Why isn’t my college’s catalog on DegreeData?
We try to include every single public institution in our research, but institutions may be left out for several reasons. Some formats, such as mulit-part PDFs are problematic and do not lend themselves to search for instance. For-profit and proprietary institutions, or institutions which clearly copyright their catalog are not included. We are committed to growing a complete database. If you don’t find your institution on the site, but would like to include it, please call 1-800-770-8425.
Who is responsible for gathering information for DegreeData?
Information in DegreeData is harvested from college websites mostly by folks who either work, or have worked, at a college in the US. Our “farmers” are familiar with catalogs and how they are used. If you work at a college, you may know some people yourself who work on the site!
How often is the data updated?
Most catalogs are re-posted by the institution once a year. The DegreeData farmers constantly scan sites for those updates.
Why are some catalogs in PDF and some in HTML?
We can only gather catalogs in the form they are provided in on a college’s website. More than half of US colleges use PDF as a file type for their catalogs.
Why do some catalogs have a check mark next to them in the search result?
Some PDF catalogs are better than others-specifically, some PDF catalogs are more easily indexed and searched than others. All PDF catalogs are searchable, however those with a check mark next will get you results faster.
Why can’t I see more archived catalogs in the search?
We can only gather archives catalogs that the institution posts on its website. If a college posts only two years of back catalogs, we cannot take more than that.
Is this legal?
Our team of highly paid attorneys assure us that it is! Catalogs are “directory data” similar to a phone book. It’s a public record, and one which we hope will highlight unique values of each institution.
Our catalogs are culled directly from institutional sites. We never take catalogs from any third party resource or other site.
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