Course Catalog Descriptions

Course descriptions are used for the Bulletin, Axess, transcripts, ePortfolios, data-mining, transfer credit, searching, and accreditation. A good description is short, to-the-point, and focused on the content of the course.

Probably the most important part of the Bulletin are the course descriptions. They guide students to the courses they need in Axess, ExploreCourses, and through the Bulletin, but they also live on for a long time afterwards for purposes of transcripts and ePortfolios, data-mining, transfer credit, searching, and accreditation.

Stanford's course descriptions have more content than the descriptions you find in most other institutions. We want to keep it that way because a content-oriented description serves students and the institution much better than a frothy advertisment.

We need your help in making sure that the descriptions submitted are close to what the University requires so that our editing is minimal. We ask that you point out this web site to faculty so they are aware of this initiative.