A draft Calendar for the following year is typically created in the spring and made available to campus stakeholders.
Revisions are made to the draft Calendar throughout the year to incorporate all approved Calendar changes, with all revisions being made directly from the content of formal Governance approval packages. The Calendar Change Log [see link on Calendar Guide home page] is updated with each revision. Faculties are encouraged to check the Calendar Change Log to see when a change has been entered into the draft and to complete a final review of the change at their earliest convenience.
Each year in February (typically the first two weeks) a final review period is held, providing faculties with a last opportunity to complete their review of any draft Calendar changes they have outstanding and to notify the Calendar Editor of any corrections or revisions required.
ALL course, program, and regulation changes must have final approval from the appropriate governing body before the end of January to guarantee inclusion in the Calendar being published that year (e.g. January 2026 for the 26-27 Calendar). Please note that this includes approvals made by the Ministry of Advanced Education.
Late approvals (February) for program and/or regulation changes will be considered on a case-by-case basis, considering factors such as impact of the change, when it was approved, and feasibility of inclusion prior to publication. Possible outcomes at the discretion of the Calendar Editor include:
Updating into the draft Calendar prior to publication
Updating into the Calendar after it publishes, either as errata or addenda
Being delayed until the following Calendar (i.e. early implementation, where the change has been implemented, but is not published in the current Calendar)
Please note that some major changes may be ineligible for inclusion as Addenda if they are considered to have a negative impact on students/applicants. These types of changes require inclusion in the Calendar a minimum of six months to one year in advance of the effective date to ensure that students/applicants are sufficiently apprised. Some examples of these types of changes include:
New, additional admission requirements (e.g. extra courses or testing)
Increasing program course load or requiring additional or more complex completion requirements
Raising the academic standing requirement for promotion or graduation
Late approvals (February) for course changes will be considered on a case-by-case basis, considering such factors as impact of the change, complexity of the change, and feasibility of inclusion prior to student registration opening. Possible outcomes at the discretion of Examinations and Timetabling (ETT) include:
Immediate implementation - change is made in time for publication in the Calendar
Early implementation - change is made too late for publication in the Calendar, but is effective in Campus Solutions in a term earlier than the next Calendar publication
Future implementation - change cannot be made for the term requested due to one or more issues (e.g. changing prerequisites on a course already open to student registration) and is scheduled for an appropriate future term
These are changes that are approved through Governance for immediate implementation, but will not be updated in a currently published Calendar. Instead, these are to be updated in the current draft Calendar for the following publication.
Early implementation changes are considered atypical. One reason is that late changes not appearing in the Calendar can negatively impact the integrity of the Calendar as our contract with students. For this reason, we emphasize the importance of beginning your changes early enough so that they can be incorporated in the Calendar at the same time that they are implemented.
The difference between early implementation changes and addenda is that early implementation changes will not be reflected in the online Calendar for that year.
Errata are changes made to correct severe errors in the Calendar. They are usually posted when doing otherwise would seriously disadvantage students.
Errata are addressed on a case-by-case basis. If you would like to submit errata, please contact the University Calendar Editor for guidance as soon as possible.
Once a Calendar has been published, change proponents have one year to note any errata involving regulatory changes in order to have them corrected. Once that year has passed and a new Calendar has been published, any errata involving regulatory changes will need to be approved again.
Time limitations for errata that are editorial is at the discretion of the Calendar Editor.
Addenda are adjustments to the current Calendar that are permitted to be made post-production due to a significant change to a regulation. Possible addenda are monitored jointly by the RO and University Governance.
For Faculty reviewers, a shared read-only account has been created with a common user name and password.
The shared user name is 2627review
The password is gubapatches
The user name and password is changed each year to reduce the chances that web browsers will flag it as a compromised account. This is not a major concern as the access level for this account is read-only. Please feel free to share this login information with anyone in your faculty who needs to review the draft Calendar.
Once you are logged in, to find the draft 26-27 Calendar:
Select 'Calendar Preview' from the top menu.
'*****DRAFT University of Alberta Calendar 2026-2027*****' will be the only Calendar version available to the review account.
Click 'Preview' on the right hand side.
The draft Calendar will open in a pop-up window.
Tip: the pop-up window may not have your usual back button; instead, you can find the back function by right-clicking in the window.