Digital Transformation

About Digital Transformation

The Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education (OVPIUE) leads transformational technology initiatives across the University of Toronto to enable the modernization of the academic and co-curricular experience for students, faculty and staff. Through these initiatives, the OVPIUE aims to leverage new technologies to provide the University community with opportunities to rethink and reimagine how it effectively and efficiently supports the entire student journey; from empowering the appropriate people at each integral step, to designing more streamlined processes, to supporting more seamless and cohesive student-facing programming solutions.

New opportunities continue to emerge for the University through both the development of in-house applications and the implementation of products specifically designed for higher education. These products and applications enhance our students’ ability to successfully navigate and access the wide breadth of academic and co-curricular offerings and support services. For faculty and staff, these tools help streamline and consolidate administrative and academic processes, reducing or eliminating manual or inefficient tasks so that more time can be spent on high-impact student-facing activities. 

The OVPIUE partners with cognate Vice-Provost offices responsible for core elements of the student, staff and faculty academic experience and our enterprise information technology offices to support the University’s Next Generation Student Information System program goals. 

Active Initiatives

Following close consultations with academic divisions to assess the current state of academic advising supports and infrastructure across the University, OVPIUE has partnered with Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI) to implement the Student Advising Service (SAS), built on the Salesforce Student Success Hub using the Education Data Architecture.  

The SAS enables academic divisions to transform their student advising services by presenting student advisors with a holistic, 360-degree view of each student’s profile and record of support engagement. It establishes a single consolidated student advising record, drawing on the University’s core student information system applications, that can be accessed by a student’s assigned advising team within their division, college and/or academic unit, from which, advisors can make referrals, develop success plans and assign students with specific tasks to follow-up on, and can draw on a divisional knowledge base for the application of institutional and divisional policies. This system will streamline the student and staff advising experience, promote evidence-based student support practices, ensure consistent and transparent service delivery, and increase administrative efficiencies. 

For more information about the SAS, contact julian.weinrib@utoronto.ca. 

The Course Information System (CIS) is an enterprise application sponsored by OVPIUE and developed by the Next Generation Student Information System (NGSIS) group within Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration and utilized across all three campuses for a growing range of functions. Initially launched in 2017, CIS was originally intended to support the collection, review, approval, administration and archiving of course syllabi and exam documents (both scripts and logistics). The application manages the workflow and collection and review of all course syllabi information and documents, as well as final assessment logistics and test scripts between course instructors and division/unit administrators to ensure a secure, digital transfer of required information. This information is then available in a divisional repository for archiving and access beyond the given session, which allows for easy access in the case of petitions, academic integrity cases, transfer credit requests or other curricular assessment needs. These features are currently available at six of the seven first-entry undergraduate divisions, listed below, with the final, University of Toronto, Mississauga in the process of implementing for the 2024-25 academic year: 

  • Faculty of Arts & Science 
  • University of Toronto Scarborough 
  • Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering 
  • Daniels Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Design 
  • Faculty of Music 
  • Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education 

In addition to its original scope, CIS has grown to include a dedicated Accommodated Test and Exam module for all divisions on the St. George campus that has established a digital solution to previous manual, email-based processes associated with the collection of accommodated test scripts between instructors and Accommodated Test Services (ATS).  ATS is responsible for coordinating quiz, term test, and final exam accommodations for students with documented disabilities who are registered with Accessibility Services on the St. George Campus. ATS receives over 20,000 requests per year with a steady increase of 12 to 20 per cent each year, which necessitated a digital solution to meet the increased demand. 

For more information about the CIS, contact julian.weinrib@utoronto.ca.

The OVPIUE, in partnership with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Students (OVPS), aims to support a seamless student wayfinding and participatory experience across career and student life services and experiential learning programming. At the enterprise tri-campus level, these services have recently been supported through Career and Co-Curricular Learning Network (CLNx), a platform built on the Symplicity Outcome product. Until 2022-23 academic year, the CLNx had supported the tri-campus career service units, the Co-Curricular Record (CCR), multiple units within Student Life, St. George, and 12 additional units across the three campuses. It enabled over 690 unique staff portal users and ~66,000 annual unique student users. The system supports a variety of functions, including Appointments, Events, Experiential Learning, Field Placement (Job Shadowing), Interviews, Information Sessions, Jobs, Mentorship, Program Tracking, Co-Curricular Record, Research Catalogue and Ecommerce.  

The University’s experiential and co-curricular learning platform was identified through a multi-stage tri-campus review process as benefit from an upgrade to a more mature, user-friend, and interoperable solution that could better support both co-curricular and curricular career and experiential learning services and programming across all academic divisions and relevant shared service units. Stemming from these reviews, the University invested in a new platform, Folio, powered by the Symplicity UniHub system, to initially support the University’s Co-Curricular Record (CCR) and ultimately provide a new foundational platform for tri-campus student life services. In the short-term, this implementation will enable a greatly improved experience for students, staff and faculty engaging in the CCR with increased functional capabilities. In the medium-to-long term, Folio will provide a shared environment for academic and shared service units to establish a virtual presence and student-facing services at an enterprise level. 

Learn more about the Folio Project