Syllabi
Syllabi are documents that offer a roadmap for a course including what topics will be covered in each class period, assignment descriptions and due dates, and what to read, view, or engage with in advance of each class period. Syllabi regularly clarify course basics such as the course topic and instructors, logistics of class meetings, learning outcomes, and policies such as grading, absences, and remote learning, among others.
Finding syllabi can be extremely difficult. Searching for a discipline’s name or course title and the word “syllabus” can yield some results on GitHub or by using Bing, Google, or other preferred search engine. When using Google, for example, try searching using an advanced search method to narrow down specific sites. For example, [discipline's name] "syllabus" site:.edu will yield academic websites. Particular institutions may host sites that allow a syllabus search from their courses (e.g. UT-Austin). MIT OpenCourseware and other open course platforms will post syllabi as well.
Open Syllabus can be a useful resource with several tools to examine elements of the 18 million syllabi collected so far. The Open Syllabus Explorer and the Open Syllabus Galaxy are both free tools that allow people to find, access, and visualize connections between citations of resources listed in the syllabi in the Open Syllabus corpus. Open Syllabus Analytics, a tool with some more powerful analytical options, can be accessed with a subscription.
Note that Open Syllabus does not, as of spring 2024, provide access to full syllabi, but makes the citation data in them available and explorable. The Open Syllabus Explorer will have a small collection of syllabi to which they have full permission to index and provide access in a future version.