Students these days are used to being told, “There’s an app for that.” And while most of these technological luxuries disguised as conveniences are things we can live without, the slow transition to having Penn course syllabi posted online has moved beyond an inconvenience and into genuine frustration.
Currently only a little more than 400 courses have syllabi posted online for students to peruse. That’s a sizable amount, but nowhere near the number of courses that Penn offers semesterly.
Last April, the Undergraduate Assembly, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Provost’s Office finalized the online-syllabi project, and professors have had ample time since then to upload their syllabi. And now — just before course registration starts — is the time to do so.
Although we admit we’re drawn to the project because it helps students immensely when selecting courses and setting their schedule for the semester, the benefits to faculty should not be overlooked. Posting syllabi online helps professors because students likely to drop the class will not even sign up, diminishing the movement in and out of a course in the early weeks of a semester — meaning that lessons from the first few class meetings won’t get lost in the shuffle.
We’ve commended SCUE, the UA and the Provost’s Office for working together to create this program in the first place. Now it’s just time to get going.
