The start of term brings with it the excitement and enthusiasm for a new school year. It’s an opportunity to reflect on past accomplishments and successes while simultaneously looking ahead at what’s to come, preparing for further improvement and growth.
The Office of Education in each of the colleges provides administrative support to the academic units and coordinates efforts to simplify and improve undergraduate and graduate processes with UA International, the Registrar’s Office and the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research.
As we embark on a new fall term, the three Office of Education directors recount the achievements that will help better support students and instructors for the new academic year including improvements in course scheduling and timetabling, Academic Advisement Report (AAR) and degree progression, as well as more work integrated and interdisciplinary learning opportunities.
Creating efficiencies in course scheduling and timetabling
The colleges provide streamlined and specialized administrative support in order to help faculties provide the best student experience possible. Over the last year, the Office of Education within each of the colleges has focused much of their efforts on improving the efficiency of course scheduling and timetabling. Today, small specialized teams exist at the college level that focus on course scheduling, shifting from 80 generalized points of contact, which existed prior to the creation of the colleges, to 17 specialized points of contact. These specialized staff have established a community of practice across the institution, streamlining services and providing a superior level of service, while simultaneously allowing staff members in faculties to refocus on their core duties.
Classroom changes, booking and swapping is a significant portion of the work that the college course schedule and timetable coordinators are working on, especially during the start of a new academic year. These refinements are possible because they now manage the timetable for multiple faculties within their respective college. Another significant improvement is that schedulers across all the colleges now have access to AdAstra to book classrooms for their faculties rather than submitting their requests to the Examinations and Timetabling team in the Registrar’s Office, streamlining and expediting the process.
Improving Academic Advisement Reports for degree progression
Academic Advisement Report (AAR) is a tool that allows students to map their progress in their primary program by automatically mapping courses to their relevant requirements. As a result, students can make more informed decisions around course selection and can monitor where they are in completing their program requirements. Advisors can use the report to proactively flag where students may be deficient in an area and can use the tool to help clear students for degree completion at graduation. Within the College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CNAS), the Office of Education’s Student System’s team is creating and revising AAR in Campus Solutions which allows approximately 13,000 undergraduate students and their student advisors to effectively track degree program progression. Currently, the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) Student Systems team in particular is working to double the number of students with access to AAR in the coming year.
Work-integrated and interdisciplinary learning opportunities
A significant benefit of the college model is the opportunity it affords to promote interdisciplinary learning by connecting interested leaders across faculties and departments while providing support for their ideas.
Placement administration is the newest function within the Office of Education in the College of Health Sciences (CHS) to support work integrated learning. Placement administrators work to support the many placements that are critical to the education of CHS students, such as in hospitals, clinics and communities. Since May, Office of Education staff have met with faculty contacts, the Offices of General Counsel, Risk Management and Information and Privacy to learn about student placement agreements and the placement documents processes. Since the spring, CHS has actively participated in the design and implementation of using Alfresco, a secure, digital record management system, to manage multiple and single faculty student placement agreements and collect, verify and maintain the student placement documents. In addition, the staff has also consulted with faculties and standardized common consent forms and created resources for students and preceptors.
The Office of Education in CNAS also actively supports interdisciplinary work-integrated learning programs, such as I-STEAM Pathways, which provides Indigenous students research opportunities related to the environment and the Mitacs Business Strategy Internship, a collaborative internship facilitating student placements with businesses or eligible not-for-profit organizations.
Supporting academic integrity and discipline
This summer, members from the academic and integrity and discipline teams in each college engaged in restorative justice training in order to learn more about appropriately handling academic integrity and discipline cases. The CSSH Academic Integrity and Discipline Coordinator specifically is now working with their faculties to prepare instructors to report on potential academic misconduct cases. In CNAS, their new academic integrity team organized a workshop for instructors in the faculties of ALES, Engineering and Science which provided an opportunity for discussion regarding policies and procedures related to accommodations, academic integrity and student misconduct. Similarly, the CHS Academic Integrity and Discipline staff are meeting with instructors to review the procedures of reporting potential academic misconduct cases.
Looking forward
Building teams of specialists within the college has allowed staff to develop a global understanding of institutional processes while maintaining connections to, and understanding the specific needs of, the faculties and departments we serve. Our teams are passionate about improving processes with a focus on the users — whether that be instructors, student advisors, academic leaders or students themselves. In the upcoming semester, you can expect to see our teams engaging the community in our shared goal of improving administrative processes and exploring opportunities to support initiatives and programs where the college can add value as noted in the Marshall Report.
We would like to thank the faculty and staff that have reached out with innovative ideas as we continue to develop the three Offices of Education. The possibilities offered by the college structure for building new connections are exciting and we are looking forward to facilitating those connections. There are already new relationships being forged between faculties and with our university wide student services, and we’re seeing collaboration, coordination and communication happening everyday. It is exciting to see the benefits that these new connections will bring for our students and student services teams in the upcoming year.