What is a Course Profile?

Course Profiles are meant to supplement the official course descriptions in the Calendar. These web documents are intended to provide rich, student-accessible course information for persons interested in attending the university or engaged in course selection. Course profiles are distinct from official course outlines or syllabi which individual instructors distribute to students already enrolled in a course offering. Course profiles will be stored within the Registrar's web site and be linked automatically to the appropriate course description in the online calendar. The profiles can also include links to active course homepages or other departmental information.

The Course Profile Template offers a suggested format for this web-based profile, and a starting point for faculty who wish to create a new html document. Alternatively, you may choose to convert and display an existing course outline on the web if you wish. However, if you intend to use or modify an existing outline for your course profile, you should keep in mind these goals:

• the profile should be general enough to accommodate the variations that may occur among faculty and course sections, yet specific enough to inform students about what to expect from the course.
• the profile should require updating only when significant changes are made to the course.
• since the profile is intended primarily a marketing document and not an official course outline, details such as schedules and detailed lists of assignments should be avoided, since these may create very specific expectations in the students [for specific suggestions on wording, see the Template Instructions & Rationale.]

The Course Profile Template was designed with these factors in mind.