All course sponsors are highly encouraged to use the Accessible Campus Syllabus Template or follow a very similar format including headers and language to make the information easy and clear for both students taking the course and reviewers to locate during governance. This template, updated annually during the summer, is a collaborative effort among the Office of the Provost, the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL), the Office of the Chief Information Officer: Digital Accessibility, and the Graduate College.
The Campus Syllabus Template is adaptable to the needs of individual academic units, allowing the customization of content while maintaining campus standards. Instructors may insert additional information and/or sections as needed for their course, add their unit wordmark, or adapt language or formatting as needed, as long as the required content is easily found. This information supplements any additional guidelines from an instructor’s college or unit. We encourage instructors to also consult other resources (e.g., from CITL or their respective college/unit), and units to adopt their own syllabus template.
The Campus Syllabus Template is also available in Canvas format as part of the Accessible Canvas Course Template available from the Make Your Course Accessible website. See the Accessible Checklists and Templates page for details and download information.
Course Syllabus Requirements (all courses)
The information in this section are required elements for all course syllabi, in accordance with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the University accrediting body.
Course Information
- Contact hours (e.g. “Class meets MWF 9:00 to 9:50 a.m.” or “Will meet for 2 hours 50 minutes per week for 16 weeks” when specific days/times are not known).
- Helpful information regarding Course Credit and Contact Hours can be found on the Assigning Credit Hours website.
- For asynchronous courses, contact hours can be calculated based on estimates of student time spent on viewing recorded lectures, participating in interactions with the instructor on discussion boards, completing quizzes, or participating in any other activity that replaces an in-class assignment. Contact hours do not include work spent “outside of class” on assignments, readings, or any other activity that would typically be considered homework. In the syllabus, include a statement about the number of ‘contact’ hours and what all for the specific course is included in that calculation (e.g. Contact Hours: 3 hours/week of students reviewing powerpoint materials, watching related video content, completing quizzes, and taking exams.)
- Course Duration in a semester– Full semester (16 weeks), 8 weeks, etc. If this is not included, it will be assumed that it is a Full semester offering.
Instructor Information
- Instructor: (Name)
- Instructor contact information: (e.g., email address, phone)
- Instructor Drop-in hours for students/Office Hours: Times the Instructor is available for student open hours
- Be clear about your office hours. Many college students are often unfamiliar with terms like ‘office hours’ (which they may believe to be hours their instructor is not available) so they may not stop by to get help without a more detailed explanation. Be clear about what they might discuss during your available hours and why it is important for students to use them. Be sure to explain when and where they will be held and how to reach out if they need to meet outside your stated times. You might also consider calling them something friendly like “Student Hours” or “Ask Me Anything Hours”. If you have a TA, explain their role in the course and what help students can expect from TAs versus the Instructor.
Course Details
- Course learning outcomes/objectives. The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) has some great resources for designing course learning outcomes, including Defining the goal of your course (link opens in new window). For additional questions regarding syllabus creation, including learning outcomes, contact CITL.
Note: For Special Topics Syllabus:
information that holds true across sections (e.g., maybe only certain faculty can teach under this rubric or maybe there’s a specific topic umbrella into which the course topic must fit, etc.)
include the range of credits for which the course will be offered
weekly contact hours that will equate to each hour of credit
Course Syllabus Resources
There are a number of resources to assist in syllabus creation and content development, and we have included a few of them below.
General Education (Gen Ed) Resources
For courses that currently have general education (Gen Ed) certification or courses that you are seeking general education certification on, please visit the Gen Ed Course (Re)Certification & Maintaining Status website.
Graduate College Resources (any courses with graduate credit)
For courses with graduate credit, please visit the Graduate College Handbook and join the Graduate College’s Canvas Toolkits and Training site, to access Recommendations for Syllabi and the Developing Graduate Programs and Courses.