Writing your syllabus

Bernhard Bieri

2022-11-09

{iheiddown} is not only a tool for students to write their thesis in. It can also be of use for teaching activities at IHEID as it harbors a great looking template for course syllabi. This short article will walk you through the workflow of writing your very own syllabus in R.

Installation

The installation process is the same than for the thesis template. You’ll need the following software:

  1. Install R and R-Studio
  2. Install a LATEX distribution:
  3. Install {iheiddown} by typing the following command install.packages("iheiddown") in the R-Studio console.

Note: typing remotes::install_github("jhollway/iheiddown") will provide you with the latest version from GitHub.

Create your first syllabus

Creating your first syllabus is easy! Let’s look at how it is done. Before we begin, we have to create a new R project by clicking on the file tab in the top of the RStudio window and following the instructions of the prompt that appears. Now that we have created an R project for our presentation, we can open a new R-Markdown file. To do this click on the “plus file” logo in the top left corner and then on “R-Markdown”.

Step 1: Open a project

Step 1: Open a project

After you have done this, a little pop-up helper will appear. The first thing we will do is to select the {iheiddown} template for our presentation. To do so, click on the “From Template” option on the left and select the “Syllabus {iheiddown}” template. Now give your file a name and click on “OK”.