Co-op Credit Weight

The credit weight for co-op work term courses was approved by Senate and came into effect May 1, 2019. Although these changes were not retroactively applied, they affect co-op work terms completed in the Summer 2019 semester or later. The following are important notes regarding the credit weight:
 

1. Co-op work term courses (COOP*1000 through COOP*5000 for Degree Co-op Programs and COOP*1200 for Associate Diploma Co-op Programs) completed in S19 or later have 0.50 credit. This means co-op students will graduate with additional credits over and above their degree requirements. The co-op work term credits will not count toward academic degree or diploma program requirements.
    
2. Current co-op students will graduate with additional credits if they complete work terms in Summer 2019 or later. Work terms completed in Winter 2019 or earlier will NOT have credit applied retroactively. For example, if you have completed 3 out of 4 work terms and complete the 4^th work term in Summer 2019, your transcript will show a 0.50 credit for Summer 2019 but no credit will be given for work terms previously completed. In this example, you would complete 0.50 credit in addition to your overall academic program requirements.
    
3. The Office of Registrarial Services is currently updating the academic program evaluations in WebAdvisor to reflect this change. Please note that the value displaying in remaining credits is incorrect as it includes the value of the co-op work term for Summer 2019 that is extra to your academic degree requirements.
    
4. There is no tuition or ancillary fees applied to co-op work term courses beyond the co-op work term fee.
    
5. There is no change to the grading scheme for co-op work term reports or co-op work performance evaluations; however, beginning with Summer 2019, you will see a pass/fail grade assigned to each work term course on the official transcript upon completion (in addition to your work performance and work report grades).
    
6. COOP*1100 / COOP*1120 will remain a zero-credit course.
    

If you have any questions, please contact us at recruit@uoguelph.ca.

Note: If you do not have any co-op work terms in Summer 2019 or later, the information above does not impact your co-op experience or record.

Frequently Asked Questions

I'm currently 0.5 credits behind from dropping an elective course in the previous semester, so I was wondering if a credit in co-op can replace that?

No — co-op work term credits cannot be used towards a student's academic program.

Do COOP*1000 through COOP*5000 count as Free Electives (i.e., would a student enrolled in these courses be able to take a few semesters without a fifth course while ensuring that all mandatory and Liberal Arts elective requirements are met?)

No — these credits do not count as Free Electives and therefore a student cannot take semesters without a fifth course.

Since co-op credits won't be counted for academic degree program requirements, what is the benefit to having additional credits at the time of graduation?

Co-op is an optional program and co-op work terms are a requirement of that program. In previous semesters, all co-op students were required to register for COOP*1000, COOP*2000, COOP*3000, COOP*4000, or COOP*5000 as zero-credit courses. Students will continue to register for these work term courses, but each will not have a pass/fail added to the course, which formalizes the co-op certification process.

However, it does assist in course selection grade levels as work terms are worth 0.50 academic credits, so they count in the number of credits completed an in progress when determining which day a student can begin selecting courses.

I am enrolling in two courses this summer, plus a COOP credit. Does this mean that when I fill out OSAP, I should create an OSAP request for full-time instead of part-time?

Unfortunately, this answer is not straightforward as there are variables taken into consideration that are unique to each student. Students should visit the OSAP eligibility page which explains the course load requirements and also notes that work-term credits are not included when calculating course load for OSAP purposes.

Why is this change happening? With only two co-op semesters left, it would look a bit awkward on my transcript to have completed a total of 1.0 co-op credits.

This new process received approval by Senate to be implemented effective May 1, 2019 for all work-term courses registered in Summer 2019 or later. There would not be a time for implementation that wouldn't impact students individually.

What will this affect? If the credits do not count toward our academic program requirements, how will they affect co-op students?

Co-op students will see a "Pass/Fail" grade on their co-op work term course (i.e., COOP*1000), along with a 0.50 credit for each work term registered in Summer 2019 or later. The program requirements have not changed and can be viewed within the Co-op Policy Agreement.

"The Co-op work term credits will not count toward academic degree program requirements." Could you please clarify what this means?

This means that you cannot use co-op work term courses toward Free Electives or as part of the 2.0 credits required for your degree program.

Does "The co-op work term credits will not count toward academic degree program requirements" mean that they can count toward the 20.0 credits needed to graduate or not? For instance, if some credits needed in our degree are not specifically outlined as to what they need to be (such as required courses or restricted electives), and are electives of our choosing, can the credit from these co-op work term courses count toward that?

Please see the quote listed in the question — "The co-op work term credit will not count toward academic degree program requirements." They do not count toward the 20.0 credits needed to graduate. There are no changes to the schedule of studies for each program.

Does this mean that there will be no co-op academic fee in addition to the co-op work term fee? (i.e., there will be no tuition or ancillary fees applied to co-op work term courses beyond the co-op work term fee.)

Co-op registration processes have not changed. If a student registers for an academic course during a co-op work term, they will be responsible for paying both an academic co-op fee and a co-op work term fee, but it will count toward the overall maximum of eight co-op work term fees required.