Trends: The Next Must-Have
Colleges are increasingly scrutinized by accreditors to ensure learning outcomes and higher levels of transparency. There is added pressure to improve performance, decrease spending, and make academic information easily accessible. To coordinate programs across multiple departments, campuses, and even other institutions, colleges are being pushed to electronically standardize workflow, much of which is still based on email and [old-fashioned] hardcopy. What pressures exist that set the syllabi up for the next “extreme technology make-over?”
- Political: Government mandates including Texas House Bill 2504, the first legislation of its kind, requiring that all course syllabi be available online and within no more than three clicks from the college homepage
- Market: Education “à la carte,” students are doing more research than ever to select the right schools and courses
- Financial: Manual processes of managing syllabi are expensive
- Technological: Everyone expects accurate and in-depth information on demand, paper is outdated
Driven by the challenge of capturing and sharing syllabus information, schools want to move away from the complicated paper process and evolve to the digitization of the syllabus. Some have developed an in-house system for collecting syllabi and within the next few years will be electronically manage syllabi as well.
The Move to Online Resources
Jeffrey Young interviews the President of Blackboard on “How to Put the Whole Education Process Online.”
Bridget McCrea writes about “How Technology is Transforming Admissions” in Campus Technology.
Campus Technology, Executive Editor Dave Nagel talks about “Online Learning Set for Explosive Growth as Traditional Classrooms Decline.”
MIT English Professor and Director of Academic Computing, Trent Batson showcases a “Syllabus Builder on the Web” in a Campus Technology article.
With over 108 campuses worldwide, Webster University puts a syllabus management program in place, here’s the story by higher education author Dian Schaffhauser.
