Help:Course setup

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StudyPlace provides templates for syllabuses: syllabus15, [syllabus30, and syllabus45]. We explore the reasons for supporting courses through StudyPlace on Curriculum. Here we explain how to use a tool for creating a StudyPlace syllabus for instructors who want to host their courses here.^[1] The template will facilitate maintaining useful naming conventions easily in order to enable revising a course in an ongoing way while making activities in it cumulative year by year. The design of the syllabus should promote interaction with the rest of StudyPlace as well.

Creating a syllabus uses two templates, which separates the input of information about the course from the details of formatting and creating the syllabus and related files. One template attaches information you provide to variables and the other provides functionality, formatting, and organization in generating the syllabus. If you are starting a course syllabus from scratch, you can work with the template iteratively, adding and revising material over a sequence of sessions. More often, you will have existing course documents and you can easily cut and paste material from these into the template. In either case, once you have set the template up, as you please you can add, delete, and revise information in the syllabus without worrying about formatting. If you have suggestions for further features to the template, please make them on the study page here.

[edit] Set-up instructions

Print this page to have it at hand during the initial course set-up.

Setting a new syllabus up involves 3 easy steps. Following these, you can complete and revise the syllabus, as you wish, by repeating the 3rd step. The first time through Steps 1, 2, and 3 should take a minute or so. How long it takes for later iterations of Step 3 depends on the complexity of your syllabus and whether you are composing it anew or simply transferring material from a previous version. In any case, the whole process should proceed efficiently, however.

1. Start a new page by entering the course number in new page to the left and click Create Page. You will then see the edit box for that page.
2. Type, or copy and paste, {{subst:syllabus15-variables}} into the edit box and click Save Page at the bottom of the edit form. You will then see the skeleton of your course with lots of squiggles. For further details.^[2]
3. You activate Step 3 by clicking the edit tab at the top of the page and starting to fill in the requested information. Your syllabus is under way. You do not need to provide all the information at once. To stop: click Save Page at the bottom of the edit form. To return: enter your course number in the search box to the left and click Go and then click the edit tab at the top of the page. Here are a few pointers.
   1. Usually, you fill an item out by entering what is appropriate after the equals sign for the variable name. You can include MediaWiki formatting mark-up as you wish, although fancy formatting and voluble disquisitions are better in some places than in others. For a few variables you should observe length limits as the items will appear in a right-hand infobox that should not take up too much space.
   2. You need to fill a few items out using templates for a subfile. Where that is the case, it is basically the same routine as Steps 1, 2, and 3 above, for instance inserting {{subst:instructor-variables}} into a new subfile in Step 2 instead of {{subst:syllabus15-variables}}.
   3. At other points, you have the option of using free-form subfiles instead of (or in addition to) entering variable information directly. If you are relatively new to StudyPlace, you may find it most productive to decide what you want to do and then discuss it with someone more experienced in working on MediaWiki, for all good things have learning curves.^[3]

To facilitate navigation to your course, add a link to it in the infobox of current courses: Curriculum/courses.

[edit] References and notes

1. ↑ We use the term syllabus because it serves a function for a course hosted on StudyPlace akin to a traditional syllabus. Keep in mind, however, that it aims to create and integrate affordances that are not as effectively available in traditional courses. What we mean by a syllabus is more than a statement sequencing the materials the course will cover.
2. ↑ Step 2 creates the template on which you will provide the variable information for your course. You work only with the specific instance of this template copied into your course page on saving the {{subst:syllabus15-variables}} code. Each time you save this template specifying the variables, the other template works with it, but you never see the other template or edit it.
3. ↑ In brief, you can mix and match subfiles in several ways, by using Templates, called in the form {{Template_name}}, or by using Links, either internal or external, called by a URL in single brackets or a StudyPlace file in double brackets, or by using an Embedded File (much like a Template), best generated for the syllabus by using the following, {{{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/filename}}, with filename being the only part that you alter. You can mix and match all of these with directly entered information as you wish. You can best understand them by setting up a dummy course (different from a course for dummies) in your user area and experimenting with different forms of input and their the results.