Curriculum Management System

 

Background 

The 黑料不打烊 offers a diverse range of programs, each built upon a structured curriculum that defines the courses and requirements needed to attain the designated credential. From 2022 to 2024, curriculum submissions surged by 63%, indicating significant institutional growth and a response to the changing needs of students, faculty, and industry. 

Given that the University's current curriculum management processes are fragmented and labour-intensive, this significantly increases administrative workload, delays program approvals, reduces transparency and hinders data-driven decision-making, thereby limiting the university's ability to adapt quickly.

To achieve the projected growth outlined in the University’s Integrated Enrolment Growth Plan (IEGP), the University requires scalable academic infrastructure and an efficient curriculum management system to support the development of new programs, streamline approvals, and enhance student pathways. 

 

Project Overview 

The Curriculum Management System (CMS) project is a strategic, university-wide initiative to implement a unified, comprehensive digital platform that will streamline and standardize the entire lifecycle of curriculum development, maintenance and governance, and offer a single source of truth for all curricular information for all programs, including undergraduate, graduate and continuing education. The project will also include the implementation of a new Academic Calendar/Catalog tool and explore thoughtful integration with select university systems.

The project aims to replace the existing manual processes with a Curriculum Management System that will fundamentally transform how we manage calendar, course, and program changes by implementing clear, automated workflows for proposal submission, review, approval, and publication. This ensures that modifications—from minor course updates to major program overhauls and academic calendar adjustments—are transparent, timely, and consistently applied across all documentation and systems. This implementation aims to significantly reduce administrative burden, minimize errors, and ensure institutional compliance and academic integrity.

In addition, the CMS will serve as a tool for robust curriculum mapping, reporting and analytics.

Some key functionality includes:

  • version control to track all historical changes; 
  • automated workflow and approval management;
  • impact analysis to instantly assess how a change in one course affects dependent programs or the overall calendar; 
  • curriculum mapping to connect learning outcomes to courses, programs and assessments for accreditation and quality assurance; and 
  • customizable reporting on course/ program metrics, and accreditation standards.

 

Project Timeline 

In March 2025, the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Programs approved the business case and budget for a Curriculum Management System project. 

With an estimated 24-month timeline, from August 2025 to July 2027, the project will be completed in three phases: Discovery, Request for Proposal (RFP) and Design and Implementation.  

 
PHASE 1: DISCOVERY 
August 2025 - January 2026

Documenting the current state and gathering future state requirements

 
PHASE 2: REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL 
February 2026 - July 2026

Procurement of a Curriculum Management System

 

PHASE 3: DESIGN + IMPLEMENTATION 
August 2026 - July 2027

System Design, Configuration, User Training and Deployment

 

Feedback 

Your feedback on the CMS project is critical to ensure we meet the needs of stakeholders across the institution. If you have any questions throughout this project, please contact the Project team via email at cmsproj@ualberta.ca 

 

Project Sponsor: 

  • Janice Causgrove Dunn, Vice-Provost, Programs

Project Steering Committee

  • Janice Causgrove Dunn, Vice-Provost (Programs), Provost & Vice President Academic
  • Chris Brunelle, Associate Vice-President & Chief Transformation Officer
  • Jennifer Tupper, Dean, Faculty of Education
  • Mark Humphries, AVP and CIO, Information Services & Technology
  • Natasja Saranchuck, Portfolio Initiatives Manager, Provost & Vice-President Academic 
  • Norma Rodenburg, Vice-Provost & Registrar, Office of the Registrar
  • Trish Manns, Provost Fellow

Project Team

  • Natasja Saranchuck, Portfolio Initiatives Manager, Provost & Vice-President 
  • Maria Oti, Project Manager, Enrolment Systems and Services Innovation (ESSI)
  • Eric Ta, Senior Business Analyst, Enrolment Systems and Services Innovation (ESSI)