July 2023
In This Edition:
- Managing Your Syllabi Matters
- Syllabi in the Sky
- Concourse on the Road - DLA Conference
- Feature Highlight - Tiered Templates
Managing Your Syllabi Matters
The syllabus is a combination roadmap, rulebook, scorecard, and contract for your course, providing students the information they need to plan for success. But many institutions still don’t have a great process for managing this vital document. We’re hoping this monthly email will get you thinking about syllabi - from process to product - in new ways, while also showing you how a dedicated syllabus platform like Concourse will save you time and effort and create better results for you and your students.
You can expect something a little different each month - from feature highlights and syllabi in the news to client stories and milestones. We’ll also explore other topics in the fast changing landscape of higher education. We hope you’ll join the conversation and let us know if something you read here gets your thoughts flowing!
Syllabi in the Sky
Colleges and universities almost universally require syllabi. But what about other kinds of schools? Flying magazine recently published an article encouraging CFIs - Certified Flight Instructors - to create syllabi for their courses, even though it’s not always required.
“Would you pay thousands of dollars for a class and invest hundreds of hours if you didn’t know what material was going to be covered, or when the quizzes and tests were, and what was considered a passing grade?” asks Meg Godlewski, an aviation journalist. All of that - and other important information - is vital for every student, regardless of the topic or the setting. Throughout the article, she and other aviation professionals highlight the benefits of a great syllabus and even provide advice on how to structure a syllabus and what to include.
Syllabus use is growing in K12, trade schools, and even corporate training. It’s great to see professionals outside of traditional higher education broadening the conversation about their importance and best practices. You can read more in the original article below!
Concourse on the Road - Distance Learning Administration (DLA) Conference
Concourse on the Road - Distance Learning Administration (DLA) Conference
Photo: Jekyll Island Club Resort, Judson McRanie. Used under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license
Concourse is on course to Jekyll Island, GA for the Distance Learning Administration (DLA) Conference THIS MONTH! We'll see you there on July 23-26, 2023.
We're trying something new for this conference this year. Instead of camping out in the exhibitor hall, we’ll be introducing a fun game called “Where’s Will?” Will Folden, our Director of Marketing and Communications, will be attending sessions and generally wandering around the beautiful Jekyll Island club. The first few people to find him each day and talk about syllabi at your institution will win one of our famous "It's on the syllabus" shirts! Turn on our "post notifications" to receive live updates during the conference for hints about Will's location. Just click on the bell icon on our LinkedIn page!
Feature Spotlight - Tiered Templates
Feature Spotlight - Tiered Templates
Nothing is more frustrating than having to update hundreds or even thousands of syllabi one by one due to a small change like an updated URL or a new policy. And nothing is worse than syllabi with outdated information because someone didn’t get the memo about using a new template or swapping in the new course description. With Concourse’s tiered templates, you’ll never have to worry about either of these scenarios again.
Tiered templates let you enter or update information that’s shared across groups of syllabi once, and that information flows down to lower level templates or is cloned when new syllabi are created. Combined with permission settings and our copy tools, you can ensure that the vital information on all of your syllabi is current and up-to-date and prevent accidental changes and other mistakes. Check out our feature page to learn more about templates and all of the other reasons we say Concourse is syllabus management done right.
