Education has been undergoing a significant transformation, largely driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and the growing demand for automation in administrative tasks. It is crucial to design tools that alleviate administrative tasks for educators, allowing them to focus on the pedagogical aspects of teaching. This paper introduces Smart Syllabi, an AI-assisted application, designed to support instructors in drafting course syllabi efficiently while preserving their educational vision. The system connects to an external AI assistant—such as ChatGPT or any other model—fine-tuned on high-quality syllabi and university regulations. Instead of integrating these regulations directly, relevant knowledge is extracted to help the AI assistant generate structured and compliant syllabi while maintaining flexibility for educators.

The Smart Syllabi application follows a structured three-step wizard: first, instructors input basic course information; second, they define their vision and learning objectives; and finally, they select relevant keywords that best align with their intended course structure. Educators provide feedback on which keywords fit their vision and, more importantly, which do not—allowing the AI assistant to refine the syllabus accordingly. This feedback loop ensures that the generated draft reflects the instructor's unique approach rather than imposing a rigid template. Additionally, the system ensures that course outcomes align with the predefined learning outcomes of the academic program, helping maintain curriculum consistency across study groups. Finally, using the structured data generated by the AI model, the application’s backend fills in the latest Word template and provides it to the user.

A key advantage of this approach is its ability to adapt to periodic updates in university regulations, study program outcomes, or syllabus templates. These changes are a natural part of curriculum development and institutional progress, and Smart Syllabi ensures they do not become an administrative load for educators. Rather than posing obstacles, these updates are seen as flexible representations of an educational vision, with AI acting as a bridge between conceptual ideas and their formal structure. The AI assistant's role is to support instructors in translating their vision into a structured syllabus while ensuring compliance with institutional requirements, thus streamlining the entire process.

A key aspect of the project is ensuring that AI remains a support tool rather than replacing educators in syllabus creation. The system is designed to generate only an initial draft, serving as a starting point for instructors rather than a fully automated solution. Importantly, the Smart Syllabi application is fully open-source, with code publicly available on GitHub (https://github.com/hljubic/smart-syllabi).

Future work will focus on developing a WhatsApp chatbot, allowing instructors to interact directly with the AI assistant. This feature will enable professors to engage in an easy, conversational way with the assistant, refining syllabi and receiving guidance throughout the process. By reducing administrative workload and offering flexibility for updates, Smart Syllabi allows educators to focus on teaching, while also providing institutions with a customizable, open-source tool that adapts to their needs and complements, rather than replaces, human expertise.

Keywords: Educational technology, Syllabus development, AI in education, Open source.