Reviewing & Editing Your Course Description

This guide provides a step-by-step process for effectively reviewing and editing course descriptions, ensuring they meet academic standards and accurately reflect the master course description document.

Alexis Ruiz
25 steps
2 minutes

Scribe

Simplesyllabus

Daytonastate

Sharepoint

Reviewing Your Course Description

Most faculty will not need to edit their course descriptions. Course descriptions important directly from PeopleSoft. As a result, you only need to edit your course description if you know it is outdated or incorrect.

Instructors teaching courses belonging to the School of Biological & Physical Sciences cannot edit their SLOs or course descriptions. When reviewing your SLOs, if they are incorrect, please message your department chair directly.

Read/review the Course Description in your syllabus. If everything looks good, you may continue editing other sections of the syllabus.

Sometimes, department's will add clarity to course descriptions in Simple Syllabus foundation documents. If you are ever unsure about editing a course description, please reach out to your department directly.

Removing an Incorrect Course Description

Simple Syllabus refers to text populated from PeopleSoft as "blocks" (blocks of text).

Double-click on the text if you notice the course description on your syllabus is incorrect. The course description imported from PeopleSoft should outline in blue rectanges. A small pop-up window should appear. Click on the trashcan icon to delete the text/"Remove block."

Now that you have removed the course description, you will need to go to the document repository to locate the correct course description.

Do not close the Simple Syllabus tab.

In a new tab, navigate to [Falcon Self-Service](https://csprd.daytonastate.edu/psc/CSPRD/EMPLOYEE/SA/s/WEBLIB_HCX_GN.H_SPRINGBOARD.FieldFormula.IScript_Main?institution=DSC01&&)

Click on the "Falcon Self-Service" tile.

Click on "Instructor Homepage."

Click "Employee Homepage" from the small drop-down menu.

Click on the "Document Repository" tile.

You should now arrive to the Daytona State College Document Repository. From the list of document folders, select the "Departments" folder.

Click "Academic Affairs" from the list of subfolders.

Click "Master Course Descriptions" from the list of subfolders.

Click on the corresponding department from the list of subfolders.

Locate your course. Click on the corresponding pdf.

On Page 1 you will see the "Catalog Description" -- this is what we use for the course description in Simple Syllabus.

Double-click the catalog description. Once the text is highlighted in blue press [[ctrl]] + [[c ]]to copy the text.

Switch back to the Simple Syllabus tab.

Click on the "Course Description" text editor box.

Press [[ctrl]] + [[v ]]to paste the course description from the master course description in the document repository.

You may notice that the paste was not seamless/that there are strange line breaks in the text -- this is something to edit.

Click in front of the "a" in "audience-centered approaches to writing including composing processes, language conventions."

Press the " [[Backspace]]" key on the keyboard.

Click in front of the "a" in "and style, and critical analysis and engagement with written texts and other forms of communication.

Press the " [[Backspace]]" key on the keyboard.

You now have added in the course description and re-formatted it!

Adding Content to the Course Description

Some faculty might find the course description is correct, but still want to add context to the course description to help the student better understand the content. There is a way to add information to the course description.

In this example, the course description (outlined in blue rectangles) is correct, but there is text underneath it. In this example, the instructor chose to add context to the course description.

To add information to the course description (without losing the pre-populated text), click directly underneath the course description.

Begin typing as needed anywhere underneath the course description.

Reviewing & Editing Your Course Description

Alexis Ruiz
25 steps
2 minutes

Scribe

Simplesyllabus

Daytonastate

Sharepoint

Reviewing Your Course Description

Read/review the Course Description in your syllabus. If everything looks good, you may continue editing other sections of the syllabus.

Removing an Incorrect Course Description

Simple Syllabus refers to text populated from PeopleSoft as "blocks" (blocks of text).

Now that you have removed the course description, you will need to go to the document repository to locate the correct course description.

Do not close the Simple Syllabus tab.

In a new tab, navigate to [Falcon Self-Service](https://csprd.daytonastate.edu/psc/CSPRD/EMPLOYEE/SA/s/WEBLIB_HCX_GN.H_SPRINGBOARD.FieldFormula.IScript_Main?institution=DSC01&&)

Click on the "Falcon Self-Service" tile.

Click on "Instructor Homepage."

Click "Employee Homepage" from the small drop-down menu.

Click on the "Document Repository" tile.

You should now arrive to the Daytona State College Document Repository. From the list of document folders, select the "Departments" folder.

Click "Academic Affairs" from the list of subfolders.

Click "Master Course Descriptions" from the list of subfolders.

Click on the corresponding department from the list of subfolders.

Locate your course. Click on the corresponding pdf.

On Page 1 you will see the "Catalog Description" -- this is what we use for the course description in Simple Syllabus.

Double-click the catalog description. Once the text is highlighted in blue press [[ctrl]] + [[c ]]to copy the text.

Switch back to the Simple Syllabus tab.

Click on the "Course Description" text editor box.

Press [[ctrl]] + [[v ]]to paste the course description from the master course description in the document repository.

You may notice that the paste was not seamless/that there are strange line breaks in the text -- this is something to edit.

Click in front of the "a" in "audience-centered approaches to writing including composing processes, language conventions."

Press the " [[Backspace]]" key on the keyboard.

Click in front of the "a" in "and style, and critical analysis and engagement with written texts and other forms of communication.

Press the " [[Backspace]]" key on the keyboard.

You now have added in the course description and re-formatted it!

Adding Content to the Course Description

In this example, the course description (outlined in blue rectangles) is correct, but there is text underneath it. In this example, the instructor chose to add context to the course description.

To add information to the course description (without losing the pre-populated text), click directly underneath the course description.

Begin typing as needed anywhere underneath the course description.