Syllabus Placement

Sue.T.179

Where do you guys all have instructors place their syllabi? We are using the Course Overview area because we want to be able to put a link directly to the course syllabus in the global navbar and that was an easy option. But are starting to run into issues with it not being visible on Pulse and Yuja Panorama can't check that area. We are trying to see if there are better solutions out there. Any ideas?

Yildiz.N.829

We have switched to the New Content Experience for online courses so instructors create a "Start Here: Syllabus, Course Resources etc." Unit that contains the syllabus and other course administrative documents. On the homepage, they use a widget with a Quicklink that directly links to the syllabus, so it is accessible with one click for students.

I wish the New Content Experience had an option like Course Overview so that the syllabus always stays put at the top of the Content area and doesn't require clicking on a Unit to open the document.

goran.m.816

We have a link on the homepage in our SDSU Getting Started Widget and lands in the first Content module (e.g., some instructors name this m

odule Module 0, Week 1, Course resources)

Marty.M.796

Our team also use a Course Information (module in content)

There are many advantages of not using the overview area. Luckily one advantage is that if it's not used, students won't see it.

Using content allows you to

1. leverage all the content stats, completion tracking which helps students and faculty understand IF or HOW MANY TIMES users have referenced material in the Course Information Module.
2. As its in content there are full support for all the Release conditions
3. As its in content you can leverage HTML Templates
4. As its in content you can have as many documents as you want
5. There are many more API routes for content objects
6. There are many more dataset options for content objects

Using content module/topic instead of overview provides your teams with much more flexibility and most importantly - usage information.
Hope this helps

Mary.C.485

We also put this in our content. We deploy a module template that includes a module info and assessment info folder where lecturers can add their syllabus information.

Some include a link to the full module guide/syllabus in that top folder as well, though we are trying to move away from pdf versions and encourage lecturers to use html pages to provide that information to students.

Students like the user-friendly approach of the html pages, though we have had some feedback preferring a pdf as it's easier to print!

Bonnie.P.537

We are just implementing Brightspace at Antioch and we are putting a Module called Syllabus in the Content Area. We are using the Classic Content Experience and will be implementing Simple Syllabus soon, which I am very Excited about. Il is a Syllabus Management Tool that can be added to an LMS.

@Yildiz.N.829 I am very interested in why you switched to the New Content Experience. There is another thread where we would like to hear about the Pros and Cons of the NCE vs Classic for Higher Education, in particular.

Sue.T.179

@goran.m.816 How do you direct link the first module if it is a module the instructors create?

That is our biggest hurdle with moving it anywhere other than the Overview. We don't want to give up our navbar link that takes students directly to the syllabus.

Yildiz.N.829

@Bonnie.P.537 We switched because students were getting lost in the course material and overwhelmed by the amount of information that would pop up, especially when instructors had multiple submodules. The beauty of NCE is that they can click on one item and only the content of that one item shows up, thereby reducing cognitive overload. The light gray of the classic content also didn't allow students to clearly see where they were; and, while the breadcrumbs and arrows are helpful in keeping students on track, when know that learning is not linear and students want to access different parts of a lesson without having to backtrack through multiple pages. We've had positive feedback from students and faculty saying that the NCE is more modern looking and accessible. Also, the practical aspect that NCE is getting all the updates, while Classic Content isn't really pushed us in that direction. Students love the newer updates like being able to complete assessments in NCE without leaving the Content area and faculty can now edit and view completion statistics there as well.

Bonnie.P.537

@Yildiz.N.829 Thank you for that detail. here are the reasons we chose Classic (in 2023). If any of these things have been addressed or you don't find them an issue, I'd love to know.

• Classic modules allow students to entirely control navigation, and show the number of items that still need to be completed in each section. Students can also page through content using arrows.
  • New modules always show the first page and assume that students will page through in order every time. It is possible to access a menu to jump to the first page of a different sub-section, but only completion of an entire sub-sections is marked as complete, rather than marking individual items as complete.
• Overall LMS and course navigation disappears in the New modules, which is expected to be disorienting to many students.
• Classic modules allow complex content that is more than 2 levels deep - New modules do not.
• Classic modules allow bookmarking of content so students can easily jump to where they left off or content that they know they want to revisit later.

Sincerely,

Bonnie