Course Title and Description Guidelines

DOWNLOAD title & description GUIDELINES

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Long Title (100 Characters)

• The title of a course should give a brief, general description of the subject matter covered. All course titles must be provided in English unless otherwise approved.

• Titles may be reviewed by other institutions, current and prospective students, accrediting bodies, employers, and others inside or outside the University. They should be easily understood by the general public and not couched in departmental or university jargon.

• Use upper- and lowercase letters, capitalizing each word of the title except for articles, conjunctions, or prepositions.

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Short Title (23 Characters) should match Long Title when possible

• Abbreviate words so that they may be easily deciphered. It is better to use three or four essential words that are understandable than to cram several words in by cutting them down to two letters each and losing the meaning entirely. Should still be recognizable as the same course.

• Be careful not to use abbreviations that result in unintentional innuendos or offensive phrases.

• Acronyms specific to a discipline or that someone outside the academic department would not understand should not be used. 

• Delete articles of speech such as ‘of,’ ‘and,’ ‘the,’ etc., before trying to abbreviate more essential words in the title.

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Course Descriptions (Approximately 100 Words)

Your course description should answer two primary questions: why and what. Why should students take this course, and what will they experience as learners?

Start with the aim or goal of the course. Then, use the rest of the course description to detail what the learning experience of students will be in your classroom.  The exact format and content of this section is open-ended and focuses on the bigger picture. 

The description is to clarify course content for multiple audiences (as referenced in the Long Title section). It should help readers understand what is learned in the course, focusing on the common and durable aspects of the content. Omit information that may change over time or with instructors. Descriptions should be clear, concise, easy-to-read and convey how each course will benefit students.

Your course description is primarily for the benefit of people who have not taken the course, so:

• Use serial commas and semicolons

• Do not use departmental jargon or university acronyms

• Fully write out any abbreviations such as “AI” to “Artificial Intelligence”.

• Avoid parentheses

• Avoid questions

• Do not use “etc.”  

• Write concisely and in the active tense. For example:

  • "Uses" instead of "We will use"

  • "Preparation for" instead of "helps students prepare for"

• Do not use special characters

• No sentence should include "The course" or "in this course."

• No Personal pronouns such as, "I," "we," "you" or “he/she/they”