The Post-Secondary Learning Act (PSLA) gives General Faculties Council (GFC) responsibility over the “preparation and publication of the University Calendar” [section 26(1)(g)]. This responsibility is delegated to the GFC Executive committee who in turn delegates many responsibilities regarding the printing and publication of the Calendar to the University Registrar. Policy and procedures (through the PSLA, GFC Committee Terms of Reference and UAPPOL) instruct the processes by which the Calendar is changed. As a result, the Office of the Registrar (RO), Office of the Provost, and U of A Governance have a close relationship in the production of the Calendar.
The Calendar is one of the principal sources of U of A policy information, particularly for current and prospective students. Among other information, it reflects admission regulations and deadlines, academic regulations, programs of study, academic standards, degree requirements and general University policies for both undergraduate and graduate students. The Calendar is considered our contract with students. From the front page of the Calendar, Important Notice:
“By the act of registering for a course or a course of study, each student at the University of Alberta agrees to observe and be bound by the terms of this notice, and the terms, conditions, academic standards, rules, regulations, policies, and codes of behaviour contained or referenced in the Calendar. Therefore, it is the student’s responsibility to be aware of the contents of the Calendar. The Calendar sets forth the intention of the University at the time the Calendar was prepared.”
Knowing that the Calendar is a type of contract and a source of policy information, and understanding that the processes for changing the Calendar are themselves instructed by policy or procedure, it should be no surprise that much (though not all) of the Calendar content requires some kind of formal approval before it can be modified or removed. Throughout the Calendar Guide, this is generally referred to as the approval process or governance approval. The Guide points to the varying procedures and committee pathways that changes must be routed through before they can be implemented in practice, and reflected in the Calendar. These processes are vital; it is through the networks of governance and policy that we can work together to maintain the integrity of the Calendar.
The 'Gateway' is the public side of the system, which results in the user interface seen at calendar.ualberta.ca
The 'Publisher' side of the system acts as a database of calendar pages, as well as a simple text editor. From this back-end, the Calendar editor can manage the structure and organization of all Calendar pages.
There are several different types of page types in Catalog. Each of these is formatted differently in the system. Two of the most common types are:
Program Pages
Custom Pages. Custom Pages are essentially a single text box (see below).
A Program Page is made up of cores.
Each core has a heading and can also include a text box and/or course list. Please note: The text box exclusively exists after the heading and before the course list. Faculties wishing to add text after a course list must either relocate it to before the course list or create a sub-heading to move the text under.
Additional cores can be added:
A Sub-Core acts as a sub-heading and section below its parent core. It exists exclusively on the program page for which it is built.
A Shared Core acts as a core, but can be shared amongst different programs. It can not be customized between the various programs using it.
The text box acts like a simple word processor in that you can add and format text and links. You can also include bulleted or numbered lists, as well as tables.
There are two types of links used in Catalog:
Hyperlinks are static. These are used to link to webpages external to the Calendar. All changes are done manually, and faculties are responsible for verifying that their hyperlinks are active and correct for each Calendar publication.
Permalinks are dynamic. These links are to specific named pages or courses in each Calendar, and will change catalog numbers automatically for each publication. They will always point to the named page in the current calendar.
The course list is a formatted list of courses in a core. Editors can indicate which courses show up in the list. Courses are listed alphabetically, then numerically.
Courses in the course list will automatically display the course title and will link to the course information displayed in the Course Listings area of the Calendar.
When text needs to be added to one of the courses in the Courses List, it is added as Ad-Hoc Text. If that course is deleted, the Ad-Hoc Text will disappear with it.
The following style guides are used in the University of Alberta Calendar:
Additional references and examples for the Calendar Style Guide will be reviewed and updated at a future time.