Course Builder Syllabus Overview

The Syllabus Editor provides an organized overview of the course. The outline of the syllabus is in the column on the left and the syllabus is built and edited in the middle pane.

For each course, users need to be specified. There are three different user roles, each has different levels of editing access.

You can identify in which role you are viewing a course by selecting the gear menu in the header bar and looking at the “Viewing as” list. A checkmark will indicate in which role you are viewing the course. Only reviewers (and admins) can publish a course to Forum.

Users can be added by reviewers for a specific course or administrators. To do so, in the Syllabus Editor open the gear menu in the header bar and choose “Show people and roles”.

In the “Roles and Info” pop-up, users can be added by hovering to the right of all other specified users for a specific role and choosing “Add”.

Begin typing the name of the user to be added until a list of names is automatically generated. If a user’s name does not appear in the drop down list, the user may not have an account set up in Course builder (please contact helpdesk@minervaproject.com).

Add Course Objectives (COs) and Learning Outcomes (LOs) in the “Course Objectives & Learning Outcomes” section of the syllabus. Once added here, these will populate the drop down menus wherever LOs can be tagged (e.g., lesson plans, grading, assignments).

First add a CO by selecting “Add a new course objective.”

Once a CO is added, you can add LOs under each CO by selecting “Add a new learning outcome”. To edit previously added LOs or COs hover over the LO or CO and select the pencil icon on the right hand side, which will open the editing box for that specific LO or CO. If your program uses LOs that can be assessed across courses (Global learning Outcomes, GLOs), you will be able to automatically pull in the correct information for that LO if it is already listed in the Outcome Index. Just start typing the LO name and it should be selectable in the dropdown. Otherwise, you will have to enter all LO information as in the screenshot below.

To add rubrics to course specific LOs (i.e., not GLOs), select “Show all rubrics” from under the title of the section (above the entered COs), this will allow you to view the rubrics for all LOs. The initial rubrics are the generic mastery rubrics with a 1-5 scale used by Minerva Schools. These can be modified by editing the text of each rubric to reflect each specific LO.

As you tag LOs in lesson plans and assignments, a tally of those tags will be featured next to each LO. Hover over a tally checkmark to see the specific lesson plans or assignments in which that LO was tagged.

If textbooks are required for a course and will be assigned reading for more than one lesson plan, add them to the “Required texts” section of the syllabus.

Modify the way that course scores are calculated in the “Course Score Calculation” section on the syllabus page. In Course Builder you can select to calculate course scores by Assessment Type or by Course Objectives. For Assessment Type calculations, you can allocate a percentage to each assignment and to different types of in class assessments (e.g., pre-class work, poll responses). For Course Objective course score calculations, the course score is calculated by averaging the LO scores within each Course Objective (CO), and then averaging across the COs.

To edit the Course Score Calculation, select “Edit” at the bottom of the section.

Add course policies that are specific to your course in the last text box of the syllabus page.

To add an image (e.g., a grading scale as a table) select the camera icon on the right hand side and upload an image from your computer (jpg or png).

NOTE: Administrators may also add policies at the course type or institutional level that will then be automatically added to any syllabus PDF.

Add units and lesson plans to the syllabus in the “Schedule of Topics and Readings” section of the syllabus. Confirm the number of class meetings per week is correct.

Add units to the syllabus by selecting “Add a new unit,” at the bottom of all existing lesson plans. A pop-up will prompt you to enter the unit title, unit number (for ordering the units), and a brief description. You can also clone a unit from another course by selecting the “Clone from existing unit” box in the upper right of the popup. If cloning, you will be prompted to identify the semester, course and unit to be cloned. The cloned unit will import all aspects of the original unit including lesson plans, readings, learning outcomes, etc.

Once a unit is added, add lesson plans by selecting “Add a new lesson plan” at the bottom of all existing lesson plans under a unit heading.

To add a lesson plan, specify:

Once a lesson plan has been added to the syllabus, Learning Outcomes and readings can be added to the lesson plan (see the next section).

Add readings, resources and LOs to a lesson plan in the Syllabus Editor. These items are not editable in the lesson plan editor, so any edits or additions must be made within the Syllabus Editor.

Add LOs to a lesson plan: Select “Attach a Learning Outcome” and then choose a LO from the drop down list. This drop down list is populated from the LOs added at the top of the syllabus. Select whether the LO is to be introduced on that day or is continued from a previous session.

Save your changes to add the LO, which will also be tallied in the Learning Outcomes list near the beginning of the syllabus.

Add readings to a lesson plan:

To edit LOs or readings for a lesson plan, hover over the specific reading or LO and select the pencil icon on the right hand side to open the editing box for that specific LO or reading. To delete, select the “x” to the right of the pencil icon.