Course Syllabi Resources

The distribution of a course information sheet or syllabus is required for all university undergraduate courses and is strongly recommended for graduate courses. The syllabus itself is a statement of intent and serves as an implicit agreement between the instructor and the student that covers policies and expectations for the course. This guide highlights useful resources and recommendations for creating and distributing your syllabi. 

Creating a Syllabus

ASU’s Policies

All course syllabi should contain the elements and policies outlined in ASU policy ACD 304-10 Course Syllabus. Visit the Provost’s Syllabus Guidelines page to learn more about the requirements. 

Getting Started 

To get you started with creating your syllabus, the Teaching and Learning Center has developed a syllabus template as well as a content checklist.  

• SOLS Syllabus Template: The template contains policies and information required by ASU as well as common language to help standardize syllabi across the School of Life Sciences. Areas of the syllabus highlighted in yellow need to be customized for your class.
   
• SOLS Syllabus Checklist: The content checklist is intended to help you ensure that your syllabus is robust and meets all the minimum requirements.

Distributing Your Syllabus

All syllabi should be uploaded to your courses and distributed to students prior to the first day of class. It is important that you communicate to your students the expectations for how and when they will attend class and the technical requirements before you meet for the first time.

Uploading to Canvas

ASU requires that syllabi are made available to students during the first week of classes. Sharing your syllabus using the Syllabus page in Canvas is the easiest way to ensure students have access to your course syllabus online.

There are two primary ways to utilize the Syllabus in Canvas:

• Create your syllabus directly on the Syllabus page
• Embed or attach a pdf copy of your syllabus to the Syllabus page

Uploading to MyASU

The syllabus for your courses should also be up-to-date and made available to students 2 week prior to term start through the faculty tools in your MyASU.

Once uploaded, any students who are enrolled in your course will have easy access to your syllabus as it will display on their MyASU accounts next to the course details. See how to upload your syllabus to MyASU. 
 

Changing Your Syllabus Mid-Semester

We discourage changing the syllabus once the course has started; however, we recognize that issues arise that require some adjustments. Our SOLS syllabus template has a general disclaimer allowing for such adjustments.

Resources

Visit the provost's website on Learning Expectations for the most updated information on syllabus templates and more.