Course Syllabus

Welcome to BUS205: Business Law

Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct, please read the Student Handbook.

Course Description

Learn about the laws that business managers must follow to protect their consumers, employees, and overall operations. Explore conflict management strategies and legal issues, such as torts, contracts, property law, intellectual property, and employment law.

Course Introduction

Law, in its simplest form, is used to protect one party from another. For instance, laws protect customers from being exploited by companies. Laws protect companies from other companies. Laws even protect citizens and corporations from the government. This course will introduce you to the laws that managers must abide by in the course of conducting business. Laws almost always shape a company's decision-making process: a bank cannot charge any interest rate it wants to charge - that rate must be appropriate. Car manufacturers must install hardware and develop new technologies to keep up with regulations designed to reduce pollution. By the end of this course, you will have a clear understanding of the legal environment in which businesses operate.

This course includes the following units:

  • Unit 1: Nature and Sources of Law
  • Unit 2: Litigation vs. Alternative Dispute Resolution
  • Unit 3: Torts
  • Unit 4: Contracts
  • Unit 5: Property Law
  • Unit 6: Intellectual Property
  • Unit 7: Employment Law
  • Unit 8: Criminal Law and Business
  • Unit 9: Business Organizations
  • Unit 10: Business Regulation

 

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

  • identify sources of law in the United States;
  • describe the function and role of courts in the US legal system;
  • differentiate litigation from methods of alternative dispute resolution, and discuss the process of each;
  • list the elements of the major torts;
  • list the essential elements of a valid contract;
  • describe how a contract can fail;
  • summarize the remedies available for breach of contract;
  • distinguish between real and personal property;
  • identify the various interests in real property and how they pass;
  • identify the requirements to hold various rights under intellectual property laws;
  • analyze the impact of the digital era on intellectual property rights;
  • distinguish between at-will employment and contractual employment;
  • identify laws that generally regulate the employer-employee relationship;
  • identify criminal acts related to the business world;
  • define and identify examples of white-collar crime;
  • describe the various forms of business organization; and
  • identify the major laws regulating business in the United States.

Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to help organize your studies and gauge your progress.

Course Materials

The primary learning materials for this course are articles, lectures, and videos.

All course materials are free to access and can be found in each unit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will tell you what to focus on in each resource, and will help you to understand how the learning materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also see a list of all the learning materials in this course by clicking on Resources in the navigation bar.

Evaluation and Minimum Passing Score

Only the final exam is considered when awarding you a grade for this course. In order to pass this course, you will need to earn a 70% or higher on the final exam. Your score on the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you may take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt. Once you have successfully passed the final exam you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.

There are also end-of-unit assessments and other learning activities in this course. These are designed to help you study, and do not factor into your final course grade. You can take these as many times as you want until you understand the concepts and material covered. You can see all of these assessments by clicking on Quizzes in the course's navigation bar.

Earning College Credit

This course is eligible for college credit via Saylor Academy's Direct Credit Program. If you want to earn college credit, you must take and pass the Direct Credit final exam. That exam will be password protected and requires a proctor. If you pass the Direct Credit exam, you will receive a Proctor Verified Course Certificate and be eligible to earn an official transcript. For more information about applying for college credit, review the guide to college credit opportunities. Be sure to check the section on proctoring for details like fees and technical requirements.

There is a 14-day waiting period between attempts of the Direct Credit final exam. There is no waiting period between attempts for the not-for-credit exam and the Direct Credit exam. You may only attempt each Direct Credit final exam a maximum of 3 times. Be sure to study in between each attempt!

Tips for Success

BUS205: Business Law is a self-paced course, which means that you can decide when you will start and when you will complete the course. There is no instructor or an assigned schedule to follow. We estimate that the "average" student will take 42 hours to complete this course. We recommend that you work through the course at a pace that is comfortable for you and allows you to make regular progress. It's a good idea to also schedule your study time in advance and try as best as you can to stick to that schedule.

Learning new material can be challenging, so we've compiled a few study strategies to help you succeed:

  • Take notes on the various terms, practices, and theories that you come across. This can help you put each concept into context, and will create a refresher that you can use as you study later on.
  • As you work through the materials, take some time to test yourself on what you remember and how well you understand the concepts. Reflecting on what you've learned is important for your long-term memory, and will make you more likely to retain information over time. 

Technical Requirements

This course is delivered entirely online. You will be required to have access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and have consistent access to the internet to either view or download the necessary course resources and to attempt any auto-graded course assessments and the final exam.

  • To access the full course including assessments and the final exam, you will need to be logged into your Saylor Academy account and enrolled in the course. If you do not already have an account, you may create one for free here. Although you can access some of the course without logging in to your account, you should log in to maximize your course experience. For example, you cannot take assessments or track your progress unless you are logged in.
  • If you plan to attempt the optional Direct Credit final exam, then you will also need access to a webcam. This lets our remote proctoring service verify your identity, which is required to issue an official transcript to schools on your behalf.

For additional guidance, check out Saylor Academy's FAQ.

Fees

This course is entirely free to enroll in and to access. Everything linked in the course, including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities, is available for no charge. This course also contains a free final exam and course completion certificate.

This course also has an optional final exam that can give you an opportunity to earn college credit. This exam requires the use of a proctoring service for identity verification purposes. The cost for proctoring for this optional exam is $5 per session.

Last modified: Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 2:42 PM