Syllabus Access Before Registration

[UptonSinclair]

I have been thinking about the issue of syllabi lately. Wouldn't it be nice to have access to the syllabus of a given course before registering for that course? This seems like a pretty simple concept, but seems to be a loaded topic. There are some who claim that copyright protection extends the professor for their syllabus and therefore they should not be online. This makes little sense to me considering the amount of government money that supports higher education. I can understand protecting a syllabus from being used to teach a course, but that is a far different issue from making them available to students before registration. It seems that higher education has gone into a bit of a turtle mode where it pulls into its shell to avoid scrutiny.

[sanantone]

Almost all of my professors at TxState post their syllabi on our learning management system before the semester starts.

[UptonSinclair]

I read something about a Texas bill requiring access. I am not sure if it became law, but it is a great idea (I just complimented Texas, call a doctor). Some of my reading suggested that professors were trying to avoid scrutiny by claiming intellectual property. One article spoke of people criticizing courses without the proper qualifications. I love education, but hate the Ivory Fortress mentality.

On a side note, it would be great to be able to look up information regarding specific courses a prospective employee might have had. "I see you took an operating systems course at TESC, let me have a look at the syllabus and see if it was an operating systems design or operating systems administration course."

[Hunter91]

All the professors for each class of my online certificate program posted their syllabi at least a week or so before their courses began.