a history of curriculum services canada

Meetings with the Independent Learning Centre (ILC) were also held, in light of their recently
announced merger with TVOntario. This merger was expected to expand the range and number
of evaluations available to CSC. A Memorandum of Understanding for partnerships in
learnware evaluation and for CSC evaluation of all ILC products for marketing outside Ontario
was to be developed over the next few months. By April, 28 ILC self-study courses for Grades 1
to 8 were to be reviewed, and 97 Elementary Curriculum Units were reviewed by over 100
elementary educators across Ontario.
A review of the strategies for the review of Supplementary Materials was initiated in the new
year, with the ongoing concern for more aggressive marketing procedures. Gina Melvin was
given responsibility as Project Manager for this initiative, with a goal of raising $55,000 in
revenue. This market was expected to continue to expand.
Another initiative in the new year was the hiring of a French consultant, on a part-time basis, in
an effort to provide curriculum services in French. This was a part of the more global strategy to
expand the scope and range of services across Canada. In this initiative, six provinces were
involved in establishing pan-Canadian English and francophone standards and a validation
process for learning resources. In addition, a review team with western, eastern, and central
representation was established and trained to pilot a cross-Canada review processes.
From March to June, Grade 11 textbooks for the Ministry Call for Resources were reviewed.
OCC was also selected to conduct a review process for the development of Ministry funded
Grade 11 and 12 Workplace Learning Resources from April 2001 to January 2003. Three
Ministry contracts were also signed in the last week of March, ensuring a solid revenue base for
the beginning of the new fiscal year (2001/2002) of about $750,000.
Website hits continued to be monitored in the new year and, by April, 300,000 hits were
recorded for the Grade 9 and 10 Course Profiles alone.
In April a Charity Gallery, worth an estimated $98,000, was offered on the new website, with
over 100 works of donated art scanned, as well as biographies about the artists. Funds raised by
the Charity Gallery would be channeled back into The Curriculum Foundation.
There were several updates at the April Board Meeting regarding the website. A Learning
Resources@Home project with the Waterloo DSB had been initiated and the groundwork for
Learning Resources@Home across Canada was also laid. All major publishers except Scholastic
had listings on the website. Marketing to school boards across Ontario to use pdstore.com as a
“business to business” solution for procurement was begun. Finally, Ministry approval was
given to market the optional services of pdstore.com to manage their Grade 11 textbook
purchases. These were all important markers in the continuing success of the website.
Given the growing scope of CSC, concern was expressed regarding about the expansion of the
2001
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