In our continuing effort to provide BC's students with good service, Information Technology Services, Instructional Design and eTeaching Services, Student Services, and a committee of faculty, administrators, and staff worked together over the past year to create the eSyllabus system, a convenient and secure way to upload and display syllabi online.
Viewing Syllabi
Access to online syllabi is limited to members of the BC community. Faculty, staff, and students are required to authenticate by logging in to portal.bc.edu before they can view a course syllabus. Adobe 8 or higher is recommended for viewing an online syllabus. When the "Preview" icon is selected, the syllabus will display in a pop-up window.
Uploading or Deleting Syllabi
Select either "Upload" or "Edit" from the "Course Offering Schedule," which will bring you to the "Syllabus Maintenance" page where you can preview, upload, update, or delete a syllabus. Esyllabi are stamped with a "Last Modified" date, so you will know which version of the syllabus is currently online. When you upload a new syllabus, it will replace the original one, which will not be saved.
Permissions
Only the course instructor or designee can upload or delete a syllabus. All instructors for team taught courses have permission to upload and delete their syllabi. If an "Upload" icon is not visible for an instructor, then the Master Course Schedule has not yet been updated with his/her Eagle ID. New instructors will be able to access eSyllabus once their Eagle ID numbers are listed on the master schedule in UIS. Graduate teaching assistants may have two tables in "MyCourses." They may see the syllabi for courses they are taking and upload syllabi for the courses they are teaching.
Formatting an eSyllabus
Although there is no required template, uploaded files must be in a pdf format with no security added. If you are unsure about how to create a pdf document you can link to www.bc.edu/pdf for more information.
You can also upload syllabi to the system that are not in their final state. To protect you an automatic disclaimer is added to each syllabus upon upload indicating that the document being viewed may not be the final version and that the content is subject to change. Leave a margin of at least .5 inches at the top of each file for the disclaimer.
Viewing an Archived Syllabus
You may upload or maintain syllabi for courses in current or future terms. However, once the semester has ended, you may not upload syllabi for any courses offered during that term. Existing syllabi will be archived and no longer modifiable.
Archived syllabi will be available for viewing only. All uploaded syllabi will have a "Preview" icon but no "Upload" or "Edit" icons. From the Course Offering Schedule, choose a term from a previous semester, a school, department, and then click "Get Requested Courses." When you select the "Preview" icon in the "Syllabus" column, the syllabus will appear in a popup window.
Searching eSyllabus by Keyword(s)
Faculty, staff, and students will be able to search uploaded syllabi by entering keywords. From the "Course Offering Schedule" page, choose "Course Syllabus." Enter the keyword and your search preference as either "Current" or "Archive." Click the "Search" button. All syllabi on the results page will have a "Preview" icon displayed. When you select this icon, the syllabus will be displayed in a separate pop-up window. Archived syllabi are searchable for 30 months after their date of upload.