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Curriculum and Course Approval

On April 18, 2022, the Toronto School of Theology (TST) Academic Council approved the Governance and Procedures of Basic Degree and Graduate Curriculum and Course Approvals at TST. The development of the document included wide consultation. The governance and procedures have been developed to:

  • provide for governance consistent with UTQAP and ATS accreditation requirements (for reference, see the video of the workshop on Quality Assurance on the Faculty Assembly Quercus site;
  • promote collaborative processes of consortium-wide curriculum and course planning that involve faculty and administrators;
  • encourage syllabus production and peer review as a scholarly, creative and mutually supportive activity;
  • distinguish clearly those course elements that require governance approval ("canonical material") from those that individual faculty members have discretion to decide.

An overview of the governance and procedures can be found in: TST Governance and Procedures BDC and GSC Curriculum and Course Approvals Overview.

A draft syllabus and/or bibliography is no longer required.  

Schedule for 2023-24 Course Approval

Once instructors fill out the form(s) below, it will be sent on a weekly basis to the respective college for review and confirmation of  college approval.  Course approvals will become a standing item at Academic Council. Thus, there is no longer a single date to submit new/reactivated courses.  Nevertheless, deadlines do still apply. It is recommended that a request for Winter 2022, must be approved by the October 31 Academic Council so that a course code can be obtained from the UofT  and posting to the TST website can occur in time for January. 

Courses that have been confirmed as approved by the college by noon on the following dates will be forwarded for review to Academic Council:

  • October 24 for October 31, 2022 meeting
  • November 18 for November 28, 2022 meeting (note that this is a Friday and not the Monday prior to the meeting)
  • January 9 for January 16, 2023 meeting
  • January 30 for February 6, 2023 meeting
  • March 6 for March 13, 2023 meeting
  • April 3 for April 10, 2023 meeting

Submission of Canonical Information for New, Revised and Reactivated Courses

For reference, see the video of the workshop on Quality Assurance on the Faculty Assembly Quercus site.

Canonical Information includes:

  • Course Code
  • Delivery Mode
  • Course Title
  • Course Description
  • Weight
  • “Contact” Hours
  • Pre- and/or Co-requisites

A change in any of the above will require governance approval. The information in the course syllabus must match the approved Canonical Information.

For curriculum mapping purposes, as required under UTQAP, information on how the course supports the TST Learning Outcomes for conjoint programs is also required.  This is not the same as course outcomes.  You will be asked about how the course contributes to the Learning Outcomes (see the Basic Degree and Graduate Handbooks).  If you answer no, that it will not be offered as part of a particular program then it will skip to the next program and so on.  If you answer yes, then please respond accordingly.  It is NOT expected that the course will contribute to every learning outcome of a program.

NOTES:

  • 3000/6000 courses:  Will require the submission of both the Basic Degree form AND the Graduate form.
  • Delivery Mode:  The three options are Online, In-person and Hybrid.  Details of each of these can be found in Post-Pandemic Course Delivery.
  • Course Title:  Due to technical reasons colons (:) and slashes (/) cannot be used in the course title and will be removed.
  • Course Description:  This should not make any reference to delivery methods or form of evaluation. If included these references will be removed before going through the governance approval process.
  • Contact Hours:  This is based on the 12-week semester, so a two-hour course over the semester would be 24 contact hours and a three-hour course would be 36 hours.  his need to be adhered to when scheduling summer intensive courses. 
  • Reactivation:  For 2023-34, courses last offered in, and prior to 2017-18 or was formally closed within the last five years, will require reactivation. The previous course code may not be available to use again.
  • Learning Outcomes:  You will be required to indicate which program the course intends to support and to provide information relevant to the TST Program Learning Outcomes as applicable. The TST Program Learning Outcomes can be found in the Program Handbooks.

Please make sure you have all the information available prior to starting the request as the information cannot be saved and returned to later.

Forms

New Course - 1000, 2000 or 3000 Level

New Course - 5000 or 6000 Level

Course Reactivation - 1000, 2000 or 3000 Level

Course Reactivation - 5000 or 6000 Level

Change to Canonical Information for an Active 1000, 2000 or 3000 Level Course

Change to Canonical Information for an Active 5000 or 6000 Level Course  

Please report any problems with the online forms HERE indicating which form and the issue.

Ethics Review of Course-based Research

Course instructors who teach a human research component within a course are required to submit a course template each time the course is offered (this is not a one time approval).  Course templates are used when the research assignment involving human participants has strict parameters with respect to the research methodology and the participant group. When course templates are used, the course instructor must complete and submit the ethics application, including template information and consent forms, recruitment scripts and sample questions or tools. The course instructor is responsible for sharing the templates and reviewing the specific details with the students. Any approved projects that fall outside of the parameters of the template, must be submitted separately as a student-initiated project. Completed requests should be submitted to gcts.office@utoronto.ca. TST’s DERC provides the first review for any research ethics proposal that can be approved internally (basic degree, low risk projects) or will recommend submission to the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board (any doctoral or higher risk projects). 

College submission of Courses to be Offered in the 2023-24 Academic Year

Colleges are to submit a draft of their 2023-24 course offerings by January 6, 2023.  Final lists for posting to the TST website must be received by February 23, 2023.

Resources

Documents