29 Course Outlines and Course Syllabuses

Course Outlines

Course outlines contain important information about courses such as learning objectives/outcomes, content, learning activities, and assessment methods. In addition, they serve as legally binding documents between the institution and the students. Course outlines must undergo a detailed vetting process through University governance before courses are considered to be official.

All course outlines are found in CIM-Courses (CIM: Curriculum Inventory Management), the official internal source of all of KPU’s approved course outlines. CIM-Courses is maintained by the Office of the Registrar in cooperation with the University Secretariat and is a comprehensive and searchable list of all course outlines (current, archived, or discontinued) formalized at KPU.

Course Syllabus

The course syllabus is different from a course outline. A course syllabus must be completed by an instructor for each assigned section and must be provided to all students with specific information concerning required and optional texts and materials; evaluation criteria; the instructor’s expectations on late assignments, missed exams, and so on; tentative schedule of topics; and KPU’s policy on academic integrity. The course syllabus should also include the instructor’s office hours (1 hour for every 3 credit course) and office room number. You should also include your expectations on responses to an email message/voice mail message, turnaround time for the instructor on returning the student’s message, etc.

Policies that should be included in all course syllabuses :

• HR15 – Diversity and Inclusiveness
• ST2 – Student Academic Integrity
• ST7 – Student Conduct (Non-Academic)
• ST11 – Attendance and Participation in Courses (only in course syllabuses where this policy applies)
• SR14 – Sexual Violence and Misconduct

NOTE: Please include only the hyperlinks to these policies in your course syllabuses.