McGill University
AC-1: Academic Courses

Methodology:

STARS 2020-2021 Methodology for Determining Sustainability Courses:

1. List of sustainability-focused and sustainability-inclusive courses for 2020-2021

Courses from the following academic years were included in the exercise:
• 2020-2021: Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Summer 2021

The course selection criteria are as follows:
• CEU (non-credit) courses are excluded, however credit-bearing SCS courses are included
• 0-credit courses are excluded
• Dummy courses, such as Postgraduate Med/Dent courses are excluded
• The following schedule types are included based on STARS guidelines, discussions between APB and MOOS teams, and consistency with past years:
o 'A', /*Lecture*/
o 'M', /*Seminar*/
o 'MW', /*Seminar*/
o 'F', /*Field Course (GDEU)*/
o 'DF', /*Field Course (DEPT)*/
o 'WB' /*Web Course*/
• Additionally, the following “Special Topics” type courses are excluded (by virtue of the course title) which were not coded as such in our systems (typically captured in the appropriate schedule type): Special topics, selected topics, current topics, specialized topics, independent studies/research, practicum
• Total registrations over an academic year for each course (all sections combined) must be 5 or greater
• Cross-listed courses, given that they have differing subject codes/course numbers/course titles, are counted individually.

Keyword search:
• A list of 112 sustainability keywords were provided to APB. This list was determined by cross-referencing the keyword list that McGill used for its 2016 STARS report with the sample keyword list found in the Credit-Specific Templates section of the AASHE-STARS website: https://stars.aashe.org/resources-support/forms-templates/
Words derived from those list were organised according to a "word tree" in order to make sure the final list included a balanced amount of both broad and specific concepts under the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and environmental).
• In order to allow for keyword variations to be picked up (plurals, etc.), a word stem + wildcard approach was used which allowed for additional characters at the end of the word stem; for example:
o “Cultur” will return searches with “Culture”, “Cultures”, “Cultural”, etc;
o “Climat” will not return “Acclimate”.
• Both the course (long) title and the course description were searched for sustainability keywords. Courses were then categorized as either “sustainability-inclusive” if they contained 1 keyword (in either title or description) or as “sustainability-focused” if they contained 2+ keywords.
• It is encouraged that a manual inspection/spot check of the search results is carried out by MOOS in order to identify any courses that are deemed to be irrelevant and should therefore be excluded.

In the output file you will notice the following:
1. “Course list” tab:
• Column Q: List of keywords found in the course (long) title and description (note that the actual word(s) found in the text may have been a variation of the keyword(s) that are listed)
• Column R: Total count of keywords (also classified into “inclusive” or “focused” in column U)
• Column S & T: List of keywords found in the long title, and in the description, respectively.
• Columns V through EC: Matched keywords are flagged with a “Y”
2. “Keyword Summary” tab:
• A list by keyword and academic year showing the total counts of courses identified for each keyword. The counts reflect: # of courses with the keyword appearing in either the course title or description (column C), # of courses with the keyword appearing in the title (column D), and # of courses with the keyword appearing in the description (column E)
3. “Total counts” tab:
• Total counts by academic year and course level (undergrad versus grad), both overall and those which contained sustainability keywords. The latter counts are further broken down by sustainability inclusive vs. focused.

From this list, each course was manually reviewed in order to categorize it as either sustainability-focused or sustainability-inclusive. For the first 100 courses, I have highlighted key words and phrases which I believe act as a rationale for inclusion on the list. Occasionally, I include a brief statement on the rationale.

Here are the topic criteria I used in order to categorize these courses:
- environmental concerns and challenges (SDGs 13, 14, 15)
- Indigenous cultures and issues affecting Indigenous peoples (SDG 10)
- social justice issues (gender, race, 2SLGBTQIA+, migrants, disability, religion, class, etc.) (SDGs 1, 5, 8, 10)
- globalization
- the developing world (esp. Africa, east Asia)
- human rights (SDG 16)
- labour rights (SDG 8)
- major climate-related challenges (ozone layer, acid rain, extreme weather, etc.) (SDG 13)
- social/environmental determinants of disease and poor nutrition (SDGs 2, 3, 6)
- impact of technology on society (SDG 17)
- the environment and systems thinking
- interdisciplinary approach to social, economic, and environmental problems

Also consulted: AASHE's Suggested Keywords for Sustainability Course and Research Inventories
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CINYGQ-8nov8qhGx_fQxn-KTSbC4BgpMHLsBgplaQGo/edit#gid=450556412

Each course was counted as a single course regardless of the number of sections. See above for greater detail.

Data was provided by Analysis, Planning, Budget; staff from the McGill Office of Sustainability met regularly to determine search parameters, filtering processes, and the final inventory methodology.

NOTE: It is possible that there are some false positives remaining; however, our approach is consistent with that outlined in the STARS technical manual and is even more refined than the methods used to produce previously accepted inventories for our 2016 and 2020 submissions.

Prospective students may also search for sustainability-related programming on the Admissions website: https://www.mcgill.ca/undergraduate-admissions/programs?query=sustainability