Each program is guided at the highest level by a series of outcomes that originate with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

These outcomes cover both vocational skills and essential employability skills. Individual courses in a program have their own course outcomes and taken together all the courses in a program should address all the program outcomes.

The process of verifying that all the courses in a program handle all the program outcomes is called program mapping.

Program mapping must be done by the program team so that all courses are included and that the conversation to analyze the result of the mapping develops group buy-in for any changes that might need to be made.

Mapping can be a labour intensive process and we continue to fine-tune our methodology and develop tools to assist in the process. Often it is a two day exercise for the whole team. The result is a confirmation of compliance with Ministry outcomes and an identification of any major gaps or overlaps in subject matter being taught.

Our basic mapping tool is a special Excel spreadsheet that is used to record all the mapping data from every course and show it as aggregate totals.

The mapping spreadsheet is a complex document and may require some assistance in understanding how it works. You can get the Excel document for VLOs here and the Excel version for EESOs here . We’ve also developed a guide for the whole process .

Individual faculty have to examine their courses and identify which program outcomes they address. This is expressed as whether they teach, practice, or evaluate the outcome. We also look to capture if they address the outcome at a foundational, intermediate, or advanced level. We have developed a Learning Level Determination Guide to help determine the learning level of the material being taught. This information is captured on the vocational and essential employability capture sheets.

The VLO capture sheet

The EESO capture sheet

You might want a list of the Essential Employability Skills .

Mapping that is guided by a member of the Innovation Centre must be scheduled well in advance and priority is given to programs that are undergoing program review.