Textbook Posting Law Clarification
Submitted by Lori Reardon on Wed, 06/02/2010 - 2:26pm.
Email date: 03/29/2010 Description: Union president clarifies message from Provost regarding the law that requires posting of syllabi and reading materials
The recent message from the Provost about posting your syllabus and reading requirements for the upcoming Fall semester could benefit from some clarification.
The intent of this law, that was created by a consortium of student advocates, was to help students and their families understand the costs of enrollment in particular courses. I view this as a laudable goal in general, and want to advocate that we all should do our best to minimize student costs while we create rigorous, engaging courses. As we could help students know of course costs in advance, we are all well served.
At the same time, some facts about this federal legislation should be made clear:
1. The federal law that establishes these requirements takes effect July 1, 2010. The efforts by the administration represent a good faith attempt to comply with the law as it will be enacted.
2. The law does not formally require posting of syllabi, but you could post your syllabus in advance to help students understand the requirements of your course.
3. There are no penalties specified in the law for any individual faculty member who posts their course requirements after the deadline.
However, federal funding of the University is contingent upon compliance with federal law. We should therefore cooperate as best we can to help preserve federal funding, and federal student financial aid status for UMass, and act in good faith with respect to this new law.
Randall Phillis
MSP President
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