Synopsis
In structured Concourse environments, syllabi include twelve default items, or categories of content, that can be populated with syllabus language. The twelve default items and their order include:
- Meeting Times
- Contact Information
- Description
- Objectives
- Outcomes
- Materials
- Deliverables
- Evaluation
- Course Policies
- Institutional Policies
- Additional Items
- Schedule
Although your Concourse system will initially be set up with the default item names and order, you are able to make changes to meet your institution’s needs better.
Whether you choose to use the twelve default syllabus items, use fewer items by hiding items from viewers, or add a custom item to your syllabus design, it is possible to rename and reorder the items as they appear in your system. Note that the way items are named and their order is consistent across your system; for example, if your institution opts to rename and reorder Outcomes (item 5) to Student Learning Outcomes (item 7), it will appear as Student Learning Outcomes (item 7) on all syllabi in your system–it isn’t possible to give the same item multiple names or have it appear in different locations on different syllabi.
Key Terms
- Course: the artifact in Concourse that contains the syllabus.
- Syllabus: The main resource in a course in Concourse; the syllabus can be either structured or unstructured and contains course content, language, and policies.
- Template: a course whose syllabus contains standard item content that will be cloned (i.e., copied) into non-template (i.e., live/section) syllabi; instructors and students are typically not registered to templates.
- Non-template: a course in Concourse that matches a unique section offering at your institution; the non-template syllabus usually contains information cloned from a template. Instructors and students are typically registered to non-templates.
- Item: a category of related content in a syllabus; there are twelve default items in a Concourse syllabus.
- Sub-item: a “child” or sub-category of related content in a syllabus that is added to a specific “parent” item; for example, the item Evaluation has two sub-items: Criteria and Breakdown. Sub-items can be added to syllabi in multiples.
- Class Name: The name of an item in your Concourse system’s database. The name of the item in the database is not user-facing and does not change even if you change the name that presents to users.
- Pretty Name: The name of an item as it presents to users when viewing and editing the syllabus.
Important to this Decision
Before making decisions about how your institution uses Concourse, you should consider how stakeholders, systems, timelines, and other factors are impacted. Review the important elements below to be better prepared to make changes to your Concourse configuration or implementation.
Academic leaders and staff whose work is related to accreditation and compliance or the syllabus development process should be consulted when making this decision.
Since syllabus item names and order are consistent on all syllabi across your institution, it’s important to consider the syllabus needs of all your organizational units. For example, if your School of Nursing’s accrediting body requires that Deliverables be named Learning Assessments, then you should rename the item to meet this need, but be aware and communicate to academic stakeholders that the item will appear with this name on all syllabi in Concourse. Likewise, if there is another syllabus item that should appear on your syllabi but isn’t part of the default item structure, you may be better off renaming a default syllabus item and using it to meet your needs. For example, you may need an item called Course Rationale. Instead of adding a custom item to your syllabus, renaming Additional Items to Course Rationale is likely a better option.
This decision is typically made during the implementation phase. If changes are made to syllabus item names and order at any point of your Concourse usage, the changes appear on all syllabi in your system–past, current, and future–so it’s important that post-implementation changes be made thoughtfully. If changes are made down the line, it’s important to have a plan in place for archiving older syllabus versions in case that data is ever needed for review.
If your institution uses
Copy Feeds to push content from a source syllabus to a destination syllabus, it’s important to note that the item name in the Copy Feed file is the item’s Class Name, not its Pretty Name. Each row of a Copy Feed file identifies the item being copied, the external ID of the course where the item originates, and the external ID of the course where the item is being copied. For example, if you use a Copy Feed to push institutional policies to multiple non-templates, a row in the feed file might be:
InstitutionalPolicy|INST_TMPL|ENGL1001_22025.87758. As we can tell, that item is identified by its Class Name, “InstitutionalPolicy” even though on the syllabus it presents by a different name, such as “Institutional Services, Policies, and Procedures.”
To locate a map of Item Class Names and Pretty Names:
- A System Administrator navigates to Admin > System in the main navigation menu.
- Select “Review a map of Item Class and Pretty Names for feed construction and API use.”
- A table presents that matches each item’s Class Name (left column) with its Pretty Name (right column).
Determining the name and order of items in your Concourse system is an important step that occurs early in the implementation process. If you find that you need to change your syllabus design later, you can email
support@campusconcourse.com to initiate a request.
The way that syllabus items present to users should strive to:
- Reflect the language of your institution (What words do end users actually use when they talk about syllabus content?),
- Meet external expectations for syllabus design/content, including legislative and accreditation requirements, and
- Use default items thoughtfully to meet your needs without adding more items and complexity unnecessarily.
Choosing your syllabus design carefully leads to the consistent presentation of data and facility of use for end users. Making changes to your syllabus later on requires additional communication and training, additional engineering effort in your Concourse system, and administrative effort from your Concourse team to preserve previous syllabus versions; as a result, we encourage you to choose the best syllabus design possible to meet your needs and future-proof your system to prevent technical debt.
Configuration Options
Your institution’s decision about syllabus design will be informed by a number of factors, including external requirements, internal syllabus development protocols, and institutional vocabulary for syllabus items. Options for syllabus design include:
- Option A: Use the Default Syllabus Structure
- Option B: Use Fewer Syllabus Items (Hide Items with Initial Group Permissions)
- Option C: Use More Syllabus Items (Custom Item Development)
These options are mutually exclusive; however, it is possible to rename and reorder syllabus items to meet your institution’s needs regardless of the option you choose. If the choices below don’t fit your needs, reach out to Client Services for assistance.
- Approach: Once you indicate to Client Services how you would like the default syllabus items to be named and ordered in your system, Concourse Engineers will adjust your syllabus design as indicated in your sandbox environment. Your in-house Concourse team will review the design in the sandbox, and if it meets expectations, the syllabus design will be duplicated in the production environment. From this point, your attention turns to populating syllabus items on different template levels and training users how to engage appropriately.
- Better For: This is the most common approach used by Concourse institutions. The default item structure was designed to meet the majority of syllabus content requirements at higher education institutions, and so most of our client institutions find that renaming the default item structure to match institutional language about syllabi is an expedient and easy implementation.
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Using the Default Syllabus Structure: This approach is the fastest to implement and requires the least intervention on your Concourse Team’s part. An added benefit is that Concourse has Instructor Training Templates based on the default item structure that you can adapt to jumpstart your end user training. A minor disadvantage is that some of the data fields in the default item structure may not meet your needs or institutional language exactly, and so you may have to provide end users with additional guidance about what should appear in those fields to achieve consistent data presentation and reporting.
- Effort: This approach requires the least management and development effort on your part. After indicating your preferred item names and order and reviewing their appearance, your involvement with this aspect ends. Your syllabus design will remain the same unless you request changes. With this approach, you do not have to invest any additional time or effort in hiding items with group permissions or training users on custom items.
- Approach: This decision should be the result of several thoughtful conversations between your Concourse Team and Client Services to ensure that using fewer syllabus items is the best choice. Once you have arrived at this decision, you should inform Client Services how you would like the default syllabus items to be named and ordered in your system and which item you do not plan on using. Concourse Engineers will adjust your syllabus item names and order as indicated in your sandbox environment for your review. Simultaneously, a System Admin can practice setting Initial Group Permissions in the sandbox to hide the extraneous item from all users. Once the sandbox meets expectations, these moves can be duplicated in the production environment and your attention turns to populating syllabus items on different template levels and training users how to engage appropriately.
- Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that have fewer required syllabus content categories or that wish to limit the amount or type of content added to syllabi. For example, an institution might be satisfied with using eleven of the twelve default categories and find the final category to be extraneous or distracting to end users. In that case, hiding the item is a good choice.
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Fewer Syllabus Items: By hiding extraneous syllabus items, your institution is removing items that could be unnecessary or distracting to end users. This approach requires minimal manual intervention on a System Admin’s part to manage group permissions. The time investment in setting group permissions may be worthwhile, however, if your institution later decides that another syllabus item is needed after all. The decision to hide a syllabus item can be easily undone without requesting custom item development, thus saving you time and money.
- Effort: This approach requires minimal management effort on your part. If you decide to use fewer than the twelve default syllabus items in your system, a System Admin will need to adjust Initial Group Permissions to hide the item(s) from all users. This can be done by setting the item permission to None for each user group.
- Approach: This decision should be the result of several thoughtful conversations between your Concourse Team and Client Services to ensure that using additional syllabus items is the best choice. Once you have arrived at this decision, you should inform Client Services how you would like the default syllabus items to be named and ordered in your system and then arrange to meet with the Product Team to start discussing and developing your custom item. After items have been renamed, reordered, and developed in your sandbox environment, your Concourse team will provide feedback or approve the syllabus design, and the design will be reproduced in your production environment. Once your syllabus design is set to meet your needs, your attention turns to populating syllabus items on different template levels and training users how to engage appropriately.
- Better For: This option is used by institutions that have very rigorous and specific accreditation and/or legislation requirements that exceed the default syllabus structure. Due to the additional cost and effort involved in developing custom items, this is an approach that is not feasible for the majority of Concourse institutions.
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Using More Syllabus Items: While it may seem advantageous to have a custom item developed to support very specific needs, there are some significant drawbacks. For example, Concourse does not support custom item feeds, so it is not possible to populate the custom item via Item Feed–it must be manually populated. Likewise, Concourse does not have training templates for custom items, and we do not develop training for custom items, so all training materials related to custom items must be made by your Concourse team. A more practical deterrent to custom item development is the cost of said development; estimates for custom item development vary but may be in the range of thousands of dollars.
- Effort: This approach requires the most effort in terms of development and management. Adding custom syllabus items requires your Concourse stakeholders to meet with the Concourse Product Team, followed by a review of a Statement of Work that outlines the scope of item development, testing and approval of the prototype item in your Concourse sandbox, and finally duplication of the custom item in your production environment. Development of custom items typically takes four to six weeks from start to finish.
Post-Decision Changes
Your institution’s needs may change over time and you may need to make changes to your configuration settings. In other words, the configuration decisions you make during the implementation phase might not be as efficient five or ten years afterward. Review the guidance below to better understand how changing this particular decision may affect your Concourse system or deployment in the future.
- Be aware that changes to item names and order in your Concourse system are applied system-wide. In other words, historical syllabi will be impacted by this change. If older versions of syllabi need to be preserved before item names and/or order are changed, use the Bulk Download tool to create PDF copies of syllabi in their current state.
- Email support@campusconcourse.com to initiate a request to change your syllabus design.
- Work with Team Concourse to review proposed changes in your sandbox and then production environment.
- Communicate the change in design and any changes in expectations to high-level users and end users.
- Update all training materials to reflect the new appearance of your syllabus design.
- Generate an Item Report of templates and non-templates in your system to determine how widely the item is used.
- Based on the data in the Item Report, you may find that the item was used appropriately in the past and should not be made unavailable on past syllabi, only future syllabi. If you choose to hide the item on past and current syllabi:
- Confirm whether those syllabi need to be preserved in their current state before hiding the item.
- If past syllabi should be preserved, use the Bulk Download tool to create PDF copies of syllabi in their current state.
- Change the item’s Group Permissions en Masse to None for all groups on past and current syllabi.
- If you choose to hide the item on future syllabi, change the item’s Initial Group Permissions to None for all groups.
- Communicate the change in design and any changes in expectations to high-level users and end users.
- Update all training materials to reflect the new appearance of your syllabus design.
If you previously made a default syllabus item inaccessible through Group Permissions and want to begin using the item:
- Adjust Initial Group Permissions to View or Edit as appropriate for each user group.
- Communicate the change in design and any changes in expectations to high-level users and end users.
- Guide users on where the item should be added (template level or live syllabi) and what content should be included.
- Update all training materials to reflect the new appearance of your syllabus design.
If you are making use of all default syllabus items and would like to request the development of a new custom item:
- Reach out to Team Concourse to determine whether a custom item is really needed for your use case or if an existing syllabus item might be put to better use.
- If it is determined that a custom item is needed, request a meeting with the Product Team to initiate a discussion about development efforts, timeline, and estimated cost.
- Review all prototypes and provide feedback or approval as necessary.
- Work with Client Services to process resulting fees.
- Communicate the change in design and any changes in expectations to high-level users and end users.
- Guide users on where the item should be added (template level or live syllabi) and what content should be included.
- Update all training materials to reflect the new appearance of your syllabus design.
Before making a decision about your institution’s syllabus design, you should be familiar with some related issues and contexts. See the following articles for more information:
- Learn more about the default Syllabus Items.
- Think about how your syllabus design intersects with Designing Course Templates to meet institutional needs for disseminating content.
- To discuss additional syllabus items, a conversation with Team Concourse is the best start; in the meantime, you can review some possible options in Item Customization if you aren’t sure how custom items are used.
Tell Us About Your Experience
Did this article answer your question? If you made a decision like this for your Concourse instance, let us know how it turned out. If we missed something in this article or if you have a question that isn’t addressed in our Knowledge Base, let us know how we can help by reaching out to
support@campusconcourse.com.