Carnegie Mellon University ———
Syllabus Registry  ›  Uploading Syllabi by Department Administrators

How-to: Upload Syllabi for Departmental Administrators

Departmental administrators have three primary tasks:

  1. Upload syllabi for those instructors in your department who do not use Canvas.
  2. Move appropriate courses into the “Individualized Experiences” category.
  3. Check to see if your department’s syllabi are available/viewable in the Syllabus Registry.

Upload syllabi on behalf of instructors:

  1. Once you have the instructor’s syllabus on your machine, name it exactly according to this format:
[5-digit course number]-[section indicator].[file suffix]
For example: 15112-A.pdf
NOTE: The course number is written as 5 straight digits (without a hyphen), which is followed by a single hyphen, the course section, and the file suffix.
  1. Go to canvas.cmu.edu
  2. From within the Canvas Dashboard page, select your department for the appropriate semester
dashboard cards view

  1. Navigate to “Files” (left navigation within the Canvas course)
  2. Upload the instructor’s syllabus by clicking the “Upload” button, browsing to the correct file on your machine, and clicking “Choose”

IMPORTANT: If the file is correctly named, automation will take care of updating the main syllabus registry listing. Any file type can be used (e.g., docx, txt). Each file may only be used for one section.
NOTE: Files that are manually uploaded will be overridden by ones registered through a Canvas course by an instructor.


files upload button

The “Individualized Experiences” category

Courses such as independent studies, internships, etc. that tend not to have a syllabi are categorized within the Registry as “Individualized Experiences”. IMPORTANT: In order to make sure the number of "unavailable syllabi" is not inaccurately inflated, you will want to move courses that are internships, independent studies, and the like to the "Individualized Experiences" section. Follow these steps to categorize these types of courses as ones that do NOT have a syllabus:

  1. Find a course that fits the Individualized Experience category in the “Unavailable Syllabi” module
  2. Click on the two rows of four dots on the left side of the course and drag it to the “Individualized Experiences” module
    • NOTE: DO NOT drag any course from "available syllabi" to "unavailable syllabi".
ie-canvas-capture.jpg

Check your syllabi in the Syllabus Registry:

  1. Go to https://canvas.cmu.edu
  2. Select your department’s syllabus course
  3. Review the modules containing available and unavailable syllabi
  4. [OPTIONAL] Perform a manual synchronization of available and unavailable syllabi- See instructions in the section below

NOTE: Files uploaded by departmental administrators are reflected within a day; all others are nearly instantaneous, with nightly refreshes until 10 days into term. Please do not modify or delete pages within the course as they contain hidden metadata.

For departmental admins that need to immediately recalculate the available and unavailable syllabi modules, there is a tool to perform this action. Simply select "Dept Tools" from the left navigation and click "Sync Syllabi Now":

Manual Sync