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[rowan1]

Mine are about 3 to 4 pages.  The 1st page is filled with "eduspeak" material that is required by the Uni - when I discuss it in class I tell them to read it if they are having a hard time falling asleep.

page 2 and 3 cover my policies, breakdown the grading approach, and discuss assignments.

page 4 is the calendar for the term with a BIG disclaimer stating that "this schedule may change to meet the needs of the class."

Occasionally it will get to 5 pages - depending on the class.

I tried having it just on line, but found that in my studio classes if I don't hand it to them, they will never read it.  I have resisted giving a quiz but am tempted to have a tear off page that they sign.  Other colleagues do this.  Has anyone here?

[mystictechgal]

When I took my first college classes in the early 70's I don't think there was such a thing as a syllabus.  At most we'd get a sheet of paper with estimated due dates of readings/papers/tests.  Now?  Almost all of the syllabi at my college are huge. 

Looking at my bio syllabus, it includes, in order: all course information (department, credit hours, course number and section, meeting time/place, prerequisites, etc.), a brief listing of College Learning Outcomes, and professor contact information (name, phone, email, office location, office hours, etc.), a course description, the purpose of the course, a detailed listing of all of the College Learning Objectives and how the course meets them, a detailed list of the Program Learning Outcomes and how the course meets them, a detailed list of course objectives, our Emergency Response procedures (where to go in case of tornado, don't use elevators during fire, don't block exits, be orderly in evacuation, etc.), Statement on Disabilities, Statement on Academic Honesty (including potential penalties for cheating/plagiarism), Statement on Academic Grievance policies, Attendance Policy (including sections on late/missed work/quizzes/exams), how students will be evaluated (including reiteration of academic honesty statement and missed/late work/quizzes/test policy, now all in bold face), the grading scale, a section on safety, a section on report format referring us to an additional handout (for the lab reports), how we should keep our notes (in a binder separate from lecture notes--oops), the bibliography, class meeting schedule (noting in bold capitals that we'd meet twice a week), the material to be covered each meeting, the assignments due each meeting, and the dates of quizzes/tests and the material that will be tested. 

The only thing I, or anyone else, cared about or ever referred to was the professor contact information, the grading scale, what's due when, and the lab report format handout.  Everything else is required boilerplate there to CSomeone'sA &/or to look good to accreditation bodies.  It's a massive waste of paper, imo, and heck no, no one ever reads or refers to most of it again.  Frankly, by the time we slog repetitively through all of it during the first meeting of every single class I'm amazed anyone remembers that there is some useful information buried deeply at the very end.  Why can't they put that stuff on the 1st page, at least?

[egilson]

My syllabus is right at eight pages, unfortunately:

- one and a half pages of contact information, office hours, a statement of course overview and objectives, and a list of required texts
- one page listing the number and types of assignments, their point values, a table showing the number of points possible for each category of assignment and the overall points possible for the course, and a breakdown of what point range equals what letter grade
- three and a half pages of policies, about 2/3 of which is boilerplate (expanded in some instances so that they fit my class and makes sense)
- two pages of schedule, which includes test dates, essay due dates, and each week's assigned readings

In the past I have copied that schedule from the syllabus and made it a separate item in Blackboard as well, but that has always caused confusion because some students persist in thinking that the list in the syllabus and the identical list in Blackboard represent different information (maybe because they look different when printed? I've given up on trying to understand it). So, I think I'm going to try putting information up on the course calendar in Blackboard instead.

[conjugate]

I went for the first time to the multi-page syllabus format when I came to the new institution.  Now I have various sections following the syllabus of a colleague, because:

1) The colleague was happy to share, and pleased that I found his materials useful, and
2) The colleague had been teaching here a long time and understood the institutional culture. 

So I have a long list of stuff, including a section on classroom etiquette, a section on grading where I point out that test dates and quiz dates will be announced in class as we go through the material and (this is a clause that has saved me endless trouble at least once) a bit about "...students determine their own grade by showing how much they have learned on tests and quizzes as follows...."  If they complain that my tests were too hard?  They determined their own grade by being unable to show what they learned.  Other students showed they'd learned more. 

Too many or not enough quizzes?  Irrelevant; they didn't show what they'd learned.  Do they complain that they really understood the stuff but did badly on the test?  Not relevant, as their grade was based on how much they could show they'd learned on those tests, not how much they understood but couldn't convey.

The "schedule" such as it is is a list of sections (not even homework problems, because I want them to be in class when I assign homework) and tests in between.  No dates, because things may change significantly (and often do).  There's apparently no boilerplate that's required across the board here, although that may change if somebody or other gets in trouble for not mentioning that ADA accommodations are available, or some such thing.

I am tempted to paraphrase Dunsany in my syllabus:  "The penmanship of <Conjugate> hath never erred nor his pen run out of Fs.  It were better to study and do the homework."  Of course, I enter grades by clicking on a pull-down menu instead of writing with a pen, but I'm sure the idea comes through.  Especially as the archaic language would confuse them no end anyway.

[lilac53]

That's a great quote, conjugate!

My course outline is usually around two pages, maybe three if it's a class with weekly assigned readings - just a short description, details on assessment and a weekly schedule. We aren't required to have course policies or anything here (yet) but I'm seriously thinking of putting an etiquette section in this year, covering classroom behaviour, extension requests, email language etc. However, since students can't even read the two pages that will tell them what text is coming up next, I don't hold out much hope that they would pay any attention to a longer document.

[archaeo42]

Mine run about 5-6 pages.  Two of those are usually the course calendar (what's due when, what readings should be done, etc.) and the rest are course policies and general information.  I give brief descriptions of major assignments but always state that more detailed information will be on the assignment handout.  I haven't added much in terms of course policies, just clarified my classroom etiquette and late assignment policy.  Despite telling students on the first day that I will respond to questions about due dates, test dates, etc. by telling them to check the syllabus since that's what it's there for, I continuely get complaints on evals that I should tell them when things are due.  Next time I think I'll try adopting the sweetly asked, "Isn't that on the syllabus?" of someone upthread.

[mrsodetts]

Part time adjunct here. Same university for about 12 years, teaching business courses directly related to my full time day job. I have watched my syllabi grow exponentially as administrators added more and more to the boilerplate language. Instructors still were to write their objectives, methods and schedules.

In the last few years, administration has decided that their written objectives, policies, teaching methods, "suggested" class schedules, resource lists and selected textbooks must be used in all cases. The boilerplate language increased, and appears to be written by lawyers.

My syllabus is now 12-14 pages, with only a page or two that I need to write. The sections that I write need to be approved by several levels above me, so I'm cognizant of the fact that anything outside basic info will be edited out. The teaching methods and content of the courses is dictated by headquarters, so little is left to the individual instructor to decide. One unfortunate result is that students tend to ignore the syllabus because the identical boilerplate language appears in every one. 

[bioteacher]

I just got an email today alerting us to two more paragraphs of standard text we must include in our syllabi. At this rate, I've got a novella on my hands.

[mountainguy]

I tried having it just on line, but found that in my studio classes if I don't hand it to them, they will never read it.  I have resisted giving a quiz but am tempted to have a tear off page that they sign.  Other colleagues do this.  Has anyone here?

Rowan, I also have found that students won't read it unless I hand them a physical copy.

I've tried the signature thing before and I'm not sure it made much difference. But I know some people swear by it.

[redweather]

A colleague was recently telling me that his syllabus is now 14 pages long.  Although mine have gotten longer because we are required to include information about pandemics, student behavior in the classroom, and the school's plagiarism appeal policy, I still manage to keep mine at five pages.  That includes a week-by-week reading assignment schedule.