Examples of Simple Syllabus Training for Faculty

[LEASUSAN]

Hey, Canvas Community!

Happy Monday! We're in the process of implementing Simple Syllabus, and I'm wondering if anyone is willing to share the training assets they made for their faculty re: Simple Syllabus and Canvas. Anyone have a deck or a presentation outline? Any tips or lessons learned?

Thanks!

-Lea

[Jeff_F · Accepted solution]

Hello @LEASUSAN - I hope you are having a great day of it! When we got going with Simple Syllabus our committee opted for some standard language (accessibility, plagiarism statements, all the laws, etc.) and locked that down into all the syllabi, and also opened up all the necessary editable areas for faculty to enter the objectives, required materials, grade scale, late policy, etc.

When we first went live use was required and we used Canvas Data to identify where Simple Syllabus was not visible on the menu and then used a flow to enable it in those courses. We also used CSS to rename 'Simple Syllabus' to 'Syllabus' and the Canvas 'Syllabus' tool to 'Summary'. And we disabled all the Summary pages.

Also, for training documentation, we created a set of six 1-2 minute Studio hosted screen recordings.  (I just noted that the team didn't create transcripts or closed captioning so I'll be following up with them on that.)

One trick I have to gathering examples of training documentation is to perform a web search using the following terms:

• "simple syllabus training file:.pptx site:.edu" 
• "simple syllabus training file:.pdf site:.edu"
• or omit the '.edu' to open it up to .com, etc.

Hope this helps!!

[Jeff_F · Accepted solution]

Hello @LEASUSAN - I hope you are having a great day of it! When we got going with Simple Syllabus our committee opted for some standard language (accessibility, plagiarism statements, all the laws, etc.) and locked that down into all the syllabi, and also opened up all the necessary editable areas for faculty to enter the objectives, required materials, grade scale, late policy, etc.

When we first went live use was required and we used Canvas Data to identify where Simple Syllabus was not visible on the menu and then used a flow to enable it in those courses. We also used CSS to rename 'Simple Syllabus' to 'Syllabus' and the Canvas 'Syllabus' tool to 'Summary'. And we disabled all the Summary pages.

Also, for training documentation, we created a set of six 1-2 minute Studio hosted screen recordings.  (I just noted that the team didn't create transcripts or closed captioning so I'll be following up with them on that.)

One trick I have to gathering examples of training documentation is to perform a web search using the following terms:

• "simple syllabus training file:.pptx site:.edu" 
• "simple syllabus training file:.pdf site:.edu"
• or omit the '.edu' to open it up to .com, etc.

Hope this helps!!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @LEASUSAN ...

We also have Simple Syllabus at our College.  I am only just over one year at my new position, and I have been learning a lot about Simple Syllabus.  (I still feel I don't know everything about it at times.)  Over the past year, I've been learning about the different roles, the templates, how to make editable vs. non-editable components in the Simple Syllabus documents, and other basic troubleshooting.  I've found that the SS support team is really helpful, and they typically respond within the hour whenever I send them a message (sometimes it is even sooner than that).  They are really good about understanding my questions and helping find a solution.  I know this site doesn't have a ton of questions listed, but it might be a helpful resource for you as a reference:

Instructor Experience – Simple Syllabus

Hope this helps in some way.