The following guidelines are offered to all academic departments on campus in which course syllabi are produced, whether by faculty or non-academic teaching staff.

Course syllabi have essential value for faculty members, graduate students, alumni, and researchers alike.

Faculty members use archived syllabi to develop new courses or as informational sources for courses they have never taught before. Graduate students with teaching assistantships use these syllabi to get a better understanding of courses they wish to teach. Alumni use syllabi to support resumes and job applications through the documentation of course content, which demonstrates understanding of relevant topics. Researchers use syllabi to document trends in education or the ways in which academic institutions have presented subjects, issues and debates to their students over time.

The UWM Uniform Syllabus Policy prescribes that academic departments maintain their syllabi in a departmental file for two years after their creation. The UWM Records Management Program recommends that after this period, these syllabi then be transferred to the Archives for permanent preservation.

These guidelines are offered in order that academic departments may thereby free up valuable office space, both physical and virtual, while still being able to make reference and research use of their old course syllabi when necessary.

These guidelines apply to all course syllabi, regardless of format. Electronic versions of syllabi may be transferred to the Archives on CD-ROM or transferred via PantherFile.