Accessing your syllabus

An Instructor (or editor) may access and edit syllabi would be directly from the institution’s Learning Management System (LMS), such as Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace, Moodle etc. When working in your school’s LMS look for the Simple Syllabus link in your course navigation menu.

Editing syllabus components

Once in the publisher, you will see your syllabus broken down into components, or groups of information. You may have the ability to edit certain components within the syllabus while other elements may be locked – these are settings defined by the system administrator at your campus.  Of the editable components, some might be required while others are optional. Required components will be outlined in orange and say ‘required’ in the bottom left corner, and they must have content input into them in order for the syllabus to be submitted.

Five syllabus component types

Components that you are able to edit will have one of five types of input boxes for you to work with:

• ContentComponent — The most common component type for updating syllabi, the content component allows you to add or edit rich text within the document through a web-based word processing software. With Simple Syllabus, you can create your content from scratch or copy and paste from a desktop application such as Microsoft Word. Within a content component you will have the ability to take advantage of several key features: https://sandiego.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=06af312f-dfbb-4937-8b40-b0190138f4c4
  • Styling – The online editing tool gives users the ability to style components in a variety of ways including justification, highlights such as bold, italics, or underline, style tags such as heading, paragraph, or preformatted, and indentation. By applying style tags to your content it will inherit the branding elements such as font, color, and size associated with that tag for your institution.
  • Lists – The online editing tool supports both bulleted and numbered lists within the syllabus.
  • Tables – Users can quickly create complex tables within Simple Syllabus using the table feature. Similar to features contained in Microsoft Word users can apply shading, merge cells, modify borders, determine length, and more.
  • Images and video –  Users are able to add images and videos to content components by uploading from their device or providing a URL.
  • Dynamic Blocks – A proprietary feature to Simple Syllabus, dynamic blocks automatically populate variable data into your syllabus from your SIS without manual intervention from a user. You might use dynamic blocks to inject the course title, day/time and location of your class, or any other data point that is being imported into Simple Syllabus from your SIS. 

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Objective Component — Objective components allow you to input course learning objectives. For users with the ability to edit learning objectives, you will see a button labeled “Add Learning Objective”. By clicking this button you will have the ability to add a learning objective. Learning objectives can be re-ordered by using the drag and drop functionality within the publisher interface.
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Material Component— Material components define what items a student needs when preparing for your course. The material component editing interface exists in two forms:

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Material Wizard – Integrated with Google, you simply need to begin typing the name, author, ISBN, or any other detail about a textbook you are looking for and the Simple Syllabus software will retrieve all data on that textbook as well as a thumbnail to include in the syllabus.

Material Manual Update – An easy to use web form you can enter the name, author, ISBN, and description for a textbook that you require as part of your class. With the manual update option, you can also add additional material types such as a calculator, computer, or another piece of equipment. There are no limits to the number of materials that can be set up for a class. Materials can be reordered within the section through the drag and drop functionality within the publisher interface

• Instructor Component — Instructor components populate with instructor information for each instructor assigned to the section. The fields that make up an instructor component (Name, Email, Phone, etc.) are predefined by your administrators at the template level. Some information might be pre-populated if it is coming from your campus SIS or if you have manually input it onto your user profile, but others might be empty. To edit the fields, click the pencil icon to the left of the instructor information, and when you are done inputting information click Save. To add information for an additional instructor, click the pencil icon to the left of “Add new” at the top of the component. If there are multiple instructors, they can be reordered using the drag and drop functionality within the publisher interface.
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• Schedule Component — The schedule component is a grid-based, drag-and-drop component that gives you the ability to easily input class activities and assignments. The schedule component is comprised of columns, which are configured at the template level by your system admins, and rows, with each row being a schedule item.
  
  • Syncing with Canvas or Brightspace (D2L): To pull activities and assignments into your schedule component from Canvas or Brightspace, click the sync icon (the circular arrows) on the righthand side of the component. The sync will automatically occur. Note: If you manually edit a cell in Simple Syllabus, it will lose its connection with Canvas and will no longer sync. All edits should be made in Canvas if you are using the synchronization feature.
  • Manually Adding new schedule items: To add a new item to your schedule component, click “Add new item”. You will then be prompted to input the associated information for the activity/event. Click ‘Save’ to add your schedule item after inputting info into all required fields. 
  • Reordering schedule items: To reorder an item, simply click and drag the item to the new desired position. 
  • Editing schedule items: To edit an existing schedule item, click the pencil icon inline with the item, on the righthand side of the component. 
  • Deleting schedule items: To delete a row from your schedule, click the trashcan icon inline with the item, on the righthand side of the component. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.
  • Recovering a Deleted Row: To recover a row that was previously deleted, check the box labeled ‘Show Deleted’. Select the clock icon on the righthand side for the row you wish to replace onto your syllabus.

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Importing content from another syllabus

There are several ways to complete edits on a syllabus. Because syllabi are tied to a specific academic term, and in many cases, Instructors are assigned to the same course sections from term to term, some institutions have it set for Instructors’ syllabi to automatically import from the previous term. Overall, there are three different ways to import content in Simple Syllabus.

• Auto-Import: This is an import setting that may be enabled by your institution’s system administrators. This setting automatically imports content into an instructor’s syllabus. If enabled, you may notice that when editing a particular syllabus that there is content present from a previously submitted syllabus. This setting imports content directly from a previously submitted syllabus of the same course and instructor. If you prefer to start from a different syllabus than the one that auto-imported, you can click the ‘Replace with a different syllabus?’ button at the top of the publisher to search for and import the syllabus of your choosing. 
• Quick-Import: Whether or not auto-import is enabled at your institution, you can still choose to import content from any of your previously submitted syllabi by clicking on the ‘Replace with a different syllabus?’ button at the top of the publisher. After clicking, you will then be able to filter syllabi by term or by doing a general keyword search. Simply click on the syllabus you would like to copy to begin your import.

• Full-Import Tool: If your system administrators have enabled this particular import feature, you are able to import content from any other syllabus that is included in your school’s Syllabus Library. If this feature is enabled, you will see an “Import” icon on the lefthand side of the publisher. For instructions on how to use this particular feature, please see our article on ‘Using the ‘Full-Import’ Tool’.

Save and Submit 

All changes made to your syllabus will be automatically saved, but not published. After all required components have been completed, you will be able to submit and publish your syllabus by clicking ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the syllabus. If the submit button is greyed out and not active, you may want to review your syllabus and ensure all required fields have been completed, otherwise, you will be unable to submit.