Course Outline Overview
The Course Outline
The Course Outline of Record (COR) is a document required for all courses which must fully describe the course and its components as well as meet standards detailed in Title 5, section 55002, as well as other regulatory and accreditation standards. It is the foundation of course development, providing basic course information and structure, and serves as a legal document used for articulation, accreditation, and Program Review purposes. CORs also document subject content, learning outcomes, and learning objectives for any faculty member who may teach the course, thus promoting continuity among course sections.
The COR must be detailed enough so that the Curriculum Committee and outside evaluators will be able to clearly understand its depth, scope, and the performance expected from students. It must be detailed enough to guide any instructor planning to teach the course, but general enough so that instructors have the freedom to utilize their own teaching style and respond to student learning needs.
The course content (which includes lecture, lab, and TBA topics) listed in the COR must be covered by all faculty teaching the course, unless those topics are marked as optional or qualified with a statement such as “including but not limited to.” The course content does not prevent faculty from going beyond the topics in the COR, nor does it specify how the topics are taught or how much time is to be spent on each topic. The COR is intended to foster maximum pedagogical freedom, but cannot mandate points of view or teaching strategy.
A faculty member(s) who creates a COR does not “own” it, i.e. he/she/they do not have intellectual property rights or exclusive use of the document. In fact, since the District uses a shared curriculum management platform (CurricUNET), faculty may make a request to the Curriculum Specialist to “clone” a course outline from one of the other colleges within the SMCCCD.
Differences between the Course Outline and the Course Syllabus
It is important to distinguish between a course outline and a syllabus. A course outline gives the basic components of the course required to be taught by all instructors; whereas a syllabus describes how an individual instructor will teach that course in terms of specific assignments, dates, grading standards, and other rules of conduct required by that instructor. A syllabus can include methods and topics which go beyond the course outline, keeping in mind that all content in the COR must be taught by all who teach the course.
Additionally, a syllabus provides the specific policies and information pertaining to a course during a specific semester. When faculty write syllabi for courses, they should utilize a student-ready, equity minded perspective, as well as consult department or division guidelines and the Skyline College Syllabus Checklist, which can be found in the faculty handbook and in the Appendix to this document.
Writing an Integrated Course Outline
The goal is to write an integrated course outline, which means that the course content, methods of instruction and evaluation, and assignments work together and lead to the achievement of the course learning outcomes. The COR is considered integrated and harmonious when each element of the course outline reinforces the other elements.
Directions for writing the COR (explained by each CurricUNET screen) can be found at the Skyline Guidelines for Writing the Course Outline of Record. Links to an external site.
A sample COR can be found in Appendix B of this Handbook.