Canadore College
AC-1: Sustainability Course Offerings

We are an Ontario College that mostly specializes in diploma and certificate programs:

Credentials offered are:

• Ontario College Diploma
• Advanced Ontario College Diploma
• Certificate
• Post Graduate Certificate
• We also offer a limited number of degree programs.

We began with a review of all programs offered in our program guide totalling more than 75 programs. Each program ranged from 1 to 4 years in duration, with a standard semester including 5 courses.  The listed programs included approximately 1358 unique courses with individual outlines listed on the Canadore website here.

To assess for SDG alignment, we hired a consultant with extensive experience using artificial intelligence to build a tool to assess each course outline retrieved from the website individually.  These 1300+ courses were then mapped to both to SDG related keywords identified by the University of Toronto and the final list of sustainable development goals and indicators from the UN website.

University of Toronto keywords: by the University of Toronto through their President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability (CECCS).

Since 2017, the CECCS has annually updated SDG-based inventories using a method originally designed for the Sustainability Undergraduate Course Inventory. This approach helps identify and assess sustainability content in the curriculum, validate and promote related courses, guide future research on SDG coverage, and support sustainability instructor communities of practice.

UN SDG Goal Indicators: The global indicator framework, developed by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), was adopted as a practical starting point at the 47th UN Statistical Commission session in March 2016 and noted by ECOSOC at its 70th session in June 2016. The framework, detailed in the IAEG-SDGs report (E/CN.3/2016/2/Rev.1, Annex IV), includes 230 unique indicators, though the final proposal lists 241 due to nine indicators being repeated across multiple targets.

To be recognized as sustainability-focused or inclusive, a course outline must align with at least four distinct Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflecting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates and contrasts the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Furthermore, the goal of Quality Education is inherently embedded in all programs, as it is foundational to their delivery within a post-secondary institution.

The attached assessor report provided the following information for each individual course:

• SDGs and Target Alignments (complete with specifics to how it is aligned)
• GAP analysis: to identify one or more SDGs that were not found to be covered in the course outline.
• Recommendations for further or enhanced SDG alignment.
• Keywords identified.

Over six months two members of our Living Sustainability Centre worked with the consultant to review outputs and address any data limitations. In acknowledgement of the possibility for false positives and as part of the ongoing review, both programs and individual courses will be reviewed by both our Academic Centre of Excellence and the faculty teaching the courses. The gap analysis included within the report will identify further opportunities for SDG integration within their 3-year program review cycle.

Note: 

• On the spreadsheet, courses highlighted and bolded in red on Tab 1 indicate SDG-related courses within each academic department.
• The few missing assessments are primarily due to annual curriculum changes, which necessitated the removal of the outline from the website. This this may occur if a program has been approved but its outlines are not yet finalized or available. In addition, some courses are offered in more than one program.