Course descriptions are used for the Bulletin, Axess, 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 and through the Bulletin, but they also live on for a long time afterwards for purposes of 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.

In the past, we have edited any description which we received, but this is time-consuming and consumes resources better used for extending the reach of our information. This year, 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.

We will be rejecting descriptions that are too far outside a minimum standard. See "Why was my description rejected" to view a list of reasons. We advise you to be aware of this list before you submit course descriptions.

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