Syllabi Development, Office Hours and Finals

Syllabi Development

With the summer terms' speed, we recommend you send your syllabus to students before the first class. Requiring reading before class starts is not allowed, but sharing details with them about course content, expectations, and assessment can be very useful in advance.

The Center for Innovations in Teaching & Learning (CITL) and Online Education recommend the following syllabus template. If you are not adding the Summer Introduction Module to your Canvas, we ask you to incorporate the specific Summer Session dates and deadlines in your syllabus. You can find past syllabi for reference on our Summer Session Syllabi page.

See our Checking your enrollment/accessing class rosters page for student emails.

Office Hours

We advise instructors to ask their departments what the expectations for office hours are. There is no universal rule, but some departments have a standard duration. Office hours by appointment are fairly common for synchronous and asynchronous courses. The TLC also advises offering times in the morning and afternoon/evening. Whether TAs (if applicable) hold office hours is completely up to the instructor.

Summer Finals

Due to the accelerated five-week format of most Summer Session courses, there is no "finals week," similar to Fall, Winter, or Spring Quarters. Instead, most instructors schedule their final on the last meeting day of the course. 

Finals can be scheduled anytime during the last week but cannot extend past the session end date.