a history of curriculum services canada

Clearly OCC planned to expand and extend its operations well into the future. With this in
mind, the Work Group discussed plans to meet with Deputy Minister of Education and
Training to consider possible models to move the OCC toward a more self-supporting future
and reduce dependence on MET funding. The Clearinghouse also acknowledged that to build
support within school boards would be essential to its success.
In early summer 1994, the first Vision and Mission statements for OCC were completed and
read as follows:
Mission Statement - Stage I
The Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse is the central point of contact for sharing
information about transition years curriculum resource materials among teachers and
school boards throughout Ontario.
Vision Statement
The Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse is the central point of contact for facilitating the
sharing of curriculum resource materials among teachers and school boards throughout
Ontario.
The Clearinghouse is accessible, responsive, and interactive. We work in co-operation
with educators to foster the timely development and delivery of innovative, high quality
resource materials to meet contemporary curriculum needs.
The Clearinghouse uses a variety of communication methods to ensure equity of service
to all teachers in Ontario.
The Clearinghouse includes curriculum resource materials from the broader public and
private sectors as part of our continued effort to provide teachers with access to the
knowledge and expertise of the community as a whole.
With the development of these Mission and Vision statements and a firm commitment to a
catalogue for January, OCC's tasks for the remainder of the year became more clearly defined.
Work began immediately to develop the catalogue. Final criteria for material submissions
(adapted from C-14 eligibility criteria in consultation with MET) plus release forms covering
copyright clearance and availability guarantees were prepared, together with forms for
submitting details about the resource material and for ordering it from the developer. A
thesaurus would be created to help users find material using key words and a concepts index
was also planned to aid teachers in identifying appropriate materials.
To ensure maximum teacher access to the catalogue, several output formats were selected.
These included print, a FileMaker Pro version on diskette for both MAC and PC platforms, a
CD-ROM entitled ONeducation (a partnership venture by MET, OCC, ONTERIS, and
1994
©2008 Curriculum Services Canada 14