UA, SCUE push to get more syllabi online

At the start of any semester, students find themselves rushing to buy books or changing their schedules at the drop of a hat. However, there may be a way to bypass the madness.

The Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, the Undergraduate Assembly and the Office of the Provost are working to encourage faculty to post course syllabi online.

This would allow students to better judge if they will enjoy a course, as well as buy books ahead of time, UA chairman and College junior Alec Webley said.

So far, 427 syllabi have been posted online since the project was completed in the spring, but SCUE, the UA and the Office of the Provost are working to significantly increase this number.

SCUE and the UA are drafting a letter to send out to all faculty urging them to upload course syllabi online, through Courses InTouch. Students can view these syllabi through the Penn InTouch course search tool.

College senior and SCUE Chairwoman Alex Berger said she recognizes that professors have a lot on their plates, and that uploading their syllabi is not always “on the top of their heads,” but she hopes that the letter will help make it easier for faculty to do so by outlining explicit steps on how to upload syllabi.

Webley said the letter is just the beginning of the attempt to get more syllabi online.

He said he would like a new tool to be implemented in Penn Course Review that would place a “special symbol” next to professors’ names who have uploaded syllabi. Departments with 100 percent of syllabi uploaded would receive “commendations.”

Webley added that online syllabi benefit both students and faculty.

For example, Webley said, students can know in advance if the class focuses more on test-taking or paper-writing, since some students are more comfortable doing one over the other.

Vice Provost for Education Andrew Binns agreed that both students and faculty would benefit. He is also encouraging faculty to upload course syllabi.

Binns said the Office of the Provost has been directly contacting faculty to encourage them to upload their syllabi online. He has spoken with the undergraduate chairs and deans.

“The undergraduate deans are pretty committed to asking their faculty to do this,” Binns said.

He added that faculty may be discouraged from uploading syllabi because their courses are constantly changing. However, he said, uploading an older syllabus is still a “good idea,” giving students an indication of how the course is structured.

By being able to view syllabi before registering for courses, he stressed, students will be able to register for classes they have more interest in, and professors will teach students who genuinely want to learn the material.

“I hope [the movement of syllabi to the internet] will spread like morning sunlight across the whole faculty,” Webley said.

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