Simple Syllabus is a streamlined platform that simplifies creating syllabi, automates institutional policies, and boosts student engagement.
Simple Syllabus is an intuitive, web-based platform that integrates with Blackboard to streamline syllabus creation and management for instructors. By offering customizable, department-specific templates, instructors can quickly create and edit syllabi for each course while ensuring institutional policies are consistent and accurate.
Simple Syllabus and Blackboard from Simple Syllabus on Vimeo.
There are two ways to log into the Simple Syllabus platform:
For more information regarding how to get started and work within Simple Syllabus:
Simple Syllabus allows instructors to add content in two simple ways:
Simple Syllabus supports text, images, videos, and hyperlinks.
Simple Syllabus helps format and organize content into a stable, interactive syllabus. However, it does not evaluate content for subject matter, spelling, grammar, or writing conventions. Use the following tips to create content that is accessible, clear, and inclusive:
With Simple Syllabus, everyone benefits—students, instructors, and the university!
Creating engaging, informative syllabi should not be time consuming or difficult. Yet with complex syllabus templates and constantly changing policy information, this is often the case. Simple Syllabus helps instructors publish digital syllabi - quickly and easily - and provides a way of pushing updated University policies out to published syllabi. Content built for your course automatically carries over as a starting point, from term to term or even section to section if teaching multiple sections within a semester. Done actually means done when using Simple Syllabus since all syllabi are archived centrally—eliminating the need to upload and send files to different places and people across campus.
The Blackboard integration with Simple Syllabus allows instructors to pre-populate
their syllabus with
data to save time. This helps to eliminate redundant tasks. For example, updates to
assignment due dates or points entered into Blackboard can be automatically reflected
on the syllabus schedule (if the instructor chooses to enable this feature). Data
stored within Campus Connection, such as location, meeting times, and course description
are also dynamically linked within the syllabus, which reduces manual data entry.
Simple Syllabus gives instructors the power to build highly personalized, engaging
class syllabi by embedding web media such as images, video, audio, and more. Build
the syllabus once in Simple Syllabus and it generates a web, mobile, and print version
so your students can consume class information across multiple form factors. Instructors
don’t have to be accessibility experts to build content that is usable by all students.
Simple Syllabus
automatically optimizes the content for most screen readers and accessibility applications.
Have you ever wondered if a student has read your syllabus? Simple Syllabus can track student engagement, indicating who has looked at the syllabus, how many times, and how recently. Instructors can also leverage Simple Syllabus’ proprietary, Student Confirmation feature. Track the actual percentage of the syllabus that a student has read and prompt them upon successful completion to affirm success—all with detailed reporting of the class roster on the backend.
A syllabus is more than a document—it’s a contract between instructor and student. That’s why making it accessible to all learners is essential. Simple Syllabus is built with accessibility in mind, adhering to WCAG 2.1 AA standards to ensure content is inclusive and usable for every student, regardless of ability. With a built-in Accessibility Checker and helpful tools in the Rich Content Editor, instructors can easily address common accessibility issues like missing alt text, poor color contrast, and more.
The Simple Syllabus knowledge base is a great resource for additional information, offering a variety of helpful articles. [Note: You will need to create an account and login in order to access their articles and videos.] The Simple Academy also provides documentation and videos that you may find helpful.
For additional assistance, on the Simple Syllabus page, click on the question mark (?) icon to send a message directly to the product support team — or you can email support@simplesyllabus.com for help.
A team of Instructional Designers are available to provide assistance to instructors, administrators and staff. Whether you need to develop a full course or program, review and revise an existing course, or flip all or part of your course, Instructional Designers are there to help. They provide instructional design assistance for fully online, flipped, hybrid, blended and traditional face-to-face courses. If instructors have any questions or concerns about a course, they are available in person, over the phone, by email, or through web-conferencing tools.