Course-Based Registration At a Glance

Goals

Course-Based Registration balances two aims:

1. To make education more accessible, relevant and flexible for our students — today, tomorrow and into the future.
2. To make program delivery more effective, consistent and sustainable for RRC Polytech.

How It Works

Fixed Menu / The Old Way

Students register, pay for and complete an entire program on our timeline and our terms, with little room to explore.

VS

A la Carte Menu / The CBR Way

Under Course-Based Registration, students enrol in and pay for courses within a program at their own pace. They have the option to explore courses outside their program. (e.g., An Automotive student could also earn a Business certificate to open up his or her own shop.)

Program Design

For CBR to work, our programs must coordinate across the College. All RRC Polytech programs adopting CBR will follow these guidelines:

• A maximum weekly student workload of 25 hours
• 15-week semester length
• Three semesters per year:
  • Fall (August–December)
  • Winter (January–April)
  • Spring (May–August)
• Maximum six courses per semester
• 45-hour course length for three-credit-hour courses
  OR
  90-hour course length for six-credit-hour courses
• All courses will be on LEARN
• All courses will adopt the Common Courses Framework

New Tools

Student Planning is a new Colleague software module that will enable students to plan, select and schedule courses, receive advising support, monitor credential progress, and register – all in one place.

Student Advisors

Student Advisors will play a larger, more focused role helping students choose the correct courses to achieve their credentials.

October 2020: expected Student Planning implementation date for Phase 1 and 2 programs.

Timeline

Programs begin converting to course-based registration in two ways:

1. By volunteering to convert
2. As part of their next Program Renewal

Phases

• Phase 1: 4 programs (complete)
• Phase 2: 19 programs (in progress)
• Phase 3: 25-30 programs (2021)
• Phase 4: 20-30 programs (2022)
• Phase 5: All remaining eligible programs (2023)
• Completion Date: 2023

950+ students are already benefiting from the transition to CBR Phase 1 and 2.

Faculty Role

As an RRC Polytech faculty member, you may be involved in optimizing your program for CBR in the following ways:

• Re-designing courses
• Adapting your teaching/classroom management style to out-of-program students
• Using LEARN in all courses

580+ faculty, staff and leaders are directly involved and impacted by Phase 2.

CBR Benefits

• Common math, science and communication courses for students in complementary programs
• Interdisciplinary courses and projects that teach students from complementary fields and disciplines how to collaborate and work together (as they would in the real world of work)
• Greater flexibility for instructors interested in teaching evenings, weekends or over the summer
• Increased recognition of prior learning
• A more robust online registration experience for students and advisors
• Opportunities to help students explore multi-credentials
• Alignment of roles, responsibilities and practices
• Greater agility in responding to changing industry and student learning needs

Questions

Contact your Chair for more information, or reach out to the Course-Based Registration team at cbr@rrc.ca.