Comments on Syllabi Should Be Open

• Why?
• Posted by Anonymous on June 3, 2010 at 7:30am EDT

• You provide no rationale for why this should be done or why it's even a good idea. I'm not 'creeped out' as you call it, but I see no real reason why this needs to be done and what anyone gains by it happening. Yes, I'm sure I would get ideas and learn things from colleagues teaching similar courses, but it could also lead to stifling creativity (people just ripping others off) and a regretable move towards standarization over time.

• Questionable Value
• Posted by Michael on June 3, 2010 at 7:45am EDT

• This reads like a memo from one of Henry Ford's company-run schools circa 1915. Last I checked Fordism gave up the ghost somewhere between 1968 and 1980. This doesn't mean I don't like to examine an on-line course outline, or read a few c.v. to see what my colleagues are doing, but I do it when I want, where I want, for the reasons I want.

• Openness, standards and assessment
• Posted by Jonathan Dresner on June 3, 2010 at 8:45am EDT

• Some of us have been doing this fairly routinely, including blog-based discussions of curricular choices, assignments, and related issues.

  The commenters above want to know the value? I think it's pretty obvious. It creates a public record of your work as a teacher; it opens up the University to the public in a way which is currently quite unusual, but won't be in the future; it enables discussions of assessment and learning (and if we don't find good ways of doing this ourselves, our unreconstructed Fordist overlords will do it to us); it allows potential students to see what your courses entail, beyond 200-word catalog descriptions; it shares your work and perspective on the material with colleagues at home and elsewhere; it creates a body of knowledge on the web about the proper study of your field.

  Part of the reason it isn't more common, I think, is the development of closed-access LMS: I have colleagues who routinely teach online, but whose syllabi are completely inaccessible to anyone but their students, just like they would have been in the days of paper.

• Student-centered approach
• Posted by Barry D on June 3, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

• The first two published comments appear to come from professors, and it seems that they jump to the conclusion that the whole point of putting them online is for other professors to see what their colleagues are up to. My immediately assumed that your point was that there would be value to students (especially potential students prior to registration) to have this syllabi information publicly available. Students generally have to guess as to what they should expect in any given course in which they enroll. Higher ed as a whole appears to be one of the last ones to provide information to the buyers before they buy.

  BTW, this is another case where we aren't all operating with a common set of terms. At my school, we have an official course outline (approved curriculum through the proper channels) and then we have a course syllabus which is a particular instructors "version" of the course outline - in other words how they plan to teach the class during any particular term. I'm a little confused about whether you are talking about a generic course outline or a course syllabus for a specific term. Putting the course outlines online is a relatively easy task since they don't change all that often. Term-specific course syllabi present a very different problem, and keeping them up-to-date is a huge endeavor.

  Regardless of which of those you're talking about, it's also is a great aid to people who are making course transfer decisions to have this information available. Tracking down the proper course info is often the biggest hurdle faced when school B is trying to decide whether to accept credits from a course offered at school A.

• Sharing is key
• Posted by Jason , Educational Technology Consultant on June 3, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

• I completely agree with this. Sharing is a key component to academic transparency and leveling the playing field in the so-called "flat world."

  As for the "why," or "so what" question, I wrote a blog post about this last semester: http://blogs.umass.edu/teachoit/2010/01/26/to-share-or-not-to-share/ (the link button in this editor appears to be funky today, sorry...). It includes a rationale for open course content and a few best practices when publishing on the Web.

  Hope it's helpful,
  // Jason

• The proof is in the pudding!
• Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic-in-training at Northeast on June 3, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

• I've been advocating for open Syllabi (or at least an institutional syllabus database) for the past 5 years. What's the benefit? There are many benefits:

  1. For faculty you get to see what your colleagues are doing, and it provides opportunities not only to improve your syllabus, but to also have interdisciplinary course development! Just because something is available to be viewed doesn't mean that there is a standardization process going on. Far from it! I dislike syllabi where faculty just take what's given to them and teach from the sullabus in an unquestioning manner - it's like getting a textbook and not veering off it! Real learning doesn't happen that way.

  2.For students: they get to know what they are getting into! As a grad student I always asked faculty for a preliminary syllabus of the course at registration time. This helped me load-balance my classes and pick classes that benefited me as a learner given my particular learning style. It also helped me to determine if certain elective courses would be worth the hassle, or if I would be better served as a learner to pick other electives.

  3. For the Institution: Fostering such a level of openess is good for recruitment. Potential students can look at a department's offerings (beyond the silly little catalog blurb) to see if the courses and program of study at an institution is a good fit for them.

  What I disagree with:

  1. Don't make it opt in, make it mandatory - you've got people who are either afraid that their hard work will be stolen, or people who have just "never done it this way and never will". It must be a prerequisite of employment at an institution that you make your syllabus public - period - otherwise the system doesn't work.

  2. The fuzzyness of copyright: I agree that someone's work needs to be acknowledged, [Devil's Advocate Mode] but a syllabus is a syllabus - what do you maintain copyright over? The readings and books you selected? Your office hours and grading policy? Your grading rubric? I dealt with a case recently where someone got upset that someone else used their grading policy in their syllabus. There are only so many finite combinations of date/time/location for dropping off homework! Added to this fuzzyness the public/non-profit nature of universities. If they are public and paid for by public funds: the work IS PUBLIC - period - my tax dollars paid to subsidize it! If the institution is a non-profit institution (like most universities), then by certain laws some services have to be available to the general public for the general good. OpenCourseWave and Syllabus information seem to be the minimum that should be available for the public good.

• Syllabus Clearinghouses
• Posted by Denise D , adjunct Asst Prof at Comprehensive public university on June 3, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

• I am in my first year as an adjunct and was asked to teach four courses this year where I was not entirely familiar with the material. Access to others' syllabi was invaluable to me as I developed (what I hope were) interesting, engaging, and challenging courses. While I found many applicable syllabi via google searches, I also made use of syllabus clearinghouses available through professional associations (specificially, the American Counseling Association and ACPA-College Student Educators International). I urge all faculty to consider sharing their efforts with colleagues in this way.

• Several Problems
• Posted on June 3, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

• Just because technology will make syllabi more available, many university faculty have problems with the idea of mandating the "sharing" of syllabi. First, I spend many hours on constructing my courses and consider the work my intellectual property. I have willingly shared my materials with colleagues that I know---but I do not want to share these materials with people I do not know. (Maybe I'd feel differently if I were being reimbursed for each of my syllabi that was downloaded...after all, that's already being done with music and books--why not syllabi??) Secondly, good teachers know that they need to respond to the needs of their students, which means that if you believe in the emergent curriculum model and differentiated instruction, sometimes what is on paper needs to change. In a litigious society, I would only be willing to share very broad goals in a public forum, whereas I'd give my students the "real" syllabi including all of the readings and projects.

• A Whole Lot of Gray Area
• Posted by John Hill on June 3, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

• In an ideal world, I absolutely agree with the proposal. But since we don't live in that ideal world, there are several hurdles to implementing a plan like this.

  • Do you draw a line between publicly-funded institutions and for-profits, using the type of funding as a criteria for whether there is a compulsory publishing of syllabi?
  • Is it enough to make syllabi available within an institution so students and other faculty have access? Should potential students be given access as well, or should the general public be allowed to review any syllabus?
  • How much of a threat (if any) is publishing a syllabus devloped for a specific institution in the first place? Is there really a competitive edge to developing a syllabus and then holding onto it like the developer has a copyright on all information contained in it? And is a syllabus really so special that it deserves the protection of the Colonel's Secret Recipe?

• digital eloism
• Posted by Doug Holton , Assistant Prof at Utah State University on June 3, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

• You had me until the Google part. First of all there already are Google sites, Google docs, spreadsheet, etc.
  But too often we seem to be digital eloi/consumers waiting on or reacting to what Microsoft/Google/apple develop for us. Creating a web based database of documents is something every high school student should be able to do.

• Posted by Barbara Fister on June 3, 2010 at 10:45am EDT

• The real question to me seems to be "why not?" though I am bothered by the idea that Google should do it for us. We're getting awfully dependent on Uncle Google, and he's a little creepy. He goes through our pockets and looks at our e-mail so he can tell advertisers what we're interested in. It may be better than hiring Blackboard to be our expensive and bossy Jeeves, but it's not that hard to publish to the web.

  My students like having almost everything online in one place (though some readings are behind the library's proxy and some are handouts I distribute in class). I like being able to send a link when someone asks what my courses are about. I like it when someone says "do you mind if I use that section? it's just what I'm trying to do." Be my guest. That's what the CC license is there for.

  If you see no reason to advance teaching and learning by sharing syllabi and course materials, then you probably see no reason for publishing research unless it's to advance your career. There's an awful lot of hoarding going on, but sharing ideas is how scholarly work thrives.

• Syllabus is for the Students
• Posted by No one in particular , Professor/ Risk Management at Ga. State University on June 3, 2010 at 10:45am EDT

• The purpose of the syllabus is to direct the students through a course. It is not to make the world more flat or to increase academic transparency. In fact, the material in it is what makes my class different from other classes. The materials I employ and the way I teach is my "trade secret". I do not mind sharing this with local curriculum committees, but why would anyone insist that I share it with the world? We do not make Coca Cola divulge its secret formula to promote a society where everyone can make their own Coke. Why don't we make Disney open their parks for free or why don't we just let anyone use the trade mark protected Mickey Mouse? The work I put into my class is my intellectual property and it belongs to me and my employer.

  There is nothing special about academics as an economic activity. It is a service industry and we have a right to decide how to use our resources. If we decide to give away our product that is fine, but there is moral no case for giving away the intellectual property for something as undefinable as "academic transparency."

  In all honesty I do not think that my courses are better than any other dedicated professor (and in fact, it may not be as good as most other professors). It is just ridiculous to think that Universities will want to give away content for free without getting something in return. For many universities and professors this "give away" is not going to happen.

• Universally Designed Syllabi
• Posted by Gina Carson , Disabilities Specialist at Passaic County Community College on June 3, 2010 at 11:30am EDT

• Sharing the syllabi as stated is all about ACCESSIBILITY to all students. It's about universally designing syllabi and courses for maximum accessibility.

• Tell me where I'm wrong...
• Posted by DrRingDing on June 3, 2010 at 11:30am EDT

• Expanding on the 10:45am post of 'No one in particular,' here's where you're wrong, Joshua.

  As a tenured Associate Professor, I, too, believe that my syllabi are my intellectual property. I neither used university computers to produce my syllabi, nor used university staff to produce them. As a result, the detailed syllabi are available only to students who pay the tuition to enroll in my courses. Based on 12 years of annually refining and updating my syllabi, they are the cumulative products of my teaching philosophy, hard work and commitment to the scholarship of teaching in a research-oriented university. Unlike 'No one in particular,' however, I DO believe that my courses are better than others on my subjects because of this commitment.

  Joshua's suggestions mirror the standard administrative response to a problem or issue: "What is everyone else doing?" My PhD gave me the ability to critically evaluate instructional materials and make my own decisions, rather than make buffet-style choices based on someone else's judgment.

  The idea of a "senior learning technologist" telling faculty that their syllabi should be made freely available is laughable.

• Please elaborate
• Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic-in-training on June 3, 2010 at 12:45pm EDT

• Quote from Dr.RingDing "The idea of a "senior learning technologist" telling faculty that their syllabi should be made freely available is laughable."

  Out of curiosity, please elaborate - why do you find it laughable?

• Intellectual Property and Intellectual Process
• Posted by Jonathan Dresner on June 3, 2010 at 5:00pm EDT

• Putting something on the web doesn't change its status as your intellectual property: Even using the Creative Commons system - which I don't believe any university uses generally - there's a very restrictive version of the license; otherwise, normal copyright and fair use applies. There is, as far as I know, no reason why syllabi would be considered a 'work product' whose intellectual rights devolved to the institution.

  I'm a little surprised by the idea that syllabi represent a 'trade secret' like Coca Cola's secret recipe. No two teachers are quite alike in their training, style, goals and preferences: Even using identical syllabi, different instructors are going to produce different results. If you're serious about this, it wouldn't be hard to produce a public syllabus which provided the basic information on readings, assignments and learning outcomes, and a supplement which was distributed within the course with the 'secret sauce.'

• The Syllabus Is Just the Framework
• Posted by Maria Shine Stewart , Multiple at Multiple on June 3, 2010 at 7:45pm EDT

• As one who agonizes over the syllabus -- and has since her first year of teaching -- I try every semester and with every course to "make it fresh" and to allow for a bit of my own evolving voice. The many syllabi I create each semester (I am a busy adjunct) sometimes show traces of what I'm reading at the time. At various schools, policy details need to be quite extensive and explicit, and some require a direct alignment of my goals with curricular goals and college goals. The degree of autonomy in assignment design varies -- that is fine -- but I still have my own path to getting students to the end point and my own best practices to use. Yet, "the policy me" and the "align with others" me is not the whole me as a teacher...and more than 60 percent of the success of my course, I would guesstimate, is about student response, innovation, and a degree of experimentation. As I typed my first syllabus in 1982, it's never been "same old, same old"... and though I look at what colleagues do--and am often amazed, surprised, and impressed with how few words (like a haiku) they create a course framework--I know there is more to their teaching, also. A sentence like the one before this one would never make it to my syllabus, I might add.

  If anyone needs a break from this conversation and has a taste for puns (bad or otherwise), consider perusing my humorous take published in IHE several months ago, "A Syllabus Syllabary." I'll add number 26: "See-la-bus: The one that everyone can see."

  Students are welcome to see my syllabus ahead of time. Anyone is. But it does not capture the full sense of my teaching style(s) nor my ability to elicit good writing from students. I'd be happy to post video to supplement -- but even for these..."that was the best me then"...and there may be a better me, now--even if my hair is grayer.

  I agree that there should not be too much secrecy in an era of accountability and transparency. However, good education does involve wonder, discovery, and (good) surprise. Students grow; so do teachers.

• Essence of Teaching, and Google
• Posted by Brad Felix on June 4, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

• DrRingDing, your views seem rather...dated. Answer the fundamental question: Why are you an educator? Is it not the basic notion of sharing your knowledge that defines what you do? If so, then of what concern is it of yours where the walls lie in terms of who can and cannot see your stuff? If your material is so fantastic, then the more people able to leverage it the better, no?

  If your concern is attribution, slap an appropriate CC license on it, and get it out there, and make a name for yourself. That is how to make an impact as a true educator in this information age.

  Josh, as for Google, they will very likely dip toes in the water (see the lightly publicized CloudCourse as an interesting first step) and tie it tightly to the Google Apps platform. My opinion is that its helpful. In the end its just one of a list of tools (Wordpress, pbwiki, etc.) that people can use.

• from informal sharing to digital mandate?
• Posted by Michael J. Altman , Ph.D. student at Emory Univ. on June 4, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

• I'm not really sure how I feel about making syllabi completely open access but from reading the comments above I do have one small observation. In our pedagogy training seminars here at Emory a member of my department made the point that in your publishing and writing you must maintain the strictest vigilance to give appropriate credit and citations in your work when you borrow from others but in teaching you should basically steal mercilessly. While I think she may have been a bit hyperbolic, the point is that sharing pedagogy has been a part of academic culture for a while. The question now seems to be about how that sharing culture between colleagues (that usually stayed w/in an institution or w/in circles of professional friends) ought to translate into a digital world.

  I don't think any sort of mandatory policy is the answer. I don't know about other fields, but in my area or religious studies, the American Academy of Religion has a pretty healthy database of syllabi from various courses across the field. In some ways, I think academic societies are better suited for this sort of project than Google or even schools themselves. I also don't think formal administrative mandates is a solution either. In the end, like everything else an academic produces, it is their decision where, when and how they publish it.

  I have certainly benefited from syllabi I've found either on the AAR system or online or through friends who've been kind enough to share them with me, especially as I put together my recent comp. exam lists. But I would never demand that everyone in my field be as generous as these colleagues and friends, especially to people they don't know when they don't know how they will use their work. In the end, scholars are like everyone else some are helpful and others are less so. We can't mandate collegiality we can only practice it the best way we see fit.

• Centralize the Syllabi
• Posted by Jenn Connally at Intellidemia on June 5, 2010 at 12:15pm EDT

• ADA.org: Evaluation Policies and Procedures Universities like Webster, Neumann, Howard, and many others have started implementing their own homegrown syllabus solutions for assessment/accreditation and student viewing purposes. There seems to be a concerted effort for getting syllabi online making it easier for prospective students, current students, instructors, and administrators to organize, share, and analyze information. A new tool for accomplishing this is Concourse. Concourse speaks to all five traits you have listed. It's an online platform; it's both public and institute facing, with varying permission. Admin. can create a syllabus template that includes institute policies, instructors can populate the template unique to their course; students can view the syllabus as well as search courses. Both objectives and outcomes are included and easily search and viewed. Concourse is designed with the look and feel of a paper syllabus, it even prints like one, and it’s a very familiar environment, a hybrid between word and a wizard. Concourse is designed with the instructor in mind, the tools value comes directly from the instructors use and adaptation. With regard to the syllabus as IP, Concourse allows instructors and administrators to use a permissions feature to determine how much syllabus content is visible by group, i.e., public, students, instructors, and admin. I chose not too include a link as I wanted this to be more educational in nature. If you are interested in learning more simply search Intellidemia. Concourse Basic is available to instructors for free. Concourse allows students, instructors, and administrators to organize, share, and analyze course information anytime and anywhere. Concourse really speaks to your ideas about an open syllabus.

• The map and the territory
• Posted by Academic Anarchist on July 1, 2010 at 5:00am EDT

• I recently had to endure the misery of a doctoral seminar in "College Teaching" where the entire objective was to learn how to write a syllabus. No reflective contemplation of teaching philosophy. No nuanced analysis of pedagogical strategies. No rigorous theorizing of the nature of teaching and learning. None of the graduate students expressed the least bit of curiosity about whether there might be a little more to college teaching than stating outcomes as behavioral objectives, outlining a sequence of assignment deadlines, or itemizing a schedule of policies and the draconian consequences of their violation.

  The well-intentioned notion of an electronic syllabus repository makes about as much sense as a telephone directory hall of fame. I sincerely doubt that many graduates have lovingly curated collections of syllabi from their days as a college student, preserved along side their treasured volumes of annual college catalogs, dog-eared student handbooks, and successfully guessed multiple choice tests. If there is any course they can even faintly recall a year or two after they were awarded a diploma, it was because they made a strong personal emotional connection -- for better or worse -- to something they found meaningful in their learning experience. That may have come from their teacher, their classmates, or their own engagement with the course content, but not from any syllabus.

  As I wrote on the evaluation for my doctoral seminar: "No one has ever ended a course thinking, 'He wasn't much of a teacher and I really didn't learn anything, but, damn, he sure writes an awesome syllabus!"