External Courses


Broaden your competencies by taking courses outside of your degree program!


For doctoral students looking to take an external course, please review the information under the PhD degree program page, and click on “Procedures to enrol in elective courses”.

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Master students Bachelor students

 

Master students

MI and MMSt students are eligible to take up to 2.0 credits outside of their degree program to fulfill part of their degree requirements. 1.0-credit of the 2.0-credits can even be taken at another University. Please connect with your academic advisor to discuss academic planning after you have reviewed the procedures below.

Procedure to enrol in courses within our Faculty, but outside your degree program
  • Applicable to MSL courses for MI students and INF courses for MMSt students
  • Most INF courses have a limited number of spots available for MMSt students. The same is true for MSL courses and MI students.
  • The number of available spots will vary according to course category (elective, required, or limited enrollment)
  • You can enroll directly in the course once enrollment starts through ACORN, but you will need to submit an Add/Drop course form, to Student Services no later than 5 business days after you have enrolled in the course.
  • For courses within our Faculty, there is no need to get the instructor’s signature or course description. Student Services will take care of that.

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Procedure to enrol in courses outside your program, but within UofT:
The enrollment start time follows the timeline of the offering department/unit. It is not bound by the Faculty of Information enrolment start time for courses.

General process to request for an external course:

  1. Try enrolling into the course on ACORN. You may or may not receive an REQ status ( = requested) status on ACORN. This step works for 50% of the graduate units (it’s dependent on how courses are set up on the back-end) – so do not worry if you do not see such a status on ACORN. Regardless of whether you have an REQ status, proceed to step #2.
  2. Connect with the graduate unit offering the course (i.e. host unit). Get their permission to take the course!
    • For students interested in taking a Computer Science graduate course, please see detailed procedure below.
  3. Ask the graduate coordinator of the host unit to sign off on their part of the SGS Add/Drop form.
  4. Email Student Services with:
    • the signed SGS Add/Drop form (by yourself and the host graduate unit)
    • a rationale/statement on why you wish to take the course, and how it is a good fit with your academic and/or career objectives.
    • course description or syllabus
  5. We will get back to you on whether your request has been approved and detailed next step(s) to take.

Some things to consider asking the host graduate unit:

  • Does the course allow external students to be enrolled?
  • When is the enrollment start time for students in the host graduate unit?
  • When would they start enrolling external students?

Do note: Faculty of Information grade submission deadlines must be met, regardless of the deadlines of the other department(s) involved.

Students that are interested in requesting for COMPUTER SCIENCE GRADUATE COURSES as electives, please follow process below:

  1. Try enrolling into the course on ACORN. If space is available in the course, you will receive an REQ status ( = requested) status on ACORN for the course. If there is no space available in the course, you’ll have to keep trying.
  2. Once you have successfully requested the course on ACORN, email Student Services with:
    • a completed SGS Add/Drop form (by you)
    • a rationale/statement on why you wish to take the course, and how it is a good fit with your academic and/or career objectives.
    • course description
  3. You will be informed if you have been approved!

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Procedure to enroll in courses outside of UofT, but within Canada:
  • Students may take up to two (2) 0.5-credit graduate-level courses (or the equivalent of 1.0 credit) at other universities
  • For universities within Ontario, students will need to fill out the Ontario Visiting Graduate Student Agreement form
  • For students that wish to take courses specifically at McGill University, Université de Montréal, and University of British Columbia, you need to fill out the Graduate Exchange Agreement form.
  • Otherwise, for universities outside Ontario, but within Canada, students will need to fill out the Canadian University Graduate Transfer Agreement (CUGTA).* Please contact the host institution and make sure that they are a CUGTA member!
  • Permission is conditional upon:
    • recommendation from the Faculty of Information: student should provide a rationale/statement on why you wish to take the course, and how it is a good fit with your academic and/or career objectives.
    • approval of the other department(s) concerned
    • approval from SGS
  • Forms, accompanied by the course description and/or course outline, as well as a brief statement outlining the reasons why you wish to take a particular course, must be submitted to Student Services first in order to start this process
  • Grades will appear in parenthesis on the UofT transcript and will have CR, not the actual grade.
  • Students are responsible for arranging to have the transcript from host university sent to SGS directly

*Please note important information regarding the Canadian University Graduate Transfer Agreement (CUGTA):        

  • Students pay fees directly to host university.
  • Some universities may not subscribe to this Agreement. University of Alberta for example does not use this form; it uses a letter of permission instead.”* Once you submit the form to us, we will need to write a letter of permission for UA. Students going under a letter of permission will most likely be responsible for the host institution’s tuition fees.
  • Students are responsible for seeking permission from both institutions and making sure the host university subscribes to CUGTA.

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Procedure for taking courses at a University outside Canada
  • Review information on the Learning Abroad website
  • Exchanges are managed centrally by the Centre of International Experience office at the University
  • If interested in going for an exchange, students are encouraged to consider going in Year 2 Fall only
  • Students have to meet the requirements set out by the host institution
  • Students are eligible to request up to 2.0-credits to be transferred back to the Faculty (only electives are permitted. Required courses have to be completed at the Faculty)
    • Students will be required to remain in contact with the Faculty on the course(s) that they wish to take with the host institution. In the process of course selection, review and pre-authorization, students will be required to provide a rationale/statement on why they wish to take the course, and how it is a good fit with their academic and/or career objectives.
  • Grades will appear in parenthesis on the UofT transcript and will have CR, not the actual grade.
  • Students are responsible for arranging to have the transcript from the host university sent to SGS directly

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Bachelor students

BI students are required to take 2.0-credits of electives as part of their degree requirements. They may take these elective courses outside of their degree program. Please connect with your academic advisor to discuss academic planning after you have reviewed the procedures below.

Procedure to enroll in graduate level courses:
Bachelor of Information students may request to enrol in graduate level course in their final year of study. These requests must be approved by the BI Program Director and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Due to space limitations in MI courses, we recommend that BI students find undergraduate electives as we cannot guarantee approval for MI course add requests. BI students are only permitted to enrol in a maximum of 0.5 credits of graduate level courses.
Please Note: BI students cannot use any graduate level courses taken during your undergraduate degree towards any future graduate degree.

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Procedure to enrol in courses outside your program, but within UofT:
  1. Speak with your Academic Advisor to ensure that the course is appropriate to satisfy your degree requirements.
  2. Enrol into the course directly on ACORN!
    • You will only be able to enrol into the course when allowed by the offering Faculty. Please review the timeline under which the other Faculty/Division is allowing external students to enrol. For example: The Faculty of Arts and Science has priority enrolment for their own students into their courses. Their website will indicate when they are allowing non-Arts-and-Science students to enrol into their courses.
    • You will also only be able to enrol if there is available space in the course.
    • For students interested in enrolling into a couple of electives from the Master of Information program: please also take note that you will only be able to enrol after all Master of Information students have enrolled into their courses. Please review our Dates and Deadlines page for information on when you will be able to start doing so.

Do note: Faculty of Information grade submission deadlines must be met, regardless of the deadlines of the other department(s) involved.

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