Texas A&M University-San Antonio launched an online directory this semester to meet requirements of Texas House Bill 2504 and help students more easily access valuable course information.
Passed in 2009, the law says universities must make course syllabuses, professors’ curriculum vitaes and budget reports available to the public online.
The information needs to be accessible in fewer than three keyword searches so students will no longer need to deep dive into JagWire for an expectation of what classes will be like, according to HB-2504.
This feature was once available on The Texas A&M University System website, which used to act as A&M-San Antonio’s main website until 2015. When the current site—tamusa.edu—was created, there wasn’t a web developer available to keep the campus compliant.
A&M-San Antonio hired web developer James Mbewe Fall 2018. He has been working on the changes for the past four months.
“The school was not in compliance when I started here,” Mbewe said. “It took about a year to build a server and migrate the site over to get it secured with HTTPS before I started on this project.”
Mbewe is making the Course Information directory easy to use and sync across all necessary pages on the campus website, reducing the time needed to update faculty profiles. Before this semester, every profile page needed to be updated individually.
“We’re trying to make it so that a student can go onto a professor’s profile and see how many classes they’re teaching at a glance,” Mbewe said. “We’re trying to make a system that can grow with the professors, that can give the power to the professors so they can be able to keep their information current.”
Faculty were required to attend a workshop to learn how to use the new directory and keep their information up to date. Professor William Erickson, associate professor of psychology, said the change was a good decision for everyone involved.
Faculty received special training to help fellow faculty members in the department of science and mathematics with their online profiles. The old system was inefficient and sometimes new faculty went without profiles until later in their first teaching year, Erickson said.
“Mostly, faculty need to know to properly title the PDFs they upload of their syllabi and CVs to help those who use screen readers,” Erickson said in an email to The Mesquite. “Generally, I rather like this system more than the previous system because it puts more power in faculty members’ hands.
Some students are still unaware that course information can be accessed this way. Students who prefer scheduling classes on their own instead of with their adviser will now be able to quickly write up prospective schedules ahead of time, find out office hours and more.
English freshman Madison Cardenas feels optimistic about the site’s new changes.
“I would definitely use that [feature] to figure out what professors are like and work out my schedule like that,” Cardenas said. “Being able to get that kind of information without having to talk to an adviser saves a lot of time. The adviser might not know that off the top of their head, so you have to wait for the professor to get back to you.”
On the other hand, some students said the course information directory might be cause for frustration.
Spanish junior Adriana Mora said it’s too soon to see how useful the system will be.
“If I’m going to be honest, I’ll probably get frustrated using it because of how new it is,” Mora said. “It’s all up to the professors to keep their stuff updated and that makes room for errors. If a professor doesn’t keep up their end and nobody brings it up, that leaves gaps.”
Jackson Ayres, associate professor of English, said that while the new directory is a powerful tool when properly used, it comes with a new set of responsibilities that need to be followed to ensure that the directory remains so.
“Online repositories for syllabi and profiles on faculty are a double-edged sword,” Ayres said in an email to The Mesquite. “On one hand, they provide students and other faculty members with an accessible space for helpful information. However, on the other hand, these spaces must be curated carefully and regularly maintained so that they accurately represent the faculty members’ work and stay current.”
Mbewe said the campus expects to improve on the course information directory as often as possible. More features, such as a professor evaluation system, are set to be added at a later date.
“It’s one step at a time and we’ve gone through a lot of improvements. We’re getting a lot of good feedback,” he said.
To try it out, visit the course information directory here.
