• This web page describes an activity within the Department of Mathematics at Ohio University, but is not an official university web page.
• If you have difficulty accessing these materials due to visual impairment, please email me at mohlenka@ohio.edu; an alternative format may be available.

Syllabus Checklist

The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment now has a Syllabus Guide, so this page now only has a few supplements.

You are free to borrow language, formatting, etc. from my syllabuses.

Recommended Statement

While not required in the Faculty Handbook, the Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance recommends including a statement on your obligation to report sexual misconduct. A sample statement is:

Responsible Employee Reporting Obligation:

If I learn of any instances of sexual harassment, sexual violence, and/or other forms of prohibited discrimination, I am required to report them. If you wish to share such information in confidence, then use one of the confidential resources listed by the Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance.

Final Examinations

Section IV.C.1. of the Faculty Handbook regulates final examinations and may effect what you put in your syllabus. The full text (copied May 2023) is reproduced below:

The schedule of final examinations is prepared by the Registrar and is posted on the Registrar's web site. Deviations from this schedule can be made only with prior approval of the dean of the college and must be cleared with the Scheduling Office.

A formal final examination, written in class, will be required in all courses where a letter grade is given unless the instructor, at his/her/their discretion, substitutes some other method for bringing the course into focus and for evaluating the students. In either case the instructor will continue to meet his/her/their class at the time the final examination is scheduled either to give the test or to receive the work that takes its place; exceptions will be made only with prior approval of the department chair or other appropriate academic officer.

If an instructor feels that the course objectives can be better met by some method other than a final examination, he/she/they will announce this plan to the class at the beginning of the semester, and, along with his/her/their statement of attendance policy, inform the department chair in writing of their intentions.

Final examinations may not be given, nor final projects in lieu of an examination be required at any time prior to the regular examination period. Students are entitled to this period for examinations and project purposes, and should be so informed. If a student is made to take an examination or submit a final project prior to the stated final examination period, he/she/they should appeal to the dean of their college.

Related information

• Link to the Undergraduate Catalog, which includes the Class Attendance Policy and grade appeal process. Learning outcomes/objectives are available for each course.
• Link to Office of Student Accessibility Services.
• Link to the Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility.
• Remark: For academic misconduct, general university policies cover things like looking at their neighbor's paper during a test. They do not cover whether working with a classmate on a homework assignment is prohibited or encouraged, so you need to specify that. It is a good idea to require that help of any kind be acknowledged.

Other Useful Content

Some further information is helpful to include:

• Time and location of final exam
• Policies on missed or late work
• Additional resources (books, websites)
• Note: On any given day, any given room in Morton Hall can be anywhere between 60 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit, so come prepared.
• Please communicate with me using your @ohio.edu email address. I will not send any private information to other addresses.

Please Use + and - Grades

I have been analyzing grade distributions for some of our lower-level courses. One would expect them to be bell-shaped or perhaps bimodal. The most striking feature of these distributions is that instructors award whole letter grades (A, B, C) much more frequently than +/- grades (A-, B+, B-, C+).

Please be aware that letter grades are mapped to GPA in an equispaced fashion:

• A = 4.0,
• A- = 3.67,
• B+ = 3.33,
• B = 3.0,
• B- = 2.67,
• C+ = 2.33,
• C = 2.0 etc.

• [80,83.3) = B-,
• [83.3,86.7) = B, and
• [86.7,90) = B+

• [80,82) = B-,
• [82,88) = B, and
• [88,90) = B+.

Last modified: Fri May 15:35:36 UTC 2023 by martin