There is no college requirement for the format of these syllabi. So you are free to decide what to do.
But instructions that cover all possibilities would be more complicated than most of you want. After consultation with a number of people, we decided that RTF (Rich Text Format) was the best to use for those of you who are reading these instructions.
The possibilities are .DOC, .RTF, .HTML, and .PDF. Below is a discussion of each.
.DOC: This is a Word document. This is the form that would be easiest for the faculty to use to edit to make their own individual course syllabi. Unfortunately, Word documents can carry viruses because Word allows macros. Not that I think you'd post files with viruses, but we just want to be very safe and to be seen as safe. (Suppose someone downloads one of your files and later gets a virus. They may blame your file even if it wasn't really the problem. It's better to just avoid such things completely.)
.RTF: This is Rich Text Format. It looks like, and can be used like, a .DOC file. It can be read by virtually all word-processing programs. But it can't carry viruses because it can't include macros.
.HTML: This is the format of typical web pages. It is wonderful for viewing on the web. However, the formatting in HTML is different from the Word document. If you have a Word document that is formatted and looks good, when you convert it to HTML, it often needs additional work on the formatting to look good. When the faculty member downloads the file to edit it themselves, they will have to work on the formatting again to make it look good again in Word. None of this is a major problem -- it's just extra work.
.PDF: To view these files, your computer needs to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. Most computers have that already, so these can be viewed and printed nicely. However, they can't be edited easily, so the files are not useful for the faculty members who want to download the master syllabus and edit it to create their own course syllabus. Also, to create these, you must purchase the Adobe Acrobat software, which is not free. (It's not very expensive -- under $100 for an academic license.)
Last updated January 15, 2003 . Mary Parker