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Newsvine***CORRECTION: In this article, The Daily inaccurately stated that there are 130 syllabi available on the Syllabus Web site. There are actually over 1,200 syllabi due to the site's integration with Coursework.***
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The beginning of spring quarter marked a renewed effort to make course syllabi available to all students before and during the “shopping” period. Faculty members are now able to post syllabi on the Stanford Syllabus site through Coursework, rather than uploading syllabi to each site separately.
“They can upload to Coursework, and Coursework will push it forward [to the Syllabus site],” said Lois Brooks, director of Academic Computing. “[Before the change] it was a double upload for them.”
While the change has not affected the interface of either Web site, the Coursework team in Academic Computing believes it will make posting syllabi simpler and less time consuming for faculty. Updates made to syllabi on Coursework will also be automatically updated on the Syllabus site.
“This [change] was done by the CW [Coursework] group to help with the one large challenge we ran into with Stanford Syllabus — getting faculty to load their syllabi there,” wrote Geophysics Prof. Rosemary Knight in an email to The Daily. Knight was Chair of the Senate Committee for Undergraduate Standards and Policy for the 2005-06 academic year, when the idea for the Syllabus site was developed.
“During that year we considered various models, and ultimately helped obtain funding from the Provost to develop and launch Stanford Syllabus in fall ‘06-’07 — online access to all course syllabi,” Knight said.
Brooks pointed out that the Coursework site restricts user access, while the stand-alone Syllabus site was designed to be accessible to all students, regardless of whether or not they are enrolled in a course.
There are currently about 130 course syllabi available on the Syllabus Web site. But with over 1,000 courses currently on Coursework, Brooks expects that number to increase significantly with the new change — if not this spring, then definitely for the fall quarter.
“I think it would be more useful if more syllabi were put up,” said Suzanne King ‘09, “because as it is now, it’s kind of a hit-or-miss help-wise.”
“The new system means that all syllabi in CW are automatically fed into Syllabus,” Knight added. “The more syllabi that are contained in Syllabus, the more useful it will be.”