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Open Thread Wednesday! Sharing Syllabi?

June 1, 2011, 11:00 am

By George Williams

Each Wednesday, ProfHacker hosts an open thread discussion. Sometimes a specific topic is announced, and sometimes the discussion is completely open. Please remember to abide by our commenting and community guidelines. Thanks!

Today’s specific topic comes from a ProfHacker reader:

I get five or six requests a year from grad students asking for copies of syllabi for courses I have developed and teach (I teach them once every two years). I never know how to respond. On the one hand, I don’t want to impede a student’s interest or learning. On the other, I feel sort of proprietorial about syllabi: it’s taken me years to develop them, and I feel some reluctance just freely distributing them. How do others respond to such requests? And do others feel similarly proprietorial about their syllabi?

What are your thoughts? Let’s hear from you in the comments!

[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo by Garry Knight]

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  • katzlazer

    I honestly don’t feel that way about syllabi. My goal is just to help students learn and if someone thinks my syllabus can help them to accomplish that, great. I’d appreciate some kind of acknowledgement from them if they do borrow significant things, or at least they not claim sole authorship when asked. However, individual authorship in general is a fiction invented in the early modern period & I’m not too attached to it except to the extent our profession is based on these ideas (but for research, not teaching materials).

  • ChrisMacLT

    For what it’s worth, the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has a “Syllabi Archive.” You can search for and download past syllabi from courses in the business school.
    http://www.lib.umich.edu/kresge/syllabi/ksaSearch.php
    The results can only be opened by current UMich students, faculty, and staff, however.

  • ychumanities

    I have a large collection of syllabi, even in topics I don’t teach.  I collect them where ever I go, including collecting extras left in classrooms.  It’s incredibly useful and interesting to see how other teachers go about organizing information, and I’ve learned a lot of tricks and tips that way.  How could it hurt to have someone using (and inevitably adapting to fit his or her own style) a syllabus you’ve developed?

  • nataliewmt

    I just finished (survived!) my first year of college teaching. My mentors at my doctoral institution sent me off last spring with not only all of their syllabi, but copies of exams, quizzes, handouts, etc. and I didn’t even have to ask! I used these materials as guides and adapted them to fit my own teaching style – but these materials were invaluable to me as a first year prof and I was so grateful to have them. I would gladly do the same for a future student of my own. 

  • lcevering

    I created what I call a “bare bones” syllabus which I don’t mind sharing. It’s enough information for someone to see if they are interested in the course or to help someone who is new to teaching the course, but not enough to use without modification. While certain elements of our syllabi can’t change regardless of who teaches the class (description, objectives, relevance to conceptual framework, key assessment), I have spent a great deal of time developing other aspects of the course so I am a little “territorial” over my syllabi. I think part of the process of being an effective instructor is being able to design optimum learning experiences; simply using someone else’s syllabus does not, in my opinion, facilitate this.

  • http://derekbruff.com Derek Bruff

    I don’t see why junior instructors should have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to designing their courses. I think more faculty should make their syllabi and other course materials available to those relatively new to college and university teaching. I share my course materials on my website and blog and upon request.

    I don’t really get the “proprietorial” feeling about syllabi. If teaching were “counted” like research and scholarship, where publications rule the day, I might understand that feeling. But it’s not evaluated that way. Moreover, we’re all in this teaching thing together–why not contribute to the larger teaching community?

  • http://derekbruff.com Derek Bruff

    The acknowledgement issue is a delicate one. We have standard ways to acknowledge the research and scholarship done by others (citations and such), but we don’t have any standards or norms around attribution of teaching materials or methodologies. I kind of wish we did, since giving credit where credit is due (a) is generally an ethical thing to do and (b) might result in better institutional recognition of contributions to the teaching profession.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=881130435 Susan Adams Delaney

    I wonder if there’s a disciplinary difference here? Among comp/rhet folks I’ve always experienced tremendous generosity about sharing syllabi. Of course it could just be that folks who prefer to remain more control just avoid those conversations. Like some cooks, though, it might make sense as one commenter suggested to have a “sharable” version that offers the broad strokes but not your secrete ingredients!

  • matt_l

    What an interesting question! While I certainly don’t believe I have a ‘proprietary’ interest in the specific contents of the syllabus, I am not sure how I would feel about just handing it over to random grad students when they asked. (If they were my own students, I would absolutely share it with them).

    I would be happy to share my syllabus on a public forum, like H-net. In fact, I used the syllabus archives on H-German, Habsburg and other H-net Portals to develop my own classes when I started teaching. I still go back and look at those syllabi to see where my courses fit in terms of the consensus about a given field or sub-field of history. I like to think of pedagogy and teaching materials as a “common good;” something that gets better because we share our ideas freely.

    On the other hand, I also sympathize with the original query. Its hard work to put together an good syllabus and an effective class. Teaching does ‘count’ as a form of scholarship, even if its not rewarded in the same way a publication is. So it makes sense to feel a little territorial about ‘giving the shop away.’

    That said, a syllabus isn’t a class, its an outline or a plan, rather than the thing itself. So of all our teaching materials, maybe its the one item that should be liberally shared.

  • mpotter_99

    I think of syllabi as scholarly documents. Whenever we teach, there’s (ideally) a tremendous amount of thought, consideration, and intentionality that go into our course design decisions. These include decisions about content as well as learning activities, assessments, etc. Whenever we produce other forms of scholarly products (e.g. articles, book chapters, posters, etc.), we very willingly make them public and share with our peers. Why not treat syllabi similarly? 

    The point is well taken that we lack conventional approaches to attributing and acknowledging whenever we borrow from others’ syllabi. At Metro State, I have worked with a small group of faculty to begin an “annotated syllabus” project that begins with the premise that syllabi are scholarly products. Syllabi presented with annotations provide just the opportunity to cite, explain, justify, etc., all while making the products public: http://metrofacultydevelopment.pbworks.com/w/page/33934299/Home-Page-for-Annotated-Syllabi.
     

  • msjumpin

    It seems to me that there is an issue of transparency here.  I agree that we need a better system for crediting authors for their teaching materials, but I subscribe to the theory that my teaching materials (including syllabi) should be publicly available whenever possible.  Mark at Sample Reality does says something I appreciate here: http://www.samplereality.com/2009/08/04/transparency-teaching-and-taking-my-evaluations-public/

    …eventually all of our work ends up in the public domain one way or another.

  • http://jbdeaton.com Ben Deaton

    While a graduate student, I’ve had the opportunity to teach an undergraduate engineering course several times. At the onset, several professors shared not only their syllabi but other materials as well. While I developed my own lectures and approach, these materials were an invaluable reference to me as I began my teaching career. 

    As a result, I keep a zip file of all my materials (syllabi, lecture notes, homework solutions, exam archive, etc.) that I happily share with other graduate student instructors (and even a few professors) who have since taught the same course for the first time. 

    For me personally, the opposing, more guarded perspective gains more validity if it is a highly specialized and unique course that is outside the scope of any existing textbook or depends heavily on the instructor’s personal experience. 

  • http://BrianRowe.org Brian Rowe

    I share all syllabi online by default.  Every class I teach has an online public website with the full syllabus posted along with a class blog.  The sites promote my work, the great work of the  students and the authors of texts I use in the class. Here are a few examples:

    University of Washington Information School, IMT550 Law, Ethics & Information Use: http://brianrowe.org/IMT550/about/
    Seattle University Law. Information Privacy Law: http://www.brianrowe.org/infoprivacylaw/about/

    I have received emails from other professors thanking me for promoting their papers online. I have also been contacted by people that found the class websites to talk on topics from the class.

    I am actually shocked that more schools do not provide public platforms for professors to easily share. This is a huge missed opportunity for schools to promote their programs, professors and students. 

    Knowledge shared is worth more to everyone. Please build on my syllabi and then share it so I can see your improvements. 

  • http://twitter.com/sjc Steve

    Please be sure to recommend that your reader visit the MIT Open Courseware Site – http://ocw.mit.edu . It’s a remarkable example of a leading institution taking a leadership role in opening their whole curriculum to anyone interested in learning. The site contains, variously, syllabi, lecture notes, video lectures, exams, assignments, … (Some professors obviously had more helpful graduate students than others :).  And, from the other side, you might suggest that unless the syllabus was fantastically rich, it would be very difficult for anyone to reconstruct the course as their own; I’m sure s/he has run into students who’ve had less than stellar success, and that’s with access to full lectures, discussions, readings, etc …

  • lapcas

    Gosh, I don’t feel possessive of my course materials at all. I will give anyone any of my documents – syllabi, essay prompts, tests, whatever – and frequently do. My goal as an educator is to educate as well and widely as I can; I want all of the students at my institution, not just the ones in my classes, to learn. If I have great course materials that I think are really effective, I want to share them as much as possible. Teaching is not a zero sum game; someone else being an amazing teacher and using my materials does not make me less of a good teacher or the materials any less special. Ultimately, I believe that teaching is about reaching students, not  about getting credit for being a good teacher.

  • vivid

    I am incredibly proud of the work that I do in the classroom with my students. I am a diligent professor, and consider my course preparation, lecturing, etc. a part of my on-going scholarship, lesser to be sure, but nevertheless a part of that work. With all of that, I have no problem with sharing my syllabi. They are available on my website for all to see. I know that I have a back catalogue of hardcopy and digital syllabi on all sorts of courses that i have drawn inspiration from. Most of my institutional colleagues, alas feel differently as they do not readily share their syllabi and/or they keep them off-line. Funny thing is, they routinely ask to see mine. 

    I should add that I think for those who teach about controversial topics–race, gender, sex, abortion, free speech, critiques of class, etc., transparency about what is and is not going on in the classroom can be a good first maneuver in the event that an interested group complains. I have pointed to my online syllabi a number of times and have said–”see for yourself what is going on in my class.” After that I have been left in peace to teach, YMMV.

  • http://twitter.com/LrngCurve11 Learning Curve

    I think in too many institutions there is this mindset from the faculty that what they have is their own.

    Isn’t the object of learning and teaching factored in with sharing?  I recall mentors who also– like someone else who commented– who shared their lesson plans, assignment plans, syllabi and activity sheets, all in the name of learning and fostering goals of student success.  

    But then again, I was in a community college as an adjunct, unseasoned in the art of teaching.  There, you will find a wealth of educators who focus on teaching above research and scholarship.

    I found, however, that at the university, there is a strong reservation from many faculty to share their material.  Why?  Maybe they feel threatened that someone else may deliver and execute the content in a more effective way?

    If student success blooms from the material you compile and design, regardless of whether you teach it or someone else does, isn’t that the purpose of teaching anyway?

    If not, then I need to question many faculty as to why they are in academia in the first place…

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