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The syllabus is one of the most important communicative texts shared between you and your students. A syllabus can set the tone for a course, lay out expectations and class rules, and can even motivate learning. The careful design of a syllabus is critical to student engagement and success. You are individually responsible for developing course content and selecting pedagogical approaches for your courses; however, to ensure consistency across the university, UCF policy dictates some required elements of your course syllabi.

Posting, Submission, and Retention Requirements

All UCF instructors, regardless of course modality, must post their syllabus to their published Webcourse by the first day of the term. For GEP core courses, syllabi must be posted 45-days before the semester begins in accordance with BOG Regulation 8.003. For courses using a contract in lieu of a syllabus, that contract must be completed within the first two weeks of the semester. In addition, faculty must submit a copy of the syllabus or the executed contract to their departments no later than the second week of the term in which the course is taught. Departments must retain copies of syllabi for a minimum of five years, until the university can maintain a central syllabus repository. Further, departments are encouraged to hold regular discussions with all instructional personnel about policies relevant to their student populations to promote consistent communication of expectations to students and to support student and faculty success.

A new tool in Webcourses called Simple Syllabus makes syllabi visible to all UCF stakeholders. It will be the required method of posting syllabi in Spring 2024 for GEP “black diamond” courses, and for all UCF courses in Fall 2024. Any instructor can use it earlier, if desired. Faculty can choose to upload a PDF or build the elements manually using the Template builder (the latter has certain advantages when rolling a course forward in a future year). Additional information on the syllabus posting process can be found at https://provost.ucf.edu/textbook-affordability/

If you have questions about creating or revising your syllabus, feel free to contact the Faculty Center at 407-823-3544 or fctl@ucf.edu.

Please see further information below, and view our brief video on Preparing Your Course & Required Syllabus Information:

Required Syllabus Components

Regardless of course modality—e.g., traditional, mixed-mode, online—syllabi are required by the university to include:

1. Information from the official Schedule of Classes

Each syllabus must include information that links the course to the official UCF Schedule of Classes in order to differentiate university course offerings and ensure that students attend the classes in which they enrolled. This includes:

  • Course number, section, and name
  • Semester and year
  • Prerequisites, co-requisites, and any other enrollment requirements
  • Meeting dates, times, and place(s) and/or description of course modality

2. Instructor and/or GTA contact information

  • Name(s) of instructor(s) and Graduate Teaching Assistant(s) (GTA)
  • UCF email addresses or Webcourses@UCF messaging
  • Office, department location, and phone number
  • Times and locations for in-person and/or virtual office hours

3. Explicit, public description of the course

  • Information published in Undergraduate Catalog or Graduate Catalog
  • Overview of the scope and purpose of the course

4. Student learning outcomes

All course syllabi must articulate student learning outcomes that:

  • are consistent with the scope and purpose of the course
  • tie as clearly as possible to course assignments and activities
  • reference or link with specific program, department, college, and/or accreditation standards

5. Sequence of course activity

6. Assessment and grading procedures

  • Explanation of the grading scheme, weight of course assignments, projects, exams/quizzes, participation, and other components proportional to the overall grade for the class
  • Due dates for major assignments and/or exams
  • Make-up exam and assignment policies and procedures, including those regarding participation in university activities and religious holidays (See UCF Policy 4-401.2 and Regulation 5.020.)
  • To ensure students receive prompt feedback and knowledge of their progress, faculty members must record all assessment grades in Webcourses@UCF, and follow student data classification and security standards as addressed in UCF Policies 4-007.1 and 4-008.2 when distributing any grade-related information

7. Course materials and resources

  • Required and optional texts and other resources, and specify how students can obtain them
  • Specific information about resources such as classroom response systems, online tools, and other items that are required or recommended
  • Clear explanations of where and how students may access materials and resources provided by the university to all students

8. Core syllabus statements

The following four core statements must be included in every syllabus:

  1. Academic integrity statement including definition(s) of and consequences for academic misconduct
  2. Statement directing students needing accommodations to work with faculty and with Student Accessibility Services to ensure equal access to educational activities
  3. Statement regarding emergency procedures and campus safety, encouraging students to be aware of their surroundings and familiar with actions to take in various types of emergencies
  4. Statement regarding accommodations for active duty military students
  5. Statement regarding Title IX policy

The syllabus statements page contains the language for the core statements, as well as optional sample language you can use or adapt for your own.

Syllabus Template

Our sample syllabus template can give you a starting point and ideas to complete your syllabus. Use of this template is optional and not required; faculty may create their own formatting. However, the required components listed above must be included.

Course Preview

The course preview feature is an optional tool that enables you to provide a tentative syllabus to potential students who are in the process of selecting and registering for classes. Accessing an advanced and abridged copy of the syllabus may help students to select a mix of courses that will enhance their academic success.

Further Reading

Read more about syllabus design on the following pages: