Course Syllabus

Course Number, Title, and Section (i.e. CIOS 150 Computer Business Applications TE1)
Instructor: / Type your name here.
Contact Information: / Type contact info. here.
Comments/Suggestions: Provide information for students to contact you outside of class time, i.e. e-mail, phone number, and other ways to contact you.
Office Hours: / Type office hours/policy here.
Comments/Suggestions: As an adjunct instructor you are required to provide some form of out of class assistance. You are not required to hold specific office hours, but you should provide the option for students to schedule an appointment outside of class time to meet with you. You may decide to only use e-mail as your means of offering out of class assistance. However you decide to handle this it must be clearly stated and you need to honor whatever commitments you make to your students.
Inform students when they should expect to receive a response to e-mail messages. For example, either let students know they can expect a response within a certain amount of time of the e-mail being sent, say 48 hours; or let them know that you have reserved a certain day to respond to email messages, say Friday afternoons. It doesn’t really matter how you choose to address this (within reason), what is most important is that you clearly state your policy and stick to it.
Course Dates and Meeting Times: / Type the beginning and ending dates, meeting day(s) and times here
Course Description:
Type your description here.
Comments/Suggestions: Provide a brief description of the course and topics covered within the course. This description should more accurately reflect the actual topics and skills you plan to cover than the generic description located within the Course Competencies Web page. (www.tvc.uaf.edu/mssp/comps.htm)p
Skill Expectations:
Go to the Course Competencies Web page (www.tvc.uaf.edu/its/), select the course competency page that corresponds to the course you are teaching and cut and paste the Skill Expectations paragraph and insert it here. Also feel free to list any additional expectations you have as instructor for your class.
Comments/Suggestions: List what skills you expect the students to already have prior to the start of class. If a student does not have these skills and they choose to remain in the class, you need to let the students know that it will be their responsibility to acquire these skills on their own—you can provide them guidance and point them to resources, but it is not fair to the rest of the students in the class for you to spend class time on these topics. See the class competencies Web page for stated recommended prerequisites (www.tvc.uaf.edu/mssp/comps.htm).

Course Objectives

At the completion of this course, with appropriate study, you will be able to:
·  Type the course objectives here.
Comments/Suggestions: This section lists the skills and knowledge a student can expect to acquire through your class. This is different than the Skill Expectations section because this section identifies the skill a student can expect to learn, whereas the Skill Expectation section identifies the prerequisite skill you expect the student to have prior to the start of class. You can refer to the more generic Course Competencies Web page to help guide you, however, the objectives you list here should correspond to specific skills and concepts you expect successful students to possess upon the completion of your class.

Class Text book, Materials and Resources

Required Textbook(s):
Recommended Textbook(s):
Class Web Site:
Comments/Suggestions: List any required textbook, materials, Web sites, or other class resources that are required or recommended
Grading Policy:
Type your grading policy here.
Comments/Suggestions: You must be clear here. This section should be detailed enough to answer the question, “What do I have to do to get an A in this class.” or a B, or C, etc.
Briefly list assignments, and the points or percentage of final grade associated with each assignment.
Include a table similar to the example below. If you are calculating your grades based on points or some other method, you can substitute the point ranges that equate to an A, B, C, D, or F in place of the percentage ranges. The key is that you have clearly state to the student what they must do to earn a given grade in your class.
A / 100 – 90%
B / 89 – 80%
C / 79 – 70%
D / 69 – 60%
F / Below 60%

Assignments

Type assignment descriptions and due dates here.
Comments/Suggestions: The more detailed and pre-planned you can get the better. Your students will appreciate this because a high degree of detail helps them plan for the semester and tends to alleviate a lot of anxiety less confident students may have in taking your class. Secondly, you will benefit from a high level of detail because it creates a pre-planned road map for you to follow during the semester.
The “make it up as you go” philosophy tends to lead to confused students and a lot of scrambling at the last minute as you get ready for class.
Also, be cautious of making changes to your assignments during the middle of the semester. There will be time when you need to do this, but it should be done with a considerable amount of thought and should include input from students prior to making any changes.
Remember there is nothing more frustrating as having the “rules” suddenly change in the middle of the game.
The below two paragraphs should be included on your class syllabus. Please do not delete or change them.

Academic Honesty

Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and may result in failure on exams, papers, projects, or courses. The entire purpose of this class is to acquire useful skills. To cheat is to lose the opportunity to acquire skills.

Program Specific Information

Some programs have information that they would like to see consistently represented on every syllabus; for example the degree and certificate students within the Information Technology Specialist (ITS) program must pass a certification review before graduating. Each class the students are enrolled in during their program will help contribute towards the passing of this review; therefore it would desirable for students to receive a consistent message on every syllabus related to their degree program. An example is provided below:

ITS Certification Review

If you are a degree or certificate student within the Information Technology Specialist (ITS) program go to the review the Certification Review Task List to see how this course articulates with the portfolio you must submit to the certification review committee in the final semester of your program. Go to the TVC ITS web page at www.tvc.uaf.edu/its for specific information regarding Certification Review.

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Class Schedule

Week No / Class Date / Topic Covered / Assignments Due Dates and
Test Dates
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Comments/Suggestions: As mentioned within the assignments area above, the more detailed and pre-planned you can be the better. Students truly do appreciate and deserve clarity. Taking the time to pre-plan your semester will provide clarity for your students and will ultimately save you time during the semester.

Once you have created your schedule, stick to it. Students are arranging their schedule based on the schedule you outline at the beginning of the semester. There may be times when you need to do this, but it should be done with a considerable amount of thought and should include input from students prior to making any changes.

Remember there is nothing more frustrating as having the “rules” suddenly change in the middle of the game.

Please understand that these are only suggestions. As the instructor of your course, you need to have the flexibility to make adjustments to your course (schedule, assignments, etc.) so that you are able to meet the needs of your students. The key thing to remember is to work with your students when you find it necessary to make a change or adjust the class schedule—students should not have to be guessing as to what is happening next in your class.

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