Make Sure Your Syllabus is Viewable! (HB2504 Requirement)

On October 29, 2009, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board adopted Chapter 4, Subchapter N, Sections 4.225-4.229, concerning Public Access to Course Information, required by House Bill 2504, 81st Texas Legislature. Texas Education Code § 51.974 authorizes the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to adopt the following rules.

Each institution of higher education is to make available certain course information to the public on the institution’s Internet Web site. This information must be:

1. 1. accessible from the institution’s Internet website home page by use of not more than three links;
   2. searchable by keywords and phrases;
   3. accessible to the public without requiring registration or use of a user name, a password, or another user identification;
   4. available not later than the seventh day after the first day of classes for the semester or other academic term during which the course is offered; and
   5. updated as soon as practicable after the information changes, at least once for every semester in which the course is offered.

 

To meet the requirements listed above, Odessa College currently uses the “Browse Catalog” feature of the Blackboard LMS to allow public/guest users to search for courses to view their syllabi online. In order for your syllabus to be in compliance with HB2504, you need to make sure that:

1. 1. You have a course syllabus set up in Blackboard; and
   2. The “Faculty Information” course link to the syllabus is set to PERMIT GUEST

 

How Do I Know If My Course Syllabus Is Viewable?

If you use the standard OC course template and syllabus template, your course should already be set to allow guest users and your Faculty Information link should already be set to Permit Guest. Use the steps below to search for your course as a public guest to make sure all of your course syllabi are able to be viewed.

1. 1. In your browser, make sure that you are logged out of Blackboard COMPLETELY. If you are not logged out of Blackboard, the steps below WILL NOT WORK.  You need to be completely logged out of Blackboard in every tab to make sure you are searching the same way a public guest would be searching.   Go to the following link: https://blackboard.odessa.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/viewCatalog?type=Course&searchField=CourseId . If you want to make sure you are being recognized as a guest, and not yourself, look in the upper-right corner of your screen. Make sure that you see the word LOGIN.   If you are seeing your own name, it means the browser is still recognizing you as being logged in and the steps below will not work. Make sure you are COMPLETELY logged out before moving to Step 2.

      

       

   2. Change the search setting to COURSE ID  (default might be set to Course NAME).

      

       

   3. Type in the COURSE ID of the course syllabus you want to view (either part of it, or all of it).  Click GO to process the search. You can do a broad search by including just the term/dept/number  (without the section code).  For example, you can use 18SP.MATH.1314 to be able to see a list of ALL available MATH.1314 courses for 18SP.   Make sure that your course ID formatting IS EXACT. If it is not formatted like the example shown below, you might not see anything in the search results.

      

       

   4. The course(s) you are looking for should appear, with the course ID hyperlinked, in the area at the bottom of the page. The only courses that will appear are ones that are CURRENTLY available on the system. Courses that have not opened to students yet will not be searchable until their Display After date occurs.  Additionally, any course that has a setting of “Availability: No” or “Guest Permission: No” will not appear on the list. If you search for your course and are not finding it, contact a BB system admin and we’d be happy to look into it.

      

       

   5. Click on the hyperlinked course ID of the course you want to view the syllabus for. If everything is set up correctly in your course (Guest access on, Faculty Information course linked to main navigation menu is set to Permit Guest), you should be able to see the course syllabus for your course (and ONLY the course syllabus – NOTHING ELSE). See the example image below.  You should see the very first page of the course syllabus (the “Faculty Information” page) and you can navigate through the syllabus (the same way a student would) either by using the Table of Contents menu or the navigation menu buttons on the top right corner.

      

       

What If I Can’t See My Syllabus?

If search for your course and can’t see your syllabus when you click on the course hyperlink, it likely means that the “Faculty Information” link is missing from your main course menu and/or the link does not have the “PERMIT GUEST” option turned on. Use the instructions in the PDF document attached here to re-add the “Faculty Information” link to your main course menu and turn on guest permissions: How to Add Faculty Information Link to Course Menu

 

What If I See An “Authentication Required” Message?

When you first search for your course syllabus as a public guest (not logged into Blackboard!) – you may be prompted with an “Authentication Required” box.  The reason for this box appearing is because images added to syllabi are still considered “protected” (this can include images such as your faculty information picture, a picture of your textbook, etc). Any public guest user can click “Cancel” on the authentication box and continue to view the syllabus without problems (they just won’t see any images you might have in there).  If you want to make sure this box doesn’t appear, you can use the document attached here to give public viewing access to those specific images: Making Images Public in Blackboard