Faculty's Guide to Concourse

What is Concourse?

Concourse is SJR State's syllabus management platform. Concourse is integrated into Canvas so faculty have quick access from a place we're all familiar with instead of having to bookmark and sign into yet another web site :) 

Concourse makes syllabi available to potential students as required by statute in a way that protects instructors' contact information, doesn't require early course access, and other cool stuff. But the best thing about Concourse is how easy it makes it to update your syllabi, tick all the boxes (many of the boxes are already filled in!), and have all your syllabi meet accessibility requirements!  

How To Access Concourse

Within a Canvas course, click the Concourse Syllabus link on the Course Navigation menu.

Don't see the link? Enable Concourse Syllabus under Settings - Navigation so the link appears on the Course Navigation menu. 

Get Ready for Fall - Check out our videos! 

Each video demonstrates a process in real-time using my own syllabi as examples but what you see will look almost identical. Questions? Contact me, Christina Will, at x4152 or via email.  

Watch how to activate Concourse Syllabus in a course shell and copy content from an earlier syllabus into your new syllabus. 

• Step by step instructions for copying are provided here. 

Watch how to make edits in your new syllabus after you've copied things over from another syllabus. In this video, I need to edit my Summer syllabus because some of the items I copied from my Spring syllabus need a little tweaking for them to work for Summer. 

• Step by step instructions for editing items on an active syllabus are provided here. 

Working with a Syllabus for the First Time

A template has been made for each of your course syllabi. The first time you work with a course syllabus, you will need to add information to certain items.

To start, you will need to add an "Entry" - i.e. information - for the following Items:

• Meeting Times
• Contact Information
• Goals and Student Expectations 
• Assessment
• Grading Criteria and Grading Scale
• Course Policies
• Schedule

Here are the 3 basic steps for adding information from scratch:

1. Select the “Edit” link from the “Syllabus” drop-down menu.

Don't see this on your screen? Look for the 3 lines as indicated in the screen shot below. Click those lines and then you'll see the Syllabus menu.

2. Scroll to the an Item and click the green [item name] Entry+ button. Below is an example of the add entry button for Contact Information.

For information about adding information about a specific Item, use the menu on this page to select an Item. 

3. If you need to edit an Item after you've added it, click the yellow pencil icon - that's the Edit button. Below is an example. Please note, each sub-item has its own Edit button.

Instructions for each Syllabus Item are provided on this guide. 

You only add this information to a course syllabus once. Next time you teach a course, all you'll do is copy elements from an earlier section's syllabus, and make edits to your items - like the Schedule and, maybe, Meeting Times or Office Hours. All the pre-populated items will automatically update each semester!