Achievement
Project Milestone --> Course Weight Transition Charter
Reflection - In 2001, NSCC adopted PeopleSoft as its ERP – to manage both financial and student information systems. Inherent in its implementation was the need to catalog the college’s curriculum, the basis upon which credential granting (program weight), scheduling and program advisement is based. At the time of deployment, a decision was made regarding the PeopleSoft course field “units” to equate one unit with one “course”, standardized at 60 hours, or 4 hours per week. Courses of more or less hours of delivery were prorated to that value resulting, for example, in thirty-hour courses displaying as 0.5 units and ninety-hour courses as 1.5 units.
Since then, with the integration and completion of expanded catalog entry, patterns began to emerge that challenged the rule of the standard; the diversity of courses having values not well aligned to the standard resulted in questions about compliance and about the original unit weight application.
Early in 2007 I was asked to head up a sub-committee of the Academic Systems & Processes Committee to look at alternatives and opportunitites to rationalize course and program weights. With the help of two colleagues in Academic Services, we conducted research into national practice as well as consultations with internal stakeholders. As a result, it became clear that we should adopt language more in keeping with othere National-calibre colleges ("credits" or "credit-hours" was found most popular) and to develop a unit schedule that was based on whole-number credits, rather than partial units. Following the approval of these recommendations by teh Dean's Council, I was then asked to head up a project team to implement the conversion. Our first major milestone would be to complete a project charter and an application to the Information Services Steering Committee who would be required to approve a project - given our estimates of effort.
With the help of an excellent steering committee made up of senior college staff and experienced project managers, we developed the Charter attached to this item and a project submission in the media library and referenced below. The approval of the ISSC was achieved in early May 2009.
The project continues under my management with a completion date of October 2010 proposed and a value of close to $90,000. My objective is to ensure the project comes in on time, on budget and meeting all requirements and expectations of stakeholders.
Document: CWT Charter.doc
Location: NSCC
Halifax, NS
Date: May 2009
Executive Project Sponsor: Jamie Hilts, VP Academic and Chief Learning Officer
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