Students upload their old syllabi to the site, and professors opt in to the program, formally allowing the site to use their material. They are not required to upload their syllabi to the website. For Syllabi Central to succeed, more professors need to embrace this opportunity.

We also encourage professors to upload syllabi for future courses as well, especially as most syllabi are approved up to a year in advance of each course.

Creating a secure forum for students to gain insight into potential courses will not only give them greater insight into the course, but will also reduce the often dramatic fluctuations that can occur on a professor’s class roster. With talk of an extended the passing period from seven to 10 minutes to accommodate the growing Danforth Campus, the decreased shopping period could also increase classroom time, giving instructors the ability to cover everything they set out to teach.

While some professors may use their own websites to post their syllabi and readings, Syllabi Central offers a far more secure option. It is WUSTL Key protected, which prevents copyright violation, and will make the site easier to manage and supervise.

We also believe that all students should request that their professors and deans upload course information. An old syllabus can benefit students in a real way and be a resource in conjunction with other university initiatives to help students choose courses, including evaluations and WebSTAC. While WebSTAC provides course summaries, they vary greatly in depth of description and can be somewhat incomprehensible for those who haven’t taken the class. Syllabi Central, with our help, provides a way to remedy that.

Students can reduce the stressful experience of having to shop for classes by using Syllabi Central. For students who are taking a class with multiple sections taught by different professors, old syllabi can offer insight into each instructor’s teaching style and class structure. By making more informed decisions for future courses, students can have more time to shop for textbooks, read ahead or communicate with their professors before the year actually starts.

So far, the administration’s attempts to streamline its course listings and registration processes have been undermined by student efforts that are more user-friendly. We would like to applaud the decision to further incorporate student input into the school’s operations. Working with students such as Marcus and Novick to better the management of this institution is a step in the right direction. The University administration should be taking similar changes to incorporate the ideas of those who know what students want most—the students themselves.

Students frustrated with one-paragraph course descriptions for academic course listings now have a new online resource to help them pick out classes.

Student Union Senators Joseph Marcus and Jake Novick have invented ​SyllabiCentral, a Web site that gathers syllabi from different University courses in one central location in order to give students a better sense of what classes offer.

“Being a bio major, if I wanted to take a psych course or political science course, I would have absolutely no idea what a class would cover because I wouldn’t have a major advisor to go to,” Marcus said. “So this would be especially useful for introductory-level classes that really don’t change much year to year.”

The senators hope that the program will have all course syllabi up by next semester. So far, SyllabiCentral has about 400 syllabi uploaded to its database, which is accessible to students online.

Since course listings for spring 2010 were posted a couple of weeks ago, Marcus said he has seen an increase in the number of visitors to SyllabiCentral.

Chethan Rao is a junior who has been using SyllabiCentral since its initial stages.

“Sometimes the synopses on course listings aren’t enough to know if you’re interested in the class,” Rao said. “It helps to know what kind of books you’ll be reading and details like that.”

While SyllabiCentral is intended primarily for students, faculty can also find the information useful.

“It’s good for faculty because you get a better look at who wants to take your class and hopefully it decreases the volatility in the shopping period in the first couple weeks of class, where a lot of people just go to class to grab a syllabus to see if they want to take it and decide. Why not speed that up a little bit and help people plan out their courses?” Novick said.

Allan Larson, professor of biology, agreed. While the biology department currently has many course syllabi already listed on its Web site, SyllabiCentral would be able to link these syllabi with a central database.

“I hope that all departments and instructors will work with SyllabiCentral to create a comprehensive source of course syllabi,” Larson said.

SyllabiCentral mirrors many other programs at Washington University’s peer institutions.  Universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown and the University of Southern California all have password-protected course syllabi, and Duke has open syllabi online.

While SyllabiCentral is still a work in progress and syllabi are being added as they come in, there has been no set schedule for implementation.  Currently, Marcus and Novick have been trying to meet with as many departments and programs as possible in order to get support behind the project before releasing it to the entire University. So far, response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Just as the project itself is about gathering everything into one place, it’s all about gathering the support in one place as well,” Novick said.  “Right now, we’re just trying to lay as much groundwork as possible.  If we can get all the intro classes, all the classes that have been taught consistently over time, the rest will come later and eventually fill out.”

The Student Technology Advisory Committee has been providing initial guidance.

“When we want this type of software, this type of database—this is not my expertise,” Novick said. “This is where they come in and this is where they support us.”

Interested students willing to provide feedback about the project are encouraged to contact syllabicentral@gmail.com.

Correction: The Student Technology Advisory Committee has provided initial support and will be helping with later implementation of this project. They are not, at this stage, managing the technical implementation.

We believe that the ideas behind this initiative should be cause for faculty support. Currently, many Wash. U. students treat the first two weeks of the semester as a course-shopping period, sampling several classes before they decide on the ones they most prefer. While the University has rightfully chosen to allow students to drop classes during that time without penalty, there are other negative consequences to the prevalence of course shopping.

Over-registration, encouraged by uncertainty about course content, causes long waitlists that discourage truly interested students with later registration times from signing up for a particular course. Moreover, the need to return books from courses dropped during the shopping period can prevent students from seeking cheaper alternatives, such as the Lock and Chain book sale and online providers.

Perhaps most importantly, students who sign up for multiple courses during the same time slot disturb the academic lives of both themselves and their classmates. They often start the semester behind because of the classes they inevitably miss. Professors often waste valuable class time redistributing syllabi, adjusting the class roster and even delaying the instruction of important material until class attendance stabilizes.

Finally, these hurdles prevent many students from course shopping in the first place and, as a result, many students feel forced to take classes that do not meet their expectations. Posting past course syllabi online would be a much-needed alternative.

Students who wish to experience a class or professor in person before deciding on their final course schedule should still have the option of doing so, but those who wish to avoid unnecessary course shopping should have access to as much information as possible in order to make better decisions.

While we know that syllabi change from year to year, past syllabi still give a helpful—if incomplete—picture of what students can expect. Course descriptions are often too short and too unfocused to provide much insight into the content of the course. Syllabi contain course outlines, reading lists, and information about expectations that can prove much more helpful in making a decision. Making this information available earlier would make it easier for students to take classes that truly interest them. Reading lists in particular could help students avoid classes that repeat material they have already learned.

Access to past course requirements would also better help students manage their course loads and strike the right individual balance between tests, papers and other projects. Although we do not believe students should choose classes based solely on the workload, more realistic expectations about coursework would allow students to concentrate their time in the areas they care about most. We believe that the quality of student work would improve as a result.

Course descriptions are too short; course evaluations, while helpful, do not fully describe course content or requirements; and sources like ratemyprofessor.com and student gossip are notoriously subjective and unreliable. Professors should support granting students more information to better enable students to take the classes that interest them most.