Earliest admission offers go out

For the first time ever, UW will be sending out offers of admission before Christmas, associate registrar Nancy Weiner said yesterday. E-mail offers of a place at UW next September will go to 391 students "no later than the end of this week or early the following week", she said.

"This is the first year that UW will be making offers of admission in December," Weiner went on. The move comes even before some students have had the chance to apply, as the necessary account numbers and passwords for the Ontario Universities Application Centre online process are supplied to different high schools at different times.

"We will continue to make rolling offers of admission at the end of January and early February," the associate registrar said in a memo yesterday, updating officials across campus on how things are going.

She noted that of the 391 students receiving these earliest offers, "135 have current grades that indicate 90% or higher, and 134 have grades between 85 and 89.9." More than half of them (194) are receiving offers to the arts faculty, followed by 94 to science and smaller numbers to environmental studies, math and applied health sciences. There are no December offers to the engineering faculty.

The main deadline for applications from Ontario high school students to enter UW next fall is January 10, although the admissions web site adds that "if a program is not yet full, the application deadline may be extended. Applications received after the deadline will be processed only if spaces are available." For students who aren't currently in Ontario high schools, the application deadline was October 31.

The site also lists a March 1 deadline for applying to enter UW as a first-year student in the spring (May-August) term, although only a tiny number of students usually do that.

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Data online from all universities

A new web site provided by Ontario’s universities, including UW, offers hours of family fun — well, hours of poring over data, anyway. Common University Data Ontario, or CUDO, presents facts and numbers that include enrolment, marks, costs, research funding, student satisfaction surveys and graduation rates.

The Council of Ontario Universities says CUDO is “an online tool designed to allow users to access – and, if they wish, to compare – data that have been gathered on a consistent basis”.

UW’s involvement was coordinated by the office of institutional analysis and planning, and there’s a prominent link to CUDO on that office’s web site.

“One of the important features of the CUDO presentation,” says IAP director Bob Truman, “is that as much of the data as possible has been provided by outside suppliers. For example, the data on admissions, and mark averages for admissions, has been supplied by the Ontario University Application Centre. The enrolment and degree granted data were provided by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Financial data were supplied from the Council of Finance Officers, Universities of Ontario.

“The data presented in CUDO may not be the operational measures used by the university, but are consistently presented for all universities. For example, the admission mark data in CUDO report the best-6 mark average for students admitted from Ontario high schools. Our actual admission process computes plan-based admission averages including specific courses. And, for our own admissions, we also compute averages for applicants from outside Ontario.”

In other words, users (such as potential students and their parents) should be able to count on the information, and make reliable comparisons between universities, rather than dismissing statements as nothing more than advertising.

Truman notes one drawback: “The categories of presentation were established to match those used by the Ministry in their OSAP performance indicators. This means that some of the categories will not match precisely to UW categories. For example, one of the CUDO categories is Kinesiology, Recreation & Phys Education, which includes Health Studies & Gerontology, Kinesiology, and Recreation and Leisure Studies.”

COU lists some “key metrics” that are part of the CUDO pages: “Number of degrees awarded, student enrolment and entering averages – all by program; Number of students living on campus and activities offered; Student satisfaction; First-year tuition and ancillary fees by program; Number of teaching faculty; Undergraduate class size, by year level; Research awards granted; and Graduation rates and employment rates by program.”

It says the site was developed “as a complement to the extensive information that Ontario’s universities already offer current and prospective students, parents and other interested parties. This information includes student-focused activities such as prospective student websites and recruitment publications,” not to mention the 150-page eINFO magazine, available online and in 180,000 print copies.

“We intend to update the information in CUDO on a regular basis,” says COU vice-president Jamie Mackay. “In addition, in the coming weeks and months we will gather feedback from its users to identify areas for expansion or enhancement.”

CUDO data for all the institutions is now available on the COU website and through the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre.

It’s become popular already, Truman says, speaking of UW’s section of the site: “We have logged almost 12,000 page hits on the CUDO materials since we went live in November.” He notes that 29% of the hits came from inside the uwaterloo.ca domain, and 53% are from Canada outside UW. “After the index page, visitors are most interested in admissions data (25% of hits), annual expenses (18%) and general information (13%).

“The CUDO presentation is new, and as such will be evolving as we gain experience with the process and hear from the folks who tell us about their experience with the CUDO data. Comments and questions can be directed to analysis@uwaterloo.ca.”

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Look at Frosty go, and other notes

"Rather than sending out a traditional Xmas card," Sean Van Koughnett writes from UW Graphics, "last week Graphics sent out a link to a page on our site where people could build their own snowman. Since then, our website traffic went up from the usual 2,000 to 5,000 daily hits to more than 50,000 hits on a couple days last week, and was over 22,000 on both Saturday and Sunday, as people from outside UW joined in. (A good example of the 'viral' nature of how things spread on the web.) Over 600 people have submitted snowmen that have been approved for "family viewing" (a few were rated PG and weren't posted!). Some are very creative — you can check them out online." There's a sample at left.

The January-February brochure for the "Skills for the Electronic Workplace" program came out this week, offering courses to staff and faculty members in the use of such software as Bookit, Outlook and Excel. There's just one new course this time round, and it comes in the Web section of the listings: "Usability Testing Your Application". And that's about what? "It involves watching a real user interact with your product — a website, a piece of software, a product, etc., and gathering feedback on what worked and what didn't work. . . . The second hour of the session will involve a demonstration of an actual observational usability test." More information is online.

Again this April, scores of UW's graduate students will have a venue to show off their brilliant work. "We've been planning for the 2007 Graduate Student Research Conference," writes Carrie Nickerson from the graduate studies office in Needles Hall, noting that the event is scheduled for April 23-26 (a little later in the spring than in previous years). "The Graduate Studies Office and the Graduate Student Association invite all University of Waterloo graduate students to submit an abstract and present either an oral or a poster presentation at this year's Conference. Some abstracts will be selected for the judged category and will be eligible for prizes. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is February 2." There's more information online, and Nickerson can be reached by e-mail at canicker@uwaterloo.ca.

Monday evening's meeting of the Waterloo city council approved a couple of proposals with importance for UW. First, council gave the okay for a zoning change to allow the construction of a proposed branch library and YMCA complex on UW-owned land along Fischer-Hallman Road. It's a big step forward for the project, which could get going in the summer of 2007. Second, an exemption to the city's noise bylaw was approved, allowing — let's put it plainly — loud music on Friday, January 26, from 5 to 11 p.m. The occasion is the big Polar Jam concert that's to be held near Federation Hall.

Finally . . . a reminder that now's a good time to think about nominating a UW teacher (maybe somebody whose fall term course stands out) for the 2007 Distinguished Teacher Award or Exceptional Teaching by a Student Award. Nominations in both cases require some paperwork, particularly documentation of students' comments and tributes, so it isn't wise to leave everything until just before the deadline in February. Nominations are now being accepted, says Verna Keller in the UW teaching resource office, which administers both award programs. Details are available on the web.

CAR

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