Pictured Above: The syllabus archive was put in place ahead of the spring 2021 semester.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
By Edyn Gottlieb
A syllabus archive is now available for students through Canvas, thanks to an initiative developed by Student Government.
The syllabus archive provides students access to past syllabi which can be used to assist in course selection. It will be funded by the Student Tech Fee.
The archive will only give students access to past syllabi. Syllabi for upcoming semesters will not be made available until one week before the start of the course.
The database can be accessed through the syllabus archive icon on the left side of the Canvas dashboard screen, and the basic search option can be used to search all fields, including course name, course number, instructor and term.
The advanced search option allows students to search multiple fields at the same time, such as term and instructor.
The syllabi available will be from past semesters and may not reflect changes made for the new semester even if the course and instructor remain the same.
Some professors still think more should be done for the student experience.
“The syllabus isn’t the correct vehicle to use to communicate the learning experience of any course,” said Stephen Diasio, a marketing and innovation instructor. “The syllabus is a basic contract outlining the expectations between the student and faculty member. If students want to know what a course is like, have faculty make videos that demonstrate the experience in the classroom or show exemplar student work.”
Others, like psychology chair Tiffany Chenneville, said the archive was a good idea, but she sees possible “unintended consequences.”
“I fear that it might result in unintended consequences given that many faculty members, like myself, revise their syllabus (to at least some degree) each time they teach the course,” Chenneville said in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “Therefore, a student may register for a course expecting one syllabus and get another one entirely.”
Sophie Ojdanic contributed to this report.
