Upon completion of this unit, you will be able to:

• Recognize USF policy for course syllabus
• Review USF COPH online and campus syllabi
• Recognize differences in USF COPH online and campus syllabi.
• Recognize elements of USF COPH Online syllabus template
• Provide examples as necessary for each element
• Constructing your Online syllabus
• Using the COPH Online course syllabus template, construct a syllabus for your course.

As you are probably aware, as a course instructor you will be required to develop a course syllabus. As we have already discussed, you should begin your course design by developing learning objectives. From these objectives you will then develop your course activities and assessments. Consider the syllabus as the place where you will gather together all these ideas to communicate them to the student. Syllabus design is so important to your course that this unit is completely devoted to this topic. But how does one go about designing a “good,” well-developed syllabus? Most Universities have clear cut guidelines and policy that must be followed in the development of syllabi. We’ll begin there, and discuss these guidelines in this unit, and help you to construct your own syllabus.

The Purpose of a Syllabus

As a student you probably appreciated the value of a detailed syllabus. Now put yourself in the role of an online student. Since you and your students are never in the classroom that syllabus becomes all the more important, for it acts like “a roadmap to your course.” Thus as a faculty person you should spend plenty of time developing a very detailed syllabus.

Please take a minute to read USF's Course Syllabus policy, and reflect on USF
COPH Campus Syllabus Template. In addition please consider USF’s
COPH Online Syllabus Template.
Online and campus syllabi are a little different. Many students have not taken online courses before. So this may seem strange, but you will need to provide information to instruct online students, how to do things online. Thus your online syllabi will have the additional responsibility of describing to learners how to interact with you, fellow students, course materials and assignments. So how are assignments to be turned in? How will learners be evaluated in the online environment? When are your virtual office hours?

What delivery format will you use to provide course materials? For the most part you will deliver materials via the web, but if you have any synchronous sessions you must accommodate students who can not come to town. If this is the case you may want to conduct an “Elluminate Live!” session.

It’s important that you understand the reasoning behind each of the elements of USF COPH Online course syllabus template. To do so please take this time to review a commented version of the USF COPH Online course syllabus template. This version explains each of the elements within the syllabus template.

Using the USF’s COPH Online Syllabus Template construct a syllabus for your course. This is to assignment will be turned in via the discussion board. (Blackboard access only) In addition please make two or tree comments on the work of fellow students by replying.

USF Syllabus Policy:
http://www.acad.usf.edu/Resources/Documents/Policies/course-syllabi.htm
Grunert, J. (1997). The course syllabus. A learning-centered approach.
Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing.

Writing a syllabus
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/writesyl.htm

Creating a Syllabus
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/syllabus.html