For several years now, each fall I've taught two sections of XCOR 1000, and every fall I've done the same tidy thing: merged the two sections in Brightspace. If you've never done it, merging combines two course sections into a single course so you only have one set of content to maintain. For two identical classes, it's a small act of self-preservation — one gradebook, one set of modules, one place to post an announcement.
I still recommend it. But last fall I learned that merging comes with a catch now that the College of Arts & Sciences has begn requiring the use of Simple Syllabus.
Here's the thing about how we merge sections on our campus. Brightspace doesn't blend two classes into some neutral third space. It picks a winner. Every student from one section gets poured into the other — the "primary" — and the primary's identity takes over. My sections were 9 and 16. Brightspace moved everyone from 16 into 9. Section 9 lived. Section 16, for all practical purposes, lost.
Which is where the Highlander problem starts. There can be only one.
Simple Syllabus links a specific syllabus to a specific section based on the CRN (Course Record Number), so students get exactly the version built for their class, and as a result, the instructor can see who has opened it and how far they have read. In a course where "did you read the syllabus?" is a real question and not a rhetorical one, that's data I actually want.
But after the merge, there could be only one syllabus, and it belonged to section 9. So my section 16 students opened their syllabus and found someone else's schedule waiting for them: Monday at 11 instead of Monday at 1. Same course, same content, wrong meeting time.
The second cut was quieter. My section 16 students were never recorded as reading section 16's syllabus, because section 16's syllabus was no longer theirs to read. They read the syllabus for section 9, and my Simple Syllabus dashboard told me that a big chunk of the class had skipped the assignment.
None of this makes merging a bad idea. The efficiency is real, and I'm not giving it up. But you need to plan for this conflict between Brightspace and Simple Syllabus, and you need to give up that built in tracking that Simple Syllabus offers.
Merge away. Just know going in that when two sections become one, there can be only one syllabus.