Using the Syllabus Archive

The Syllabus Archive component of the Knowledgebase Project provides scholars and students with a number of unique opportunities for research. The combination of hierarchical menus and a search engine make it possible to use the archive in a variety of ways, including tracking the frequency of specific course offerings, courses taught by particular members of the faculty over time, and comparisons of different approaches to a given course.

Students can search for particular professors and instructors to get a better idea of the kinds of courses, course requirements, and so on they might expect from a course they are thinking of taking. Or, they can look through a variety of syllabi for a course they are planning to take.

Prospective graduate students can get an idea of the range and scope of the courses offered by the department. And by searching for specific works or authors that are of particular interest to them they can get some ideas about how often and in what contexts they might be found.

Those planning courses, whatever their position, can use the archive to compare syllabi from previous versions of a course, find a selection of anthologies that have been used in the past, and get ideas for companion-readings to accompany a text that they plan to include in their own course.

Another use for the Syllabus Archive is to allow scholars to research the varying ways that texts are taught and the background materials that have been associated with them across the department’s offerings from introductory through more specialized and graduate courses. For example, a researcher could compare the ways that canonical and non-canonical texts are represented within a given academic year and the differences of presentation from an undergraduate survey, an advanced undergraduate special topics course, and a graduate seminar. It is also possible to investigate the ways that texts have been presented over time.