Endorsed at June 2021 Undergraduate Operations (updated in May 2025)
The Undergraduate Studies Academic Calendar is an online document produced by the Office of the Registrar. It provides applicants and students with official information about the credentials and courses offered, as well as requirements and regulations, from admission to graduation.
Although the Undergraduate Studies Academic Calendar (USAC) is an online document, due to the nature of its content, it is considered as a database more than it is a website: keeping copies of archived content is required, tracking and recording changes made to the published versions is required, the practice of “redirecting” pages is not possible, etc.
Responsibility to publish
Responsibility for the organization, presentation, and production of the academic calendar resides in the Office of the Registrar. Decisions are made in consultation with stakeholders while considering industry best practices and software capabilities and constraints.
The Office of the Registrar will take reasonable steps to ensure accuracy of the academic calendar and will archive the calendars electronically.
The Office of the Registrar publishes the academic calendar annually, effective September 1.
Purpose and goals
As stated in the USAC: The academic calendar “provides official information about admissions, courses, academic programs and plans, related Policies, guidelines, and academic regulations for both students and applicants, as well as general information about the University. By the act of registration each student becomes bound by the University Policies, guidelines, and academic regulations established by the University's governing bodies. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the Policies, guidelines, and academic regulations, general information, and specific requirements contained in the Calendar.”
In order for the academic calendar to be a helpful guide to students and individuals supporting them until graduation, the academic calendar needs to be:
- Clear and transparent about what is required of applicants and students. Clarity and transparency reduce the need for interpretation and confusion.
- The single source of authority.
- Websites should point to, and not repeat, content found in the academic calendar.
- Websites can supplement its content by stating advice-related information or other content that should not be included in the academic calendar.
Organization
Each future iteration of the academic calendar will attempt to organize content to be easier to navigate, providing an enhanced user experience, and have a consistent look and feel throughout the document.
Consistent look and feel
- Provide a templatized look and feel for all pages displaying similar content.
- Use a page naming convention.
- Ensure similar wording and terminology are used.
An enhanced end-user experience
- Reduce repetition by centralizing content where possible.
- Reduce navigation clicks to get to the desired information by combining content (into longer pages).
- Present credentials in a building block structure, with commonalities grouped together (e.g., degree/program > major > specialization).
- Increase ease of determining what regulations are tied to requirement term (and which are not) and which are tied to course registration (e.g., WHMIS) by reorganizing the navigation.
What should be in the academic calendar
- List of academic credentials approved by Senate and produced by the Office of the Registrar upon conferral.
- Each academic credential’s academic requirements, as approved by Senate or its delegate. More specifically:
- Required average(s).
- List of all courses that can appropriately fulfil each stated requirement, along with any constraints.
- List of courses that are always acceptable substitutions (i.e., equivalents).
- Refer only to courses that are active in that current year’s course catalogue (i.e., not referring courses that don’t exist yet or with future dated changes).
- Include all cross-listed courses that are used to fulfil each stated requirement or are used towards the calculation of the applicable average (i.e., absence of the cross-listing reference indicates it is not acceptable/calculated), unless explicitly approved to be excluded by Senate or its delegate.
- Any non-academic requirements required for the academic credential (e.g., police checks, apprenticeships, etc.).
- Course catalogue of active courses that can be offered.
- General university admission regulations.
- Academic regulations (general university and faculty- or plan-specific).
- Academic year important dates.
What should not be in the academic calendar
- Promotional information, including but not limited to:
- Explaining the field of study.
- Promoting optional experiences and opportunities available to students during their time at the University (e.g., abroad/exchange).
- Providing examples of employment opportunities after graduation.
- Administrative structures governing the academic unit or program, including information about the academic unit.
- Process details (e.g., how to fill out a form) [processes are not in Senate’s purview, allowing for greater flexibility and adaptability].
- Course scheduling information [i.e., when a course is taught (e.g., F,W), what delivery method is used (e.g., in person, online), where a course is taught (e.g., St. Jerome's University, Cambridge, Stratford).
- Academic advice, including but not limited to:
- Which courses to take to get into graduate studies.
- Which courses to take to get into specialized schooling (e.g., medical school).
- When to take courses/course sequencing.
- Recommended electives.
- General information about the University of Waterloo or its services.
What should occur when a program is retired
The information presented below is intended for degrees and majors (i.e., “programs”) that are being considered for retirement. It may also apply to other types of academic credentials (such as minors, options, diplomas) – consult the Office of the Registrar if there are questions.
- If a program is closed to admission/enrolment before it is retired, a special notice will be added to the program’s information in the applicable academic calendar.
- The program will cease to appear in the academic calendar as of the desired effective date; current students follow their designated requirement term in archived academic calendars.
- If applicable, required courses can be retired with the same effective date (or later) as the program retirement. However, we work on one academic calendar at a time; future-dated proposals beyond the effective dates chart will not be accepted.
- Note: As long as the program appears in the academic calendar, required courses should not be retired, regardless of if they are being offered or not. This is because retired courses cease to appear in the academic calendar as of the desired effective date and must be removed from any program requirement lists. And if those required courses were to be removed, it would cause auditing issues because the number of required units would no longer be correct.