Credit Allocation Policy

Approved by: Academic Advisory Council

Effective Date – November 6, 2013

Replaces – n/a

Position Statement

This policy has been created to define the allocation of credits for courses delivered across all platforms (in person, online, virtual, field placement, clinical, apprenticeship, etc.)

Policy

Credit allocation measures the students learning based on the hours of instruction required to transmit the material, and allocates credits based on student learning and hours required to attain that learning. All courses will have hours and/or credits assigned except for non-Post-Secondary courses.

Hours and Days

• A 50 minute period is considered one hour. Hours can be combined such that 100 minutes would be equal to two hours, 75 minutes would be equal to 1.5 hours, etc. 
• Although hours may be defined with a decimal, credits are not and are rounded to the closest whole number.
• The number of hours per week x the number of weeks of delivery = the number of hours per course. In some instances the number of hours per week may vary, as such, the total number of hours of delivery is the critical piece to calculate.
• The weeks of delivery include exam weeks.
• A course that is scheduled for 3 hours per week over 15 weeks has 45 hours of instruction even though the last week may be scheduled for evaluation with no instructional time.
• 70 to 75 instructional days is equal to a fifteen week semester

Credits

Credits provide a weight for courses in the calculation of the grade point average (GPA).

For Courses with Face-to-Face Instructional Time by Faculty (in person or virtual)

The number of hours of instruction will define the number of credits. Fifteen hours of instruction is equal to one credit. This could include in a classroom, laboratory, workshop, studio, virtual when the instruction is provided by a faculty member.

For On-Line and Hybrid Courses (mix instructional time and on-line self-directed learning)

The hours for on-line courses and hybrid courses are evaluated based on the number of hours that would be spent in the classroom if the course was delivered in an in-person face-to-face context.

For Clinical, Work Placement, Co-op, Practicum, Field Experience, Laboratory (non-Faculty instructor lead)

Clinical, work placement, co-op, practicums, field experience, laboratory (non-faculty instructional lead) will be weighted less than the actual hours spent in the learning environment. It is anticipated that when a student is scheduled in a course they will spend several hours of self-directed learning for every hour of in-class instructional time. In a clinical, work placement, co-op, practicum, field experience or laboratory that is not Faculty lead instruction, students are applying their learning and there is not the expectation of several hours of self-directed learning outside of their clinical, work placement, co-op, practicum, field experience, laboratory. As a rough calculation for every 40 hours of clinical, work placement, co-op, practicum, field experience, non-faculty lead mandatory laboratory time one credit will be allocated. See Appendix A.

For Courses Taught in an Accelerated or Compressed Mode

In some instances courses are taught in an accelerated or compressed mode in which students move through the material more quickly. When a course is delivered in an accelerated mode the same number of credits will be allocated as when it is offered in the non-accelerated format.

For Courses Taught in a Decelerated Mode

In some instances, due to the learning needs of an individual student or group of students, the material may be delivered over a longer period of time as the students require more time to learn and absorb the material. When a course is delivered in a decelerated mode, the same number of credits will be allocated as when it is offered in the non-decelerated format; more credits will not be allocated simply because it took longer to deliver the same material to a unique population.

Courses Not Assigned a Credit

Courses that are not post-secondary are not assigned a credit value and courses that are less than 10 hours of instruction are not assigned a credit value.

See Appendix A for Credit Weighting