CASE STUDY
Georgian Solves Data Tracking Issues with CourseLeaf
At a Glance
Institution Type: Four-Year Public
Enrollment: 13,000 students
SIS Integration: Ellucian Banner Integration
Challenge: Paper- and email-based curriculum proposals; Difficult change and approval tracking; Limited review transparency
CourseLeaf Solutions: CourseLeaf CIM Curriculum Management Software, CourseLeaf CAT Academic Catalog Software
Building a More Connected Curriculum Process
Georgian College, a leader in co-operative education, serves approximately 10,000 students across seven campuses in Ontario, Canada. As an institution committed to innovation and student success, Georgian continually looks for opportunities to improve the processes that support teaching and learning.
To support that vision, the college sought to modernize its paper and email-based curriculum management process. Manual workflows made it difficult to track changes, maintain consistent information, and provide transparency throughout the curriculum approval process.
Replacing Manual Curriculum Workflows
Before implementing CourseLeaf, Georgian relied on paper forms and email to manage course and program proposals, revisions, and approvals.
According to Bonnie Lee Clarke, recently retired Curriculum Support Specialist, the college wanted a solution that would improve both efficiency and visibility.
"Primarily, we were looking for an automated system that would track changes to program and course submissions, provide one source for all documents to be created and maintained, provide transparency for the institution and external curriculum approval bodies, and automate approval processes," said Clarke.
As Georgian evaluated potential solutions, the curriculum team consulted with peer institutions to better understand what was working across higher education.
An exploratory discussion with several CourseLeaf clients introduced the team to the platform and demonstrated how it could support Georgian's goals.
Reflecting on the evaluation process, Clarke said,
"CourseLeaf provided a robust solution that could be customized to meet our needs, providing the flexibility to address changing institutional requirements as well as the desired transparency of submissions and automated approvals."
Creating a Single Source of Truth
Working closely with the CourseLeaf implementation team, Georgian transitioned its existing course and program information into CourseLeaf CAT and CourseLeaf CIM while replacing manual processes with connected digital workflows.
The new approach has made it easier to track curriculum proposals, monitor approvals, and maintain accurate academic information.
"Since moving to CourseLeaf, it's been easy to track where a course or program is in the edit or approval cycle. It's also allowed us to refine and streamline processes as changes arise and have those processes be transparent to users," said Clarke. "CAT's color-coded version-tracking, for instance, makes it easy to identify what has been changed, and who made the changes."
Faculty have also experienced the benefits of a more transparent curriculum process.
According to Sara Barnes, Academic Quality Lead, Office of Academic Quality,
"Faculty at Georgian have appreciated how CIM provides one source of truth for course and program curriculum, as well as transparency with regard to changes and approval of those changes. Further, the CIM workflow facilitates collaboration, bringing faculty and program administrators in contact with the right people at the right time in the development of a new course, program, or in proposing a prospective change."
A Partnership That Supports Continuous Improvement
Beyond the technology itself, Georgian credits the implementation experience and ongoing support with helping the institution successfully adopt new ways of working.
"The team at CourseLeaf was very responsive to our needs throughout the implementation of CIM and CAT," said Clarke. "Our questions were answered quickly, and forms were customized to meet our needs as promised. The ongoing support made our transition to CourseLeaf painless and has allowed us to adapt in a quickly changing environment. It has also given us confidence that the adoption of new CourseLeaf software, such as learning outcomes and syllabi, will also be positive experiences."
Reflecting on the overall experience, Clarke added,
"We would recommend—and we have recommended—CourseLeaf to other institutions. We are happy to do this because of the positive experience we had with implementation, the support we've had post-implementation, the system's ability to track changes, the transparency of workflow, the ease of making changes ourselves, and our ability to add users and roles ourselves without needing to reach out to CourseLeaf support."
Supporting Better Academic Governance
Today, Georgian College manages curriculum through connected workflows that improve collaboration, increase transparency, and provide a trusted source of academic information.
By replacing paper and email-based processes with structured curriculum management, the college has strengthened academic governance while giving faculty and administrators greater visibility throughout the curriculum lifecycle.