Do you credit outside providers for course descriptions?

[Innisfree]

As I go through old threads I see many people use or adapt course descriptions given by online providers, community colleges and so on.

I find that I'm squeamish about heavily quoting without stating that's what I'm doing, so I've put a blanket statement at the top of the course descriptions explaining the providers are the source. Does this seem appropriate and reasonable? Having done that, can I dispense with quotation marks? 

Some descriptions have needed editing and additions, but many are fine without modification.

[EKS]

I vote for no quotation marks and no attributions.  Your course descriptions aren’t being published,  graded, or used to make money, and they are intended for a circumscribed audience who gets that descriptions for courses from outside providers will contain the wording of those providers.

[daijobu]

I include the name of the course provider (We called them "Educational Partners.") right below the course description, so they know the source of the text:

Differential Equations 18.03

This course focuses on linear differential equations and their applications in science and engineering.   Topics include: modeling physical systems to obtain a first order differential equation, visualizing direction fields and approximating them using Euler’s method, using known DE types to model and understand situations involving exponential growth or decay, modeling spring-mass systems or LRC circuits, solving DEs using the characteristic equation, exponential response formula, Laplace transform, Fourier series, convolution integrals, and matrix eigenvalue method, linearizing an autonomous non-linear 2x2 system around its critical points and using this to sketch its phase portrait and the stability behavior.  

Partner: MIT OpenCourseWare

Instructor: Arthur Mattuck, PhD

Text:  Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems by Henry Edwards and David Penney

[EKS]

2 hours ago, daijobu said:

I include the name of the course provider

Yes, this too.  I have the name of the provider as part of the description.

[Innisfree]

13 hours ago, daijobu said:

I include the name of the course provider (We called them "Educational Partners.") right below the course description, so they know the source of the text:

 

11 hours ago, EKS said:

Yes, this too.  I have the name of the provider as part of the description.

I do have the names of the providers listed, though they are part of the heading for each course, not at the end. It just didn't read to me as an attribution for the wording of the descriptions either way.

But it sounds like there's a consensus that providers are assumed to be the source of description wording, so that's all good. Thanks for the help!

[Mom0012]

I have a section in my school profile where I list our “Educational Partners” and then give a blurb about each. (I got the idea to do that from this board. ) Then, in the course descriptions I have the instructor listed and their educational background. I didn’t put the educational partner in the course description but had I thought to do that I would have.

Now I want to go back and edit my course descriptions, lol.

This one’s going to be right up there for me was wondering why in the heck we didn’t put the nine years my daughter played the piano anywhere on her transcript or activities.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Mom0012