It is nearly time for the holiday break, but this means it is also the time to prepare for next semester (at least for those of us who work in higher education). Some students have already asked to see my syllabus for next semester in order to make the decision of whether to take the class or not. I guess I would want to know what they are looking for before I evaluated what I think of such requests.
I just finished a piece for our resource site, describing how I would use our site if I wanted to incorporate some of the resources and I was using a different textbook or no textbook. I suggest that instructors now commonly piece together resources that might involve chapters from a traditional textbook and online content that supplements the content in the book chapters assigned. I happen to think this is the publishing model of the near future, but the focus in this post is on how to offer this set of expectations to students.
I like the idea of an online syllabus for several reasons. It allows me to make adjustments in course expectations as I go – this does require that students recognize the online syllabus as the official version for the course. Digital natives or not, I have trouble getting them not to print off a syllabus I tell them may change and then must deal with them looking only at the printed document. I also like the online syllabus because it can link students directly to the online resources I want them to review.
Commercial course management systems (e.g., Blackboard) typically have tools for building such online documents, but there is always Google Sites or similar free online tools for web site construction. Here is an example built with the Google tool.
