a history of curriculum services canada

More documents

Recommendations

Info

the process by which the Executive Director's role would be clarified, and arranging to occupy the new offices on 25 April. The Work Group continued finalizing policies and regulations related to governance, resource materials, staffing, remuneration, reimbursement, travel, and so on. Proposals were developed for the gathering and dissemination of information and the final details of the agreement between MET, OPSBA and the OCC Work Group were ironed out. 6 Though not all concerns were laid to rest, sufficient progress was made toward resolving the issues raised by the Catholic community to permit the venture to proceed. This first year had been a difficult one, trying to determine and define the appropriate role for the Clearinghouse and manoeuvering through political and ideological roadblocks to identify and establish a place for OCC in the education community. At last, on Tuesday, 3 May 1994, in a ceremony with the Minister of Education and Training, the Agreement between MET, OPSBA, and the OCC Work Group was signed and the Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse went into business. It is interesting to note that, while the formal Agreement made no mention of delivery mechanisms, stipulating only that there be "access to materials at low cost" and "easy access to information about materials," it did specify a 1-800 number to serve as a point of contact for boards seeking materials for fall 1994. OCC would have to work quickly. New Kid on the Block “The Clearinghouse co-operative is an example of how partners can work together to achieve a more cost-efficient system.” The Honourable Dave Cooke in the first OCC press release entitled “Ministry Funds Education Partnership That Will Save School Boards Money And Cut Duplication”. 3 May 1994 “You can see that from the start this is a lean and cost-effective operation.” Work Group Chair Lyn Sharratt - same release. 7 By the first official meeting of the new organization's Work Group on 10 May 1994, an OCC letterhead had been created. It included the new address, a 1-800 number, and a logo. (In June, the process to register both name and logo was initiated, though it would take two years to complete the latter.) 1994 ©2008 Curriculum Services Canada 11
In response to its request to participate in the Work Group, a motion was made to invite the Canadian Book Publishers’ Council to a future meeting. Later in May, following a meeting between Executive Directors, the Council tentatively accepted OCC's plans for a first catalogue—particularly as materials to be listed were for teacher rather than student use—but cautioned that publishers would sue boards whose resources included published materials. The Chair also reported that several meetings had taken place with the Executive Director of OCSOA to discuss ongoing issues around recognition of the Catholic community. This community was pleased with OCC's undertaking to meet its needs and recommended that this would be best accomplished by printing two separate catalogues—one for public schools and one for separate schools. Continued support for the Clearinghouse project would be subject to a review of its policies and operations before the end of year one. At the same time as these issues were being addressed, another challenging situation relating to mandates and territory was developing. Extensive research, carried out in the education community to determine what OCC should be doing and what was most worth doing, showed that boards were opposed to having OCC develop learning materials. And though some of the associations were willing to consider developing materials in co-operation with the Clearinghouse, this was not a high priority for most boards and was viewed with suspicion by those that had working co-operatives and/or their own marketing mechanisms. Most boards and organizations were also unwilling to make available for free materials they had produced for sale, even though larger boards often provided these resources to smaller boards at little or no cost. These attitudes left OCC with limited prospects for a significant role in either curriculum development or in the reproduction of materials for low-cost redistribution. Rather, the education community envisioned OCC as a "best practices" organization that could collect good materials, publicize them to educators, and perhaps play some limited role in distribution. Meanwhile, ONTERIS was continuing to collect materials for their database. This created a potential problem for OCC because, without a distinguishing role in development or distribution, OCC could well be undermined by confusion among developers over the apparent similarity between their service and that of ONTERIS. In addition, because many developers were unwilling to provide free copies of their material to more than one agency, there was the real possibility that resources could be split between the two services. Clarification was needed and a meeting was scheduled with MET, OCC, and ONTERIS. In this meeting, ONTERIS expressed a clear willingness to work with OCC and declared no intention to compete. ONTERIS’ expertise lay in its technical ability; its mandate was broader than curriculum alone. The strength of OCC, on the other hand, lay in its curriculum expertise, access to clients through stakeholder groups, and ability to deal with issues such as copyright and curriculum criteria. Whether with ONTERIS or another service, a database had to be developed quickly. The Work Group had agreed that the first catalogue would be issued in January 1995 and the ability to 1994 ©2008 Curriculum Services Canada 12
Page 2 and 3: A HISTORY OF CURRICULUM SERVICES CA
Page 4 and 5: The “Clearinghouse” Concept: A
Page 6 and 7: Also discussed in initial meetings
Page 8 and 9: First Steps addressed the core busi
Page 10 and 11: III. 1994 The Work Group lost no ti
Page 14 and 15: achieve this goal rested directly u
Page 16 and 17: TVOntario), and an online version t
Page 18 and 19: IV. 1995 First Catalogue Launched i
Page 20 and 21: intended to work with boards and st
Page 22 and 23: 1995 sought to determine: • What
Page 24 and 25: 1995 in all Ontario schools, boards
Page 26 and 27: V. 1995-96 Part of the summer of 19
Page 28 and 29: 1995-1996 Second Update Released Oc
Page 30 and 31: 1995-1996 others—to help position
Page 32 and 33: 1995-1996 formats.) The second impo
Page 34 and 35: VI. 1996 The consuming activity of
Page 36 and 37: available to users who would pay a
Page 38 and 39: VII. 1997 January - March The new y
Page 40 and 41: March was full of activities geared
Page 42 and 43: Discussions of the appropriate kind
Page 44 and 45: VIII. 1998 January The new year beg
Page 46 and 47: A new Draft Business Plan for 1998
Page 48 and 49: 1998 the experience it needed to be
Page 50 and 51: and offline learning resources such
Page 52 and 53: 1999 planned for later in November
Page 54 and 55: The two-day pan-Canadian meeting in
Page 56 and 57: XI. 2001 January - June The Curricu
Page 58 and 59: 2001 Board across Canada, and a mee
Page 60 and 61: 2001 include the management of TCF
Page 62 and 63:
2003 XII. 2002 January - June The y
Page 64 and 65:
XIII. 2003 At the annual meeting of
Page 66 and 67:
Atlantic Provinces would be open to
Page 68 and 69:
XIV. 2004 Another year of varied ac
Page 70 and 71:
With respect to Curriculum Services
Page 72 and 73:
Evaluation Services continued to pr
Page 74 and 75:
XV. 2005 On June 18, 2004, CSC memb
Page 76 and 77:
2005 Trillium and other processes.
Page 78 and 79:
The past year has seen the developm
Page 80 and 81:
2005-2006 venture that many partner
Page 82 and 83:
2005-2006 The Ministry liaison note
Page 84 and 85:
XVII. October 2006 - June 2007 AGM
Page 86 and 87:
secondary school credits to student
Page 88 and 89:
2007-2008 English site of CultureSo
Page 90 and 91:
Endnotes 1. After funding all eligi
show all

a history of curriculum services canada

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?