Scheduled Projects is one of two approaches faculty you choose when working with CEL in preparation to teach online. Once a year, CEL will formally invite all faculties and affiliated and federated institutions of Waterloo (AFIW) to submit project proposals for the upcoming academic year. Proposed projects may include

  • development of a new fully online course, complete redevelopment of an existing online course, or significant revisions to an existing online course; 
  • conversion of a remote teaching course into an ongoing, fully online course; or 
  • development of stand-alone online learning components (e.g., for a blended course). 

CEL evaluates submitted proposals in terms of scope and readiness. Only project proposals that are in a good state of readiness before the start of their scheduled development period will be accepted. 

Selected projects will be scheduled for either

  • Batch A (development between September and August) or
  • Batch B (development between January and December)

Faculties will be asked to distribute their project allocations evenly across these two timelines. 

Submitting a Proposal

CEL’s intake process for the 2023/2024 academic year is now underway. Details and a link to the Scheduled Projects Request form were sent to faculties and AFIW in early February.

Once proposed projects have been identified by the dean's office or delegate using the Scheduled Projects Request form, the information collected for each proposal is separated into two sections:

  • Section 1, completed by the dean's office or delegate, requests basic information about the project, including stakeholders and approvals.
  • Section 2, completed by the author, requests information about the planned layout and timing of the course, as well as sample learning materials. See the Proposal Phase criteria required for your proposal type. Criteria may include
    • a draft course schedule,
    • an initial assessment plan, and
    • a representative week of learning materials.

Key Dates in the Proposal Phase

Item Who Due Date
Scheduled Projects Request Form
(link sent to faculties and AFIW in February)
Dean's office or delegate March 17, 2023
Proposal Section 1 Dean's office or delegate Batch A: April 28, 2023
Batch B: August 15, 2023
Proposal Section 2
(including sample learning materials)
Author Batch A: May 31, 2023
Batch B: September 29, 2023
Course Development or Project Agreement Author and dean's delegate Before proposal acceptance

Working on a Scheduled Project

Authors working on scheduled projects will have the full support of a dedicated course development team and a guaranteed project completion date. As such, it's important that authors are able to keep pace with project deliverables, meet associated milestones, and respond to CEL queries in a timely manner.

  • For a new course or the redevelopment of an existing online course, a standardized timeline for scheduled projects and associated milestones applues. These are briefly described on our Creating an Online Course page.
  • For scheduled projects that are not full courses, timelines and milestones will be outlined at the beginning of those projects.

Frequently Asked Questions