In order to review a course proposal and to evaluate the structure and workload of the course, the Columbia College—General Studies Committee on Instruction (COI) must be provided with a proposed syllabus that is in a relatively final version. The COI is interested in seeing how the syllabus will convey to undergraduate students the expected work for the course, the expected schedule for that work, and the expected policies governing that work.

Instructors are encouraged to design their courses to be inclusive and accessible for all students. The Center for Teaching and Learning provides a Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia and offers a variety of resources for faculty to help them understand the importance of universal design and to help them create inclusive classes.

If you have questions about developing a course or structuring a syllabus for an undergraduate course, please contact Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs of Columbia College, and Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs of the School of General Studies, at cc-gs-courses@columbia.edu.

The COI expects that the syllabus for a course open to undergraduate students will include the following components:

Introductory information

• General information about the course, including course title, term taught, class days/times, classroom location, course format (e.g., lecture, seminar, language, laboratory, etc.), and number of points for the course

• Information about the instructor, including instructor name, email address, office location, days/times of weekly office hours*
  
  *From the University's Faculty Handbook published by the Provost Office:
  "Faculty should hold regular office hours during the academic term that are clearly communicated to students. Faculty are also expected to be available to advise students during registration and the final examination period following the end of classes."

Course description

• ​The course description should convey to students the intellectual goals of the course -- e.g., the rationale for the course, the guiding questions for the course, the general content of the course.

• A course description could also suggest to students why the content and form of the course will matter to them in their current roles as students and in their current and future roles beyond the University -- in other words, why would students want to take this course?

• A course description can identify the groups of students who might be particularly interested in and/or well-suited for the course -- e.g., students from all disciplines or all years; advanced students or declared majors; students interested in particular fields of study.

• If the course has prerequisite or corequisite requirements, that information should be clearly stated in the course description.

• The course description on the syllabus could be the same as the course description for the Bulletin, or it could provide even more detail.

Goals for student learning

• ​​All syllabi should include a list and/or description of the goals for student learning in the course.

• The learning goals should articulate the specific skills, knowledge or attributes that students should be able to demonstrate after successfully completing the course.

• These learning goals will not only help students to better understand the content and the pedagogical approach of the class, but they can also aid you in designing your course requirements (assignments, exams, and activities) that will reflect student learning in the course, and they will help you think about what you want your students to study, how you want them to engage with you and with one another, and how you want them to work in and out of class.

Course policies

*From the University's Faculty Handbook published by the Provost Office:
"Faculty have an obligation to provide their students with a clearly written description of their policies at the start of the term and to follow them consistently."

• Attendance: It is a basic expectation that students will attend class; therefore, attendance should not be a substantive basis for grading (i.e., it should not given its own grade and given its own percentage of the final grade). It is advisable, however, for instructors to articulate a clear policy on absences on the syllabus, and instructors are encouraged to consult the page on "Attendance Policies" for more considerations.

• Academic integrity: All syllabi should include a policy regarding academic integrity, including expectations around the use of outside materials, including AI platforms. Instructors may choose to include a copy of, or links to, the Faculty Statement on Academic Integrity and to the Columbia University Undergraduate Guide to Academic Integrity, or instructors may choose to write a policy that puts these principles into their own words.

• Academic accommodations: All syllabi should also include a policy regarding accommodations for students with disabilities. Instructors may choose to include a copy of, or links to, the Faculty Statement on Disability Accommodations, or instructors may choose to write a policy that puts these principles into their own words while still referencing the Office of Disability Services.

• Course-specific policies: Please specify if you have policies specific to your course about what is and is not allowed in class and in exams (e.g., if laptops are or are not allowed in class for taking notes; if books and notes are or are not allowed in exams; if cell phones must be turned off in class).

Required course texts and materials

• All texts and materials required for the course should be listed on the syllabus, as well as any texts and materials that are recommended for further study. The syllabus should be clear as to specific expectations for the required texts/materials -- for example, whether the texts/materials must be accessed in hard copy and brought to class, whether a specific edition/version must be used, whether used versions that may be other editions/versions may be used, whether electronic versions of texts/materials may be used.

• Note: Instructors must also post required texts and other materials to their course's Courseworks site as soon as the site is available, prior to the opening of the first early registration period. Federal law requires that information regarding course costs be made available to students before registration -- i.e., students should have access to the information during April registration for Fall courses and during November registration for Spring courses.* Instructors are encouraged to consult the page on "Providing Textbook Information" for more considerations.
  
  *From the University's Faculty Handbook published by the Provost Office:
  "Posting of textbook information to Canvas is an important condition the University must meet for its students to continue to receive federal financial aid. To satisfy this legal requirement, faculty are required to provide complete textbook information (listing all required course materials including books, software or online programs, specialized calculators, lab materials, etc.) in CourseWorks prior to student registration."

Course requirements (graded assessments and grading rubric)

From the University's Faculty Handbook published by the Provost Office:
"Faculty are also expected to give students clear written statements of course requirements and to judge them solely on the basis of their academic performance."

• ​The syllabus should provide a list of all assignments and other required activities through which student performance will be evaluated. ​

• The syllabus should also note the percentage that each assigned requirement will have in the calculation of the final grade.

• As you develop and schedule your course assessments, please note that the COI expects that all courses open to undergraduates include some form of concrete assessment (i.e., written and/or graded feedback) prior to or around the midterm point of the semester -- regardless of the course level or course format -- so that students may understand better how they are being evaluated and may have the possible opportunity to improve. In no case should most or all of the final grade be based on a single assignment.

  • The Center for Teaching and Learning provides resources for instructors to help them consider different forms of assessment that they can incorporate into their course design.

• Some forms of assessment that instructors may assign could include the following:

  • ​​​Participation

    • ​If you choose to assign a participation grade to students, please provide students with clear guidelines regarding your expectations for participation, as well as evaluative feedback throughout the semester. It can be helpful to provide students with a participation rubric with the specific criteria that you will use to determine the overall grade for the participation.

    • Please note that, while attendance may be considered one element of participation among many, attendance in and of itself should not be given its own grade and given its own weight in the final grade for the class (see more in "Course Policies" above).

  • Weekly Readings/Homework

    • ​The amount of reading and/or other homework for the course should be designed with an aim to ensure that the course involves the expected workload for the course credit. For example, for a three-point course, students are expected to conduct an average of six hours of work outside of the classroom; for a four-point course, eight hours. To learn more about the relationship of contact hours and workload to course points, please review the "Guidance on Course Points."

    • The type of work will determine the approximate length of time that students may need--for example, some courses may require 100-200 pages of reading per week because students are moving quickly through the material to understand overarching ideas, while other courses may require a smaller number of pages because students are closely analyzing particularly dense material or texts in foreign languages.

    • If you have questions about workload expectations, please consult Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs for Columbia College, and Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs for the School of General Studies.

  • Presentations

    • ​If a percentage of the grade is allocated to an in-class presentation, please provide students with clear guidelines regarding your expectations for presentations and provide students with timely graded feedback on the presentation. It can be helpful to provide students with a presentation rubric with the specific criteria that you will use to determine the overall grade for presentations. This can be an even more acute need for group presentations, in order to help students understand how their individual efforts will be acknowledged and assessed when the presentation itself is graded.

  • Examinations and Papers

    • ​Lecture courses often require one or more midterm examinations and a final examination, while seminar courses typically require several written assignments. It is possible to require a combination of exams and written assignments, depending on the goals of the course.

    • Midterm exams may be scheduled during class times at the discretion of the instructor. Final exams must be administered during the exam period assigned by the Office of the University Registrar, and final exams should not be given during during regular class meetings. Instructors are encouraged to consult the page on "Exams" for more considerations.

    • The length and scope of writing assignments for a course may depend on the level of the course. If the course is an advanced seminar or colloquium, it is an expectation of the COI that students will be required to submit a final paper that is substantially greater in length and scope than those required for introductory courses or for more general lecture courses.

    • All student work for a course must be due by the last day of the term. Instructors should not schedule official deadlines for dates that occur after the term has ended. Individual students should be allowed extensions that go beyond the last day of the term only if the student's school, through the appropriate advising office, has given official approval for an Incomplete or Deferred Exam.

Detailed semester schedule of workload and assignments

• The semester schedule of workload and assignments should include the date of each class meeting, and should include all reading/homework assignments that must be completed for each class meeting, as well as the due dates for other assignments/exams that will be required throughout the semester.

• The following information about the academic calendar may be helpful to instructors in planning the numbers and schedules of class meetings in a given semester:

  • Both Fall and Spring are 15 weeks long, with 14 weeks of class meetings and a week of final exams. Please note, though, that a "week" in the academic calendar has a particular definition: it is any week in which classes are held, whether classes are held every day or on certain days. Given this definition of a week in the academic calendar, and the different schedule of holidays in each semester, it is important to remember that there may be a different number of class meetings in a fall semester than in a spring semester:

    • In the Fall semester, there are two weeks during which classes meet only on some days of the week: in early November, when the "Election Day" holiday covers a Monday and Tuesday, and in late November, when the Thanksgiving holiday covers a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. These weeks count as two weeks of the fall term, and yet together they encompass one week of class meetings (i.e., class meetings that cover Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).

    • In the Spring semester, the holiday is concentrated in the full week of Spring Break, which does not count toward the number of weeks of the academic term since no classes are held that week.

  • Instructors are encouraged to consult the Registrar's website to view the calendar for upcoming semesters and to plan their class schedule accordingly.