CUE Rethinks Shopping

The Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) evaluated ways to make shopping period more productive for students at its meeting yesterday.

In an effort to facilitate course selection, the student members of the CUE urged faculty to provide more class information online and to jump right into course material, rather than spending the first day of shopping period summarizing requirements.

The recommendations for professors included putting complete course syllabi, videos of a representative lecture and lottery details online before shopping period.

“The objective of shopping period is to allow students to make an informed decision about what classes they want to take. Having access to important course information from the start is necessary,” Student Affairs Committee Chair Matthew J. Glazer ’06 and Vice-Chair Teddy E. Chestnut ’06 wrote in a report they presented to the committee.

These improvements to shopping period will save students valuable time early in the semester, wrote Glazer and Chestnut.

At future meetings, the CUE plans to choose a method to disseminate the report’s suggestions on shopping period to professors. Possibilities include distributing a letter to the faculty or producing an e-letter that details the technical support available for professors wishing to make greater use of online resources.

The CUE also considered yesterday the possibility of moving coursepacks online, but concluded it is too expensive since copyright laws require the libraries pay publishers for the rights to use articles.

“The cost of obtaining permission for scanned articles is prohibitive. We haven’t been able to support more than 13 courses per semester,” Heather Cole, a librarian of Hilles and Lamont libraries, told the CUE.

The CUE also further outlined its pilot program—which will take place over the next academic year—to provide online CUE evaluations. The CUE will test this new evaluation process on a selection courses or a department.

In an evaluation of the results of the beginnings of peer concentration advising, CUE members also suggested several additions to the program’s website, including additional information about the student advisers.

—Staff writer William C. Marra contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Sara E. Polsky can be reached at polsky@fas.harvard.edu.