Careers, Co-Curricular and Experiential Learning Technology Project

Project Overview

The Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education (OVPIUE), in partnership with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Students (OVPS), aims to support a seamless student experience across career and student life services and experiential learning programming. Currently, these functions are supported by multiple systems managed by individual academic divisions and shared service units. At the enterprise tri-campus level, many of these services have been supported through the Career and Co-Curricular Learning Network (CLNx), a platform built on the Symplicity Outcome product. Until the 2022-23 academic year, CLNx supported the tri-campus career service units, the University’s Co-Curricular Record (CCR), multiple units within Student Life, St. George, the Office of Student Experience & Wellbeing at U of T Scarborough, Student Affairs & Services at U of T Mississauga and additional units across the three campuses.

In 2022, OVPIUE and OVPS partnered on a review of career, co-curricular and experiential learning technology needs. The review recommended the University invest in a foundational enterprise system that could be complemented by additional integrated applications  to create a more seamless student experience. The review also recommended more institutional support for operational needs, including procurement, data integration, data security risk assessments and system implementations, thereby allowing for collaboration between interested divisions and/or groups of divisions to support the integration of divisional and shared instances.

Rationale

Many divisions and shared service units leverage products offered by a single vendor, Symplicity, to support their academic, co-curricular and experiential learning experiences. Through this project, OVPIUE and OVPS are aiming to consolidate some of the administrative efforts to support these functions while allowing divisions and units to maintain autonomy over the management of their own technology platforms. Our aim is to ensure that students engaging with institutional career and student life services and experiential learning programming do so in a seamless and integrated manner.

Foundational Platform: Folio

U of T has implemented Folio, an experiential and co-curricular learning platform designed to provide a user-friendly experience to serve as a gateway for students to access a wide array of essential services, programs, and activities seamlessly. Tailored specifically for the unique needs of university life, this platform strives to empower students to make the most of their journey at U of T while staying connected with the vibrant campus community.

Folio was identified through a multi-stage tri-campus review process that noted career,co-curricular services and experiential learning programming would benefit from  a more technically mature, user-friend, and interoperable solution that could better support both co-curricular and curricular career and experiential learning services and programming across all academic divisions and relevant shared service units.

Folio is powered by the Symplicity UniHub platform. It is initially supporting the University’s Co-Curricular Record (CCR) and will ultimately provide a new foundational platform for tri-campus student life services as these functions are migrated from the existing CLNx. In the short-term, this implementation will enable a greatly improved experience for students, staff and faculty engaging in the CCR with increased functional capabilities. In the medium-to-long term, Folio will provide a shared environment for academic and shared service units to establish a virtual presence and student-facing services at an enterprise level.

Benefits

Students

  • Customized student experience based on affiliations (degree, unit, program, etc.) and more efficient and user-friendly student wayfinding.
  • Enhanced search functionality that allows students to locate opportunities by keyword, areas of interest, etc.
  • Streamlining of some current manual processes.
  • In-system activity validation, recording, reflection and credentialing.
  • Stackable accomplishment recognition (i.e., badges, competencies, etc.)
  • ‘Skills Development’ module to support an enhanced Co-Curricular Record (CCR) experience.
  • Integrated ‘Work Flow’ functionality that allows for program automation.

Faculty / Staff

  • Decentralized permission structure to delegate admin rights to local users at division, unit or program level providing increased autonomy.
  • Supports integration of additional Symplicity instances within seamless enterprise portal.
  • Linking to non-UniHub systems to support seamless cross-system student experience.
  • Comprehensive reporting across all Symplicity instances connected to the UniHub system.
  • Streamlining current manual processes.

Institution

  • Support institutional goals for student success, quality service, and student engagement.
  • Advance U of T’s mission to re-imagine and re-invent undergraduate education and demonstrate its commitment to helping students connect to the community and pursue enriching experiences.
  • Advance the Next Generation Student Information Services (NGSIS) Program, which creates and deploys technological solutions that help students fully engage in rewarding learning experiences and achieve academic and personal success.

System Integration

Timeline

  • A – January 2023 – August 2023 – Task:
    • Configurations and Integrations with Student and Staff data as well as migration of CCR data.
  • B – September 2023 – Implementation:
    • CCR launched on Folio.
  • C – October 2023 – Task:
    • Master Service Agreement signed with Symplicity encompassing five Symplicity products: UniHub, CSM, Outcome, Accommodate and Advocate.
  • D – January 2024 – August 2024 – Task:
    • Transition CLNx units (aside from the tri-campus career service units) off of CLNx and onto Folio.
  • E – Winter/Spring 2024 – Task:
    • Alignment of data integration and data security risk assessment processes for all Symplicity products in use at U of T.

Executive Sponsorship

  • Professor Susan McCahan, Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education and Innovations
  • Professor Sandy Welsh, Vice-Provost, Students

Questions about this project?

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