Syllabi now have a bigger audience than just students. Because of a new state law, Indiana University faculty must publish their course syllabi online.
During the final hours of this year’s legislative session, Indiana lawmakers added the requirement as part of the state’s two-year budget bill, without debate. During session, lawmakers also made major changes to higher education governance, including giving Gov. Mike Braun sole authority over IU’s Board of Trustees and requiring post-tenure reviews.
The new law took effect July 1. IU followed up with its own policy July 26, requiring faculty to publish syllabi at least seven days before the start of classes.
According to a fall “Start of the Semester Guide”, IU adopted CourseLeaf, a curriculum and course management platform. The platform will automatically transfer course materials uploaded to the syllabus page on Canvas, a learning management system used by IU, to the public site.
Instructors who want to limit certain details to enrolled students must move them to other tabs on the course page, according to an IU Blog. IU advised faculty to avoid posting personal contact information, virtual meeting links or detailed assignment information.
“Indiana University works with its campuses across the state to ensure compliance with all state and federal laws,” an IU spokesperson said.
Faculty say the rollout has provided little clarity. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental professor and founding director of the Civic Leaders Center Paul Helmke said the policy’s origins make it difficult to interpret.
“It came out of nowhere, along with getting rid of the alumni trustees, and it makes it hard to interpret,” he said. “There is no legislative history to interpret, so we have to guess what it is all about.”
Helmke said debating what belongs in a syllabus has always been complicated. The only explicit university guidance so far requires faculty to include AI policies and exclude personal contact information, he said.
According to the guide, faculty are advised to include physical and mental health resources, technology-related resources, religious observances, bias incident reporting and sexual misconduct and Title IX resources.
“I have no problem with being transparent, no problem with what I cover in class, but if this is going to be used for people to micromanage what we teach in class, faculty are going to be concerned,” he said.
The Indiana Daily Student contacted the Indiana House of Representatives Republican Caucus to request interviews but did not hear back by time of publication.
IU Media School professor Gerry Lanosga said he supports transparency but questions lawmakers’ intent.
“It isn't inherently bad — faculty don’t have anything to hide in their syllabi and people will comply with the law,” Lanosga said. “But what is the rationale? What are the motives? It hasn’t been made clear.”
He said he sees the syllabus requirement as an aspect of education being under attack in the U.S.
“It’s a means of surveillance over our classrooms that threatens academic freedom and almost certainly will have a chilling effect on professors, particularly if they teach subjects that are viewed as controversial,” Lanosga said.
He also raised concerns about competition between other universities with syllabi being posted publicly, noting that although education is open, faculty invest years of work into designing their courses.
“This is a full-time job for faculty to teach and research,” he said. “People put a lot of time and effort into developing courses and that is something people want to protect. But having posted publicly can open people to that sort of competitive pressure.”
Lanosga also compared the new law to Indiana’s open-government laws that have protections for trade secrets, but noted lawmakers did not consider that aspect for universities.
At the same time, he said the impact may be smaller than some fear — possibly even positive, pointing to what he called a long-running joke among professors.
“Maybe the impact on posting them to the public is that students may read it more,” Lanosga said.
