Making the Most of Technology in Your Course

Once you are in your Canvas course, you should see the “Simple Syllabus” link in the left white navigation bar, right under the “Home” link.  Click the link.

*If the Simple Syllabus link is not right below the Home link, it is probably lower in the navigation menu.  This also means that your course doesn’t have the ATS navigational template applied to it.  Contact the IDT team to have the navigation of your course reflect that standardized navigation across the institution.

This will take you to the Simple Syllabus pane in Canvas.  You have several options right away:

• Depending on whether or not you have submitted this syllabus yet will determine if you see the “complete” syllabus or if it will take you right to the edit interface.  In this picture we see the complete syllabus.  You could scroll down and review the syllabus at this point, or click the 9 square button in the upper left corner to access the table of contents and jump directly to a section.

• If you want to jump into editing the syllabus, you can click the “Edit syllabus” button which will take you to the edit interface.

• You can also check out the Student Engagement bar for the syllabus.  In the above image the whole bar is light blue, meaning that all of the students in the course have seen it.  If only part of the class had viewed it, the bar would be only partially light blue, based on the percentage of students that have viewed it.  If you hover over the bar, a semi-transparent box will pop up telling you the number of students that have viewed the syllabus. 

• You can also click the Student Engagement bar to bring up a pop-up window that lists all of the currently registered students, which ones have viewed the syllabus, how many times, and how recently.

If you have not worked on this syllabus yet, or you clicked the “Edit Syllabus” button, it will take you to the edit interface.  Here are a few options and details to pay attention to right away.

1. At any time, you can use the “Replace with a different syllabus?” tool to replace all of the editable content in the syllabus from a previous syllabus of your choosing.

2. You can also use the “Import” tool to import the content in specific editable sections from previous syllabi, or even from the syllabi of other faculty members at ATS.

3. The box at the top of the syllabus with the Asbury Seminary Seal and basic course information is un-editable and the information that is there is populated by the Registrar’s Office.  If you see any information in error, let your Dean’s assistant know and they should contact the Registrar’s Office to make any corrections.

4. If you are ready to begin editing your syllabus, you can scroll down and begin making changes where they are needed.

You will notice that throughout the syllabus there are editable sections and un-editable sections.  The un-editable sections will normally pertain to Asbury Seminary policies.

Once you have gone through your syllabus and made all necessary changes, scroll down to the bottom and click the “Submit” button.

*Simple Syllabus auto-saves your edits constantly, so there is no “save” button.  If you want to take a break from editing and come back to it, you can simply close the window and return later.

Once you have submitted your syllabus, it will be sent to your Dean’s Assistant for approval.  Until it is approved, it will not be available to students and you will not be able to make any more edits to it.  If you are submitting edits for a syllabus that has already been approved, you will only see the “old” syllabus until the edits have been approved.

And that’s it!  You’ve now mastered Simple Syllabus!!!