Faculty in some schools were assigned, as part of their spring memo, to proactively create Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) assessments for college courses. Faculty have reported that they are being asked to create PLARs for courses that are not even taught by them. Management has also informed faculty the assessments are now going to be used to create a database.
The Local agrees with faculty that this is an additional workload item and should be captured on your SWF. This issue has been raised at the Workload Monitoring Group (WMG) but to date we have not been given a satisfactory explanation as to why this is suddenly being asked of faculty in the spring or what the intended use of these is.
PLAR challenges by students are rare and traditionally paid on a contract basis when required. Unlike course equivalencies you may have been asked to look at for students, PLARs examine past work and life experience, rather than prior education, and are therefore much more challenging to assess for credit.
If you have been arbitrarily assigned PLARs on your spring memo without your knowledge or agreement, then you can email your supervisor advising that this was not a mutually agreed upon activity according to Article 11.08 of the collective agreement (CA) and you do not wish to complete this task.
Article 11.08 states the following:
In keeping with the professional responsibility of the teacher, non-teaching periods are used for activities initiated by the teacher and by the College as part of the parties’ mutual commitment to professionalism, the quality of education and professional development. Such activities will be undertaken by mutual consent and agreement will not be unreasonably withheld.
No SWF will be issued but such activities may be documented. Where mutually agreed activities can be appropriately performed outside the College, scheduling shall be at the discretion of the teacher, subject to the requirement to meet appropriate deadlines.
Please contact the local if you have any questions. A list of stewards can be found on this website here: https://opseu354.ca/local-executive/