The time for meaningful transformation in Ontario’s postsecondary system is now. To meet the needs of the emerging economy, reform must focus on innovation and applied learning that vaults our province ahead of its competition in creating the best-educated, best-prepared workforce in the world. Composed of distinct but equally valued and complementary partners, Ontario’s transformed postsecondary system will ensure that all students can reach their full potential through a broad array of theoretical and applied learning opportunities. Colleges will continue to be student focused, specializing in applied learning that leads to good jobs for graduates, addresses labour market needs and affords access to the broadest possible population. Colleges and universities will offer a range of credentials within their systems and collaborate on a multitude of programs that offer students the best of both. Expanded pathways will give students the opportunity to customize their post-secondary experience to match their interests. Online and blended learning, married to leading-edge technology, will enable students to learn anywhere, anytime, and in ways best suited to their learning styles. Students will be better prepared than ever before to meet the demands of the economy, and they will achieve their goals faster and at less cost.
In a traditional face-to-face class, students have many opportunities to interact with their instructor and fellow students. Whether it’s an informal chat before or after class, or participating in the classroom discussion, interaction can be an important factor in student success.
Creating similar opportunities for participation and collaboration in an online course is one of the biggest challenges of teaching online. Yet, opportunities for meaningful interaction online are plentiful, provided you design and facilitate your course in the correct manner and with the proper tools.
Drawing mainly from HEQCO’s own research, this @Issue paper:
• Describes how the definition of student success has gradually broadened at Ontario colleges and universities;
• Summarizes some of the underlying institutional and student population factors that also impact on most current measures of student success;
• Provides broad observations about some recent findings as they relate to the awareness, utilization and impact of various student service, course-based and other initiatives designed to promote student success;
• Recommends what can be measured – as well as how and what outcomes can be expected – when it comes to initiatives and interventions designed to improve student success.
This research report represents the first phase of a multi-year collaborative research initiative of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario.1 The initiative is designed to develop a cohesive picture of the pathways from secondary school to college. The major purpose of this phase of the research was to identify secondary school students’ perceptions of Ontario colleges and of college as a possible post-secondary educational destination for them, and to determine the factors that have shaped these perceptions. A second purpose was to identify secondary school student achievement patterns, graduation rates and course enrolments in order to consider their influence on current and future college enrolments.
The main source of data for the study was a survey of 21,385 Grades 11, 12 and Year 5 students enrolled in 73 Ontario secondary schools. The schools were selected to represent Ontario college regions, school size and school type (i.e., Roman Catholic, public, and serving francophone students). In addition to the survey, the schools were asked to provide school calendars or course option sheets and course enrolments in order to assess the availability of college-destination courses and course sequences that lead to college. Sixty-one schools provided information for this analysis. Data from the Double Cohort Study, Phase 3 (2004) and Phase 4 (2005), were also examined in order to conduct a preliminary analysis of the characteristics of college applicants in terms of their secondary school courses taken and marks obtained.
Ontario faces significant challenges to its global competitiveness. At the same time, demographic trends point to growing skills shortages and to increased competition worldwide for skilled labour. In the face of these challenges, there is an urgent need to ensure the economy has the skills it needs and individuals have access to recognized, credentialed education and training that meets their individual aspirations and supports their transition to long-term employment. The proposals contained in this document also address a key priority of the McGuinty government: addressing poverty. For example, with youth unemployment at nearly 14 per cent, Ontario must ensure that at-risk youth, who have even higher unemployment rates, participate in education and training programs such as the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, Job Connect and Learning to 18.
There is a need to refocus our employment and training programs and services to respond to identified labour market needs and support long-term labour force attachment.
Ontario’s colleges have a mandate to offer a comprehensive program of career-oriented postsecondary education and training to assist individuals in finding and keeping employment, to meet the needs of employers and the changing work environment, and to support the economic and social development of their local and diverse communities. We represent a significant public investment.
A government-college partnership that capitalizes on the colleges’ mandate and the public investment in colleges represents a prudent approach to meeting the labour market challenges Ontario faces.
The programs and services that individual colleges deliver at the local level vary depending on local needs and circumstances. Within this context, Ontario’s colleges are committed to playing a pivotal role in assisting the province. We represent a stable, accountable, province-wide, publicly funded infrastructure that delivers a comprehensive range of programming in English and in French and provides essential support services to individuals to enhance their potential
for success.
For Canada to succeed, all Canadians must have the opportunity to develop and use their skills and knowledge to the fullest. So said the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin in the Speech from the Throne that opened the 37th Parliament of Canada in February 2004: “Investing in people will be Canada’s most important economic investment.”
Such an investment is critical. The new economy demands an increasingly educated and skilled workforce. To remain globally competitive, Canada needs to invest in raising the overall level of education and skills across the country. As well, Canada faces a shortage of skilled workers over the next 10 years, due to both retirement and the country’s low population
growth rate. To replace our aging workforce, Canada needs to look beyond traditional sources for future employees.
The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:
• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance
indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets.
The Student Success Program (SSP) at George Brown College is designed to foster a supportive college environment for first-year students. The College committed to fund the SSP for a five-year period beginning in 2008-2009. As part of the SSP, a range of academic and non-academic activities are offered to first-year students in order to promote collaborative learning and peer interaction. Some of these activities take place in class, while others are offered outside of class. The SSP components are tailored to programs within individual centres or schools, so as to provide the types of activities best suited to assist first-year students in those areas.
ABSTRACT
In analyses of higher education systems, many models and frameworks are based on governance, steering, or coordination models. Although much can be gained by such analyses, we argue that the language used in the present-day policy documents (knowledge economy, competitive position, etc.) calls for an analysis of higher education as an industry. In this paper, the university sector in Ontario’s higher education industry is analyzed by applying Michael Porter’s five forces framework defined by the following forces: the threat of new entrants, supplier power, buyer power, the threat of substitutes, and industry rivalry. Our assessment revealed that competition in Ontario’s higher education industry (university sector) is currently mixed. The findings suggest that policy-makers, the sector, and individual institutions will need to consider more seriously the impact of technology and globalization when seeking a competitive position for the Ontarian higher education system.
RÉSUMÉ
En termes d’analyse des systèmes d’enseignement supérieur, de nombreux modèles et cadres de référence sont fondés sur des modèles de gouvernance, de pilotage ou de coordination. Malgré la pertinence de ces analyses, nous soutenons que la langue utilisée dans les documents de politique actuels
(économie du savoir, position concurrentielle, etc.), notamment, incite à une analyse de l’enseignement supérieur en tant qu’industrie. L’article revoit le secteur universitaire de l’industrie de l’enseignement supérieur de l’Ontario en appliquant le modèle des cinq formes de Michael Porter, définies en fonction des forces suivantes : la menace d’entrants potentiels, le pouvoir de négociation des fournisseurs, le pouvoir de négociation des clients, la menace des produits de substitution et l’intensité de la concurrence intrasectorielle. Notre évaluation a révélé que la concurrence au sein de l’industrie de l’enseignement supérieur en Ontario (secteur universitaire) est présentement mixte. Les résultats suggèrent que les décideurs politiques, le secteur et les institutions individuelles devront prendre en compte plus sérieusement les répercussions de la technologie et de la mondialisation pour positionner de manière concurrentielle le système d’enseignement supérieur de l’Ontario.
The traditional pathway into postsecondary education (PSE) is to enter college or university directly after graduating from high school. Not all students follow the traditional pathway into PSE. The Ontario government recently set a goal “to raise the postsecondary [attainment] rate to 70 per cent” (Speech from the Throne, 2010). In 2011, 64 per cent of Ontario residents aged between 25 and 64 held a PSE credential.1 One way to help reach the target educational attainment rate of 70 per cent is for Ontario colleges and universities to attract and retain learners who follow non-traditional pathways. Therefore, one of the priorities of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) is to evaluate the adequacy and efficiency of non-traditional pathways in obtaining a PSE credential. This study mainly examined one non-traditional pathway, delayed
entry into PSE. Graduates who have taken more years than expected to graduate are also included in the discussion. The purpose of this paper is to address the following research questions:
• What is the demographic profile of these non-traditional graduates?
• Are their program choices and pathways through PSE different from those of direct entrants?
• Do their labour market outcomes differ from those of direct entrants?
Ask most people who don't teach online about the likelihood of academic dishonesty in an online class and you will likely hear concerns about the many ways that students could misrepresent themselves online. In fact, this concern about student representation is so prevalent it made its way into the Higher Education Opportunities Act (HEOA). Passed into law in 2008, the act brought a few big changes to online education, including a new requirement to “ensure that the student enrolled in an online class is the student doing the coursework Although there'ome disagreement as to whether distance education is more susceptible to academic dishonesty than other forms of instruction, what isn't up for debate is the fact that for as long as there's been exams, there's been cheating on exams. The online environment simply opens up a different set of challenges that aren't typically seen in traditional face-to-face courses.
Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education was developed to help you understand the latest tools and techniques for mitigating cheating and other unethical behaviors in your online courses. The report features nine articles from Distance Education Report, including:• Combating Online Dishonesty with Communities of Integrity
. 91 Ways to Maintain Academic Integrity in Online Courses
. The New News about Cheating for Distance Educators
. A Problem of Core Values: Academic Integrity in Distance Learning
. Practical Tips for Preventing Cheating on Online Exams
Online education didn't invent cheating, but it does present unique challenges. This report provides proactive ways for meeting these challenges head on.
The ability of students to move between colleges and universities is an activity, often expected by students, intended to combine the strengths of both sectors and support the pursuit of continuous lifelong learning. Students in Ontario have been ahead of educators and planners in “discovering the value of combining the strengths of the colleges in hands-on learning with the
strengths of the universities in academic education” (Jones & Skolnik, 2009, p.22). The College University Consortium Council (CUCC), established in 1996, was created, in part, to facilitate such activity. The Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Postsecondary Education produced a report, Excellence, Accessibility, Responsibility, which endorsed the CUCC as the objective body that would facilitate “province-wide information collection and comparative analysis” to assist all stakeholders in decision-making affecting postsecondary education (Smith et al,1996, p.48). The Investing in Students Task Force cited the CUCC in its 2001 report, advocating, among other things, for the body to “assess and evaluate the existing mechanism” of transfer
between the college and university systems (Investing in Students Task Force, 2001, p.20). Traditionally, Ontario has not held a coherent postsecondary education system with collaborative sectors, but rather two systems, college and university. The colleges were established to be comprehensive institutions that were occupation oriented and designed to meet the needs of the local community. These institutions were an alternative for those who were not inclined to purely academic pursuits and who did not have the qualifications to gain entry to university.
In 2004, in the discussion paper launching the Ontario Postsecondary Review, a student expressed his desire for “the freedom to move between programs or institutions with recognition of my previous work so that I can obtain an education as unique as I hope my career will be” (Rae, 2004, p.19). However, the paper continued by describing the existing situation as a
patchwork of institutional agreements that “cover only a fraction of existing programs”; therefore,in order to “ensure that its public institutions can meet the growing expectations of students and employers, and operate as a coherent system”, Ontario would need to establish a system to set “standards for credit recognition and student transferability between institutions” (p.21).
Attempts to formalize seamless pathways, however, have been confounded by a lack of data to support claims of student demand and actual movement, particularly from college to university.
Ontario colleges were not established to facilitate transfer, but the pursuit of articulation agreements by the institutions themselves and the historic movement of students into universities have legitimized this function as one of its main activities.
The Ontario government’s mandated collection of key performance indicators (KPIs) provides one opportunity to analyze provincial data that is systematically collected in a consistent manner. The Graduate Satisfaction Survey is used to calculate the results of two of the KPIs1, employment rate and graduate satisfaction. Additionally, the survey asks graduates if they have enrolled in an educational institution; students identify which institution and program. In 2005,the colleges and the MTCU decided to expand the survey for those who indicated that they had continued their education after graduation. Therefore, in 2006-07 a modified Graduate Satisfaction Survey with new transfer related questions was introduced. These additions and changes have enabled a deeper analysis of student movement between and within institutions or sectors.
The new questions were included to capture data that could better inform colleges about the students who graduate from their respective institutions. The questions on transfer were also intended to assist the government on matters that could affect policy with respect to student movement, particularly between postsecondary sectors. In addition to documenting the program and institutional destination of graduates seeking further education, the graduate survey now gathers information on the motivation for continuing, the source of transfer information, the amount of transfer credit received, the timing of notification for credit, the relationship to the previous program, the satisfaction with the transfer experience and the satisfaction with college preparation for further studies. This report is the first comprehensive analysis of the new questions from the first year of administration (2006-07).
One of my primary research interests is the design of higher education systems, a subject on which I did background papers for recent commissions on postsecondary education in Ontario and British Columbia. I am interested in both factors that influence the design of higher education systems and in the implications of different system designs for accessibility, quality, innovation, and the effectiveness of higher education in meeting societal needs. An example of analysis of the design of a higher education system is found in a recent book that I co-authored (Clark, Moran, Skolnik, and Trick, 2009). We concluded that the design
employed in Ontario for the provision of baccalaureate education is inefficient, because it attempts to provide almost all baccalaureate education through a system of publicly funded research universities, the most expensive model for the provision of bachelor’s programs. In our recommendations we emphasized the need for greater institutional differentiation among
providers of baccalaureate credit activity. This would include having a few predominantly teaching universities that concentrate on baccalaureate programming; an open university; and making credit transfer a major function of the colleges.
Stratosphere:
Integrating Technoloyg, Pedagogy and Change Knowledge
In February 2013, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce released a report that identified the growing skills crisis as the greatest impediment to the success of Canadian business. In his 2012 discussion paper, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Glen Murray, put forward a platform outlining the need to lower rates of spending growth for publicly-funded universities within the context of an increased labour market demand for greater levels of knowledge and skills, combined with burgeoning enrolment rates.
Sometimes great opportunities come from insoluble problems. The review of the Private Career Colleges Act presents such an opportunity. Career Colleges are an essential component of the solution. Estimated to save Ontario taxpayers over $1 billion annually* through the provision of state-of-the-art skills training and upgrading to over 67,000 students each year, the Career College sector and the people of Ontario deserve an Act that provides a strategic framework for the future and that enables innovative, creative growth to propel this province’s postsecondary education (PSE) system, and that of Canada, towards global competitiveness.
The recommendations in this Report are written on the premise that the government of Ontario strives for excellence in education and the economic growth that it can bring; and further, that it recognizes the value, strength and potential of the Career College sector to help realize those goals.
Private Colleges
The purpose of this study was to identify how entrepreneurship education is delivered in Ontario colleges and universities. In Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, the increase in the number of entrepreneurship courses at universities and colleges, and the concurrent popularization and maturation of entrepreneurship programming, contribute to fostering entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, and the creation of businesses. The overall aim of this report is to inform debate and decision-making on entrepreneurship education through a mapping and assessment of existing programs in the province.
You've heard it before:
We already know what our students think.
Our committee has already picked the brand strategy that will work best. We know our school and our
students. We don't need external consultation.
These statements go against three core principles of successful PSE brand positioning, which one can find in the following case studies.
Alive in the Swamp vividly articulates the key components needed for digital innovations to be transformational in a practical, easy-to-use tool that has applicability across the spectrum, from leaders of large school systems to education entrepreneurs. As education systems across the world continue to struggle with learner engagement, student achievement and equity, this work is more relevant and necessary than ever before.
This report reflects the enthusiasm and commitment of students, staff and faculty in realizing the vision of environmental sustainability on Ontario’s university campuses.
The report is based on an annual survey of 20 Ontario universities conducted by the Council
of Ontario Universities (COU).
Highlights
• Aboriginal women living off-reserve have bucked national trends, with employment rates rising since 2007 alongside labour force participation.
• Employment growth has been particularly high in service sectors such as finance and professional services – areas typically associated with well-paying, stable jobs.
• Linked to improving labour market outcomes, Aboriginal women have seen sizeable improvements in education attainment over the past 20 years.
• Significant gaps in outcomes relative to the Non-Aboriginal population persist. Fortunately, the rela- tively young population implies that these gaps will continue to close as the Aboriginal population is likely to see further gains in educational outcomes.