Outline.uwaterloo.ca

The Outline Project attempts to solve a long-standing problem in higher education: course outlines are chaos .

The project intends to help faculties fix both of these issues by providing a standardized outline-authoring process which provides the following:

• Fixed Layouts -- By making all course outlines across the campus follow the same layout, students will always know where to find specific content on the document.
• Variable Content Types -- Different sections of a course outline can require very different formats. Outline allows free-form Word-style editing for some portions of outlines, while other portions may be locked into tabular or plain-text formats to maximize consistency and readability.
• Readability & Accessibility -- The final published document created by Outline is in HTML format, and structured to maximize compatibility with screen-readers.
• Tracked Changes -- Once an outline has been published, subsequent changes are tracked, ensuring both the instructor and students can view all iterations of the document.
• Outline-reuse -- Outline makes it trivial for an instructor to import any previously published course outline. This is a boon to first-time instructors of a course, and can make returning instructors' publishing process take only moments.
• A Single, Definitive Repository -- by authoring course outlines in the tool, faculties and departments will be able to easily keep a repository of past course outlines.
• Queryable Outlines -- Some portions of course outlines are coerced into tables, allowing data to be easily queried across published outlines. Retrieving learning outcomes, grading schemes, etc for all outlines within a faculty becomes a few minutes instead of a few days!

Software History

The tool had a rocky start. The first version (~2016) was developed as a joint effort between Science and Math, but saw very little adoption. A redesign focused on instructor usability in 2018 lead to a much wider buy in from faculty members and departments.

The software was formally adopted by the university and saw a rewrite in a more standard toolset in 2024/25

Support

If you're an instructor using Outline.uwaterloo.ca, reach out to your Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, as most faculties have some level of internal support.

For technical support, questions, or issues contact the development team via the People section here.

As a campus-wide tool, outline.uwaterloo.ca is supported by FAST members to ensure no single point of failure. In the event that the primary maintainers or group is unable to provide service, contact a FAST representative to determine a backup support protocol.

Project Contacts

Mirko Vucicevich All inquiries

Contributors and Stakeholders