes).