A message from Thomas Duever, Interim Vice-President Academic and Provost
In the latter half of winter term, the Office of the Provost created an Academic Innovation Working Group (AIWG) tasked with exploring:
- how the University can deliver our academic programs more effectively and efficiently,
- ways to leverage technology to enhance teaching and learning,
- opportunities to create new revenue streams through program development, and
- recommendations that can enhance the quality and timeliness of academic decision-making by improving processes and ensuring that relevant information is available to those responsible for making decisions.
Currently chaired by Associate Vice-President Academic, David DeVidi, the AIWG is intended to be a mechanism to address pressing issues for the University as they arise. It comprises a steering committee that chooses topics of immediate concern, and time-limited working groups to help address those specific concerns. The steering committee and working groups of the AIWG are not decision-making bodies, but are intended to develop recommendations and provide advice that will enable decision-makers to make timely, evidence-based decisions. As befits the University’s present situation, the initial three working groups are addressing topics that can help the University face its difficult fiscal situation.
The membership of the working groups generally includes faculty members with relevant experience as, for example, departmental leaders, Associate Deans or Deans, Senators, or leadership roles in the development and approval of new programs. When required, senior staff members with relevant expertise will also be invited to support the AIWG’s activities.
The working groups convened at least twice before the end of June. In early July, the steering committee met to hear proposed work plans and to provide advice, as well as to ensure efforts were not being duplicated. Since then, all groups are undertaking research that will help them move forward efficiently in September. The following are updates from each working group.
Efficient and Effective Delivery of Academic Programs
Each faculty is working on its own to address questions surrounding efficient and effective delivery of academic programming. The working group seeks to develop proposed common approaches, where appropriate, with the primary goal of striking the best balance between quality of education and efficiency considering the financial realities facing the University.
In its initial work, begun in May, this sub-group has completed the following tasks:
- Reviewed efficiency-focused activities being undertaken in each faculty to identify general recommendations and opportunities for sharing good ideas across faculty lines. As suggested by the steering committee, the group also plans to ask professional staff how best to provide information that will allow faculties to more effectively implement some of these strategies (e.g., opportunities to consolidate offerings of similar courses between units).
- Started meeting with professional supports (e.g., Institutional Analysis & Planning [IAP], Centre for Extended Learning [CEL]) to better understand the costs associated with various course delivery modes.
Modernizing Our Academic Program Offerings
Starting from the premise that Waterloo’s academic programs should be academically credible, socially useful, and financially viable, this working group aims to develop process recommendations that facilitate efficiency and efficacy in supports and decision-making related to academic programming. Topics to be explored include the development of promising new programs from ideation to approval to implementation, the assessment of the health of existing courses and programs and, where appropriate, supports for the redesign of programs that are struggling.
Since May, this sub-group has completed the following tasks:
- Identified the need to develop operational definitions of “program health,” taking into account academic credibility, social applications, and financial viability.
- Identified a need to provide relevant information to decision-makers at program, department/school, and faculty levels in ways that allow them to monitor the health of their programs on an ongoing basis (not only once every seven years as part of a cyclical review).
- Recognized that what were originally conceived as two distinct inquiries — “How do we assess the promise of new program ideas?” and “How do we assess the health of current programs?” — overlap substantially.
- Began to gather information from professional staff that will help address these issues.
Logistics for Alternative Credentials
The third working group was in place for a few months before the AIWG was established but was brought under the AIWG umbrella because it fits well with the AIWG mandate. There are many ideas around campus for credentials that are different from traditional degrees and diplomas, the traditional core of university education. Some credentials are aimed at non-traditional learners, including mid-career professionals; others are aimed at attesting to the co-curricular learning of current degree-seeking students.
While many alternative credentials are being developed with the support of WatSPEED, which has a business model approved by the Provost and the Deans, many other ideas do not fit with WatSPEED’s remit or are beyond WatSPEED’s capacity to support. These developing, “non-WatSPEED” credentials have many logistical questions (e.g., Who takes registrations and keeps records? How is income split?) for which there are currently no standard answers.
This working group aims to make recommendations in response to these logistical questions. Having answers in place will provide clarity for those who have ideas for new non-credit credentials and will enable decision-makers to develop more effective processes and parameters when making decisions about which new alternative credentials should move forward.
Since beginning its work, this group has completed the following tasks:
- Collected information about current alternative offerings, those in development, and those still in the early planning stages.
- Used this information to develop a taxonomy of alternative credentials that are or might be offered at Waterloo.
- Began interviewing representatives of groups offering or proposing alternative credentials, to learn more about their processes, goals for the credentials, and how they might be better supported institutionally.
This additional information will also facilitate communication of the rationale for decisions, thus enhancing transparency.
Although the AIWG are not decision-making bodies, their recommendations are all in aid of helping decision-makers make reasonable, evidence-informed decisions. Recommendations will focus on tools and processes, not specific activities or programs, and will proceed through the regular governance pathways including Senate standing committees and councils, as appropriate.
For more information, contact David DeVidi, AIWG Chair.