Guidelines for Designing Course Structures and Syllabus Preparation

Course Structures and Syllabus constitute to be one of the most important factors responsible for
providing quality education. In affiliated college system the colleges will be following the course
structure and syllabus designed by their affiliating universities. The role of teachers in affiliated colleges
is to teach what is prescribed in the university syllabus. In case of Private Universities, Deemed to be
Universities and Autonomous colleges the course structures and syllabus are to be prepared by the
faculty members. The best part of this system is that the teachers who are teaching various courses will
have a definite role to play in designing courses.

Typical Organizational set up in a University for Syllabus Preparation:

General Faculty Council – Comprises of all faculty members in the Department/School

Area Committees: Normally Chaired by- Area Chair who is a Senior Professor of the Area and Faculty
Members in that Area.

Board of Studies; Comprises of all eminent members representing different areas of courses offered in
the School and all Area Chairs will be Invitees to the BOS meeting.

The Course Structures and Syllabus are prepared in 6-10 rounds of meetings held within the
School/Department.

Step 1: Identification of Gaps between existing syllabus keeping in view the changes and best practices
in industry. It is important to study the Course Structures of top 10 Universities/ institutes in the country
offering management programs.

Step 2 : Make a thorough and critical study of the existing course structure and identify the road map for
future revisions specifying areas where changes are needed.

Step 3 : Collect the Books and Readings in those areas- Take print outs of detailed syllabus in those
books. It is important to keep the available content in mind while designing syllabus.

Step 4: If the Content is not available in Books, it is mandatory to collect various research articles/
industry reports etc., and prepare course specific readings and case studies.

Step 5: Make sure that in each course, the faculty members involved in preparing syllabus, have
textbooks and references and study the same to decide whether the content is suitable for the learner
needs.

Step6: Identify uniform structure for Syllabus of various courses. For example, number of modules/units
in each course. No. of Hours to be devoted for class room teaching, field work, presentations, case
studies etc. It is desirable to standardize these parameters for various courses. There could be
differentiation in these parameters in Core courses, Specializations, Audit Courses/ Non Credit Courses,
Languages etc.

Step7: Prepare the First Draft of the Syllabus as per the standards and discuss the same in the Internal
Meeting of Area Chairs and Faculty Council.

Make sure that that the syllabus has required contents as per the standards of the Program. The
Content shall have 50-70% coverage in Recommended Text Books in case of UG Programs and 40-60%
in case of PG Programs.

All the content shall be contemporary. It is important to remove all redundant portions in the previous
syllabus and include new contents based on teachers feedback.

Step8 : Prepare Second Draft after the concurrence of Area Chairs and Director/Dean. Make sure that
the document is corrected completely and there are no typographical errors or mistakes.

Step9 : Prepare a statement covering course-wise modifications and improvements with remarks. This
could be on an Excel Sheet.

Step10 : Prepare a Power Point Presentation giving details of New Course Structure, Changes
recommended for review and approval of BOS. Share the same with all BOS Members well in advance
requesting them to send their comments and suggestions by email.

Support to Faculty Members:

The faculty members may be allotted courses based on their teaching experience and interests ( in case
of new courses).

They should be encouraged to spend considerable time in library and in collecting details of books and
related sources through online.

It is desirable to spend a minimum of 6-8 weeks in this process and faculty members are to document
the background work done in providing inputs regarding each course.

In the event of desired books are not available in the library, it is desirable to write to publishers to send
the books for reference for syllabus preparation. The publishers will bring all their publications and leave
them for reference in library for 2-4 weeks.

It is desirable to have BOS meeting during Feb 2018 and finalize 2018 Syllabus and Regulations