News R3

Welcome to our ongoing discussion about how we’re communicating the launch of the new Student Portal with our learners. As part of the transition from GeneSIS to Thesis Student Management, the new Student Portal will replace ACSIS as the primary platform where learners can pay fees, enrol in courses, and access many other important services.

This post continues from where we left off in our Communicating with Learners about Thesis Student Portal – Part 1 blog post. If you haven’t read it yet, we encourage you to check it out.

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At Algonquin College, being learner-driven is at the heart of what we do. This is true for the R3 Project, where one of the five project objectives is to improve learner success and satisfaction.

Our Organizational Change Management (OCM) team is gearing up to support learners with the transition to the new Thesis Student Portal. We’re leveraging data-driven strategies recommended by the Human-Centred Design Lab (HCDL), which surveyed over 750 learners across our campuses. We also met with 17 learner-facing employee groups, including Student Support Specialists, the International Education Centre, and Academic Advisors.

Key Guidelines:

• Consistent messaging
• Simple language and visual aids

These principles guide all our communication campaigns, eLearning video tutorials, and online resources.
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Change is a learning journey.

If you’ve been following the R3 Project by attending Showcase events, reading blogs or connecting with your department’s Change Champion, you’ve likely learned quite a bit about the project.

Check your understanding with this H5P map game. Here’s how to play: click a blue circle to open a unique game. The game is an interactive map with brief waypoints in Admissions, Course Enrolment, Portal Pathfinders, and Training. It only takes about 3 – 5 minutes to complete.

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We hope you’re ready for our fourth installment of the R3 Project Terminology Quiz series! Our previous quizzes covered Admissions, Course Enrolment and 2024 Terminology. Not only are the topics different each time, but we also introduce a different game to offer a fresh perspective. Make sure to check out the previous quizzes to see which games we’ve done already.

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It’s that time again—we’ve prepared our third installment of the R3 Project Terminology Quiz series! So far, we’ve done Admissions and Course Enrolment. Each quiz offers a unique game, so make sure to check them out if you haven’t already.

The R3 Project’s Glossary page houses all the terms we’ve defined so far, so it’s a great resource to understand what language we’ll be using once we go live with our new Student Information System (SIS), Thesis Student Management (Thesis SM). And what better way to learn new things than to play a fun game?

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We’re back with our second installment of the R3 Project Terminology Quiz series! Our first topic was Admissions, so feel free to check the first quiz in case you missed it.

Our topics are based on the R3 terms we’ve defined and released so far, which you can find on our website’s Glossary page. It’s also a great glimpse into the language we’ll be using with our new Student Information System (SIS), Thesis Student Management (Thesis SM). With these interactive quizzes, we hope that you can either refresh your memory or learn something new—all while having fun!

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If you’ve ever perused our R3 Project website, you may have stumbled upon the Glossary page, which includes all the R3 terms we’ve defined so far. As we prepare for the launch of the new Student Information System (SIS), Thesis Student Management (or Thesis SM for short), it’s important that our users understand the new and unique terminology that comes with it.

You may have also come across these new terms via New Term Tuesday or at our R3 Showcase events, so hopefully the terminology is somewhat familiar. And if you have been reading up on R3 lingo, now is your chance to test your skills!

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The R3 Project officially started back in 2019, and since then, a lot has changed. As the largest project Algonquin College has ever seen, there’s no surprise that the project has evolved over the years based on what we’ve learned and accomplished.

To put things into perspective, let’s take some time to review the R3 Project Phases—we’ve also incorporated a simple construction analogy! Plus, we’ll highlight what’s been accomplished, what’s ahead, and why each phase matters.

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December’s Showcase event was a recap of some of our biggest highlights and key messages in 2024. The event was hosted by Claude Brulé, Algonquin College President and CEO, and Krista Pearson, Vice President of Student Services and R3 Project’s Executive Sponsor, who welcomed more than 240 participants.

Jason Taker, Manager, SIS Implementation and Digital Transformation, provided an overview of Domestic on Demand (DoD), a new integration provided by the Ontario College Application Service (OCAS), and listed the forecasted benefits for applicants, the Admissions team, and Algonquin College.

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Krista Pearson, Algonquin College’s Vice President, Student Services, discusses her new role as the R3 Project’s Executive Sponsor.

Krista Pearson is a higher-education executive leader with three decades of experience in colleges and universities across Canada. She joined Algonquin College in 2015 as Registrar and, following a national search process, assumed the role of Vice President, Student Services in August 2024.

As Registrar, Krista was one of the R3 Project’s Co-Business Leads. Now, in her new role, Krista serves as the Executive Sponsor of the R3 Project, which she describes as a transformative initiative “unlike any other project that the College has undertaken.”

We recently met with Krista in Nawapon to talk about her experience, her goals, and the impact of the R3 Project.

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