Implementing Simple Syllabus to Improve the SONHP’s Course Syllabus Process
In this article, learn how the SONHP undertook a multi-year continuous improvement effort to address major gaps in the syllabus standardization, consistency, and accessibility across programs, locations, and semesters.
Megan O'Banion is the Senior Associate Dean in the School of Nursing and Health Professions (SONHP). In this faculty spotlight article, Megan shares the process the SONHP took to implement Simple Syllabus to improve the syllabus development, distribution, and storage processes. Simple Syllabus provides the benefits of using a template-based syllabus platform to standardize and centrally store the school’s syllabi.
Instructional Challenges
Megan shared that the SONHP has an obligation to their accreditors and regulators to ensure that they are continually reviewing what is communicated to their students. She shared that the SONHP needed a centralized record for their syllabi. They recognized that there was a gap in continually collecting syllabi, semester by semester, and they recognized having a repository would be very helpful.
Because the SONHP has programs that are taught in multiple locations, such as on both the Hilltop Campus as well as the Sacramento and Orange County campuses, Megan shared that they also wanted to improve continuity and consistency in their syllabi materials. The school saw a solution in using standardized format that is also directly embedded into the course's Canvas page. Therefore, having a centralized location for syllabi storage not only would address the school’s need for frequent review and collection, but would also support continuity and consistency across locations, as well as multiple course sections was crucial for efficiency, accuracy, and necessary compliance. Megan said: “We saw the opportunity to embrace Simple Syllabus and be able to adopt quickly and to be able to figure out how we can leverage this technology, this templated system, that also emphasizes standardization, continuity, and a centralized repository. It ticked many of the boxes for us. So we leaned in.”
Instructional Solutions
The SONHP adopted Simple Syllabus to meet these needs, as it supports standardized templates, centralized and searchable storage, and seamless integration with Canvas. After assessing faculty capacity in 2021, the SONHP implemented a phased rollout beginning with faculty champions and targeted faculty training and pilot programs (MPH and MSN) in Fall 2022, followed by expanded adoption and refinements through Fall 2024. Full adoption for programs occurred once sufficient training and the internal support infrastructure were in place.
Simple Syllabus improved continuity across multi-section and multi-location courses, ensured syllabi were available to students before the first day of class, reduced administrative burden, and streamlined accreditation reporting. Faculty and program directors especially valued the standardized templates, ease of updating syllabi across semesters, support for onboarding new and part-time faculty, and reduced errors through templatized updates of the SONHP’s course policies. Students appreciated early access, consistency, and the ease of searching and navigating syllabi.
Faculty also realized a lot of utility in Simple Syllabus. Megan commented, “I think our program directors and leads are some of the strongest advocates of Simple Syllabus. It allows them to be able to communicate in a standardized way, to new faculty that are coming on board, around what the expectations and format we need in our syllabus, but also providing a wonderful example of how to implement it in a templated system.”
Lessons Learned
Megan emphasized continuous improvement, ongoing feedback from faculty and students, and close collaboration with ETS to refine features—such as supporting clinical course leads managing shared syllabi across sections remains essential.
Megan shared: Another lesson learned is that we take capacity building very seriously in the SONHP, which is critical to supporting technology uptake and to make sure that we're implementing technologies that are meeting identified needs. We saw gaps, and we saw technology that would be able to meet most of the needs. Then we wanted to ensure that once we had an agreement with our faculty and our curriculum committee, we rolled out and implemented Simple Syllabus with a reasonable timeline that permitted time for training, one-on-one coaching, and opportunities to work with ETS.
Key lessons learned include the importance of capacity building, phased implementation, responsiveness to user feedback, and using technology intentionally to solve clearly identified problems. Overall, Simple Syllabus successfully addressed SONHP’s core goals of standardization through the use of templates, a centralized syllabi repository, continuity of syllabus updates, and the distribution of syllabi through Canvas every semester.