Departments inside the Online Syllabus System are roughly analogous to their real life counterparts. Generally speaking, when a syllabus is created, it will be attached to a department (in the case of cross-listed courses, this will be the "home" department responsible for funding the course). Once attached, the syllabus will be reviewed by that department before being sent to the Dean's Office for final approval.
In order for this to happen, some thought will need to be put into how to best configure the department, whether or not the department has specific policies that apply to their courses (i.e. clicker use), who should be able to administer the department, who should be able to approve syllabuses, and whether or not anybody should be able to edit a submitted syllabus.
This section of the guide is intended to shed some light on the departmental configuration process, the ongoing maintenance of a department, as well as how to manage and maintain a department's policies.