Co-op Opportunities

With a diverse team of more than 80 people, the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL) offers a variety of co-op positions across various functional groups. Co-op students are given the opportunity to work in a professional environment and contribute to projects that have an impact on instructors and students across Waterloo and beyond. Students can also take advantage of Professional Development opportunities during their time at CEL.

Please check WaterlooWorks for current postings.  

Jump to Typical Co-op Positions

• With the Systems Team
• With the Course Production Team

Student Testimonials

Testimonial: Jeffrey Yuen, Junior Application Developer, Fall 2020

Overall, my time with CEL Systems team was an amazing experience and I’m glad that I was given this opportunity to showcase my skills. I would recommend other co-ops to apply and work for this team.

This project allowed me to learn many new skills that I will be able to apply in my future co-ops and beyond. All in all, my two terms at the CEL have given me the opportunity to grow as an individual and experience software development on an enterprise level.

This opportunity has allowed me to gain knowledge and skills that will benefit both my academics and future work terms. I was given challenging projects and gained feedback to continuously improve as an employee.

Typical Co-op Positions

To give you some insight into what working with us might look like, here are some of the areas within CEL you might work with and brief descriptions of recent positions.

Our co-op positions may change, so please check WaterlooWorks for the most up-to-date postings.

Systems Team

Our systems team designs, develops, tests, implements, supports, and maintains web-based enterprise business systems driving online learning here at Waterloo. These are functionally and technically complex systems which integrate with university-wide enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as the student information system (SIS) and the learning management system (LMS). This complexity encompasses all aspects of the technical infrastructure supporting these applications' life cycles including network and operating systems layers, database layer, programming languages, delivery methods, as well as implementation and support methodologies.

Junior Application Developer

Reporting to an Information Systems Specialist and working in conjunction with other CEL units as necessary, the Junior Application Developer will:

• continue development of CEL's enterprise systems using .NET technologies, PHP, MySQL, SQLServer etc.
• continue development of the CEL Chatbot using Python, HTML and server-side technologies.
• continue development and documentation of other CEL systems as requested.
• work effectively with others in a team environment

Computing Support Assistant

Reporting to a Learning Technologies Analyst (LTA) and working in conjunction with other CEL units as necessary, the Computing Support Assistant will:

• manage in-term technical support for students and faculty in fully online/technology-enabled courses.
• support technical operations of the online learning environments including the LMS and the content management system (CMS).
• investigate suitable educational technologies during the fully online/technology-enabled course development activities.
• manage, monitor, plan and report on CEL's hardware/software asset inventory to support management decisions and budgetary planning.
• document user manuals, training manuals and FAQs for new technologies/services and proactively update existing to ensure integrity, accuracy and relevance.

Junior Information Systems Analyst

Reporting to the Information Systems Analyst and working in conjunction with units in CEL as necessary, the Junior Information Systems Analyst (JISA) will:

• translate statistical results of data analysis into reports and presentations for use by key stakeholders and decision makers.
• produce detailed test cases (for testing CEL information systems in consultation with the business analyst) use cases and requirement specifications.
• support the systems development team by conducting software quality assurance (SQA) on CEL systems based on set test cases, use cases and requirement specifications.
• execute customized queries/procedures in critical business systems to generate management information and liaise with stakeholders to validate reports and data.
• present data analytics in an efficient and easily understandable way to a wide variety of audiences and users, using various reporting formats and web technologies.

Course Production Team

Digital Media Production Assistant

As a full‐time Digital Media Production Assistant, you will be working with experienced instructional designers and digital media developers to produce a variety of online learning materials. It’s a position that offers huge potential for exercising your creativity and existing digital media skills, but also for developing new skills and production techniques, which would be welcome additions to the resume of anyone exploring a future in e‐learning or more commercial digital media design.

You will be working on real projects, with real clients, and real deadlines. You will be contributing directly to the innovations that drive Waterloo’s online teaching and learning excellence. Depending upon your background and experience, you could be working on:

• the design and development of online lecture materials (presentation slides, static and animated illustrations, data visualization, 3D models)
• the development of interactive learning objects
• audio and video post‐production
• usability and accessibility testing