The Collaboration for Academic Education in Nursing (CAEN) is a partnership of nine Schools of Nursing in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.
The partnership includes:
1. Aurora College
2. Camosun College
3. College of the Rockies
4. North Island College
5. Selkirk College
6. Thompson Rivers University
7. UBC Okanagan
8. University of Victoria
9. Vancouver Island University
This partnership was formed to:
• ensure the quality, integrity and effectiveness of a shared curriculum
• collaborate on and foster scholarly activities
• provide vision and innovation in nursing education
• be a strong voice for academic education in nursing provincially and nationally.
In its entirety, the curriculum consists of eight academic semesters and four or five consolidated practice experiences (CPEs), depending on the site and hours of practice per CPE. Designed for maximum flexibility, the plan provides options that address the needs of two groups of students:
Generic baccalaureate students complete the entire program in order to obtain a baccalaureate degree in nursing. These students enter the program at one of the college or university-college sites. On completion of five academic semesters and two consolidated practice experiences students either continue on to finish three additional academic semesters and two or three additional CPEs to complete degree requirements, or transfer to the University of Victoria to complete their program.
Registered Nurse students take a specially designed Access to BSN Semester in order to become familiar with the philosophy and emphases of the generic program. These students then complete three academic semesters and may complete two optional CPEs in order to graduate with a baccalaureate degree. At the University of Victoria this option is offered through distributed learning (see Appendix E). At the other sites it is offered on-campus.
Academic semesters in both options are four months in length and contain supervised practice experience. The interspersed CPEs are designed to include successive, increasingly complex nursing responsibilities in order to prepare learners for their professional autonomous role. Such experiences are seen to be potentially very diverse and could conceivably take place locally, provincially, nationally, or internationally.
In addition to flexibility of design, the curriculum is constructed in a way that allows partners to address their particular community’s needs while, at the same time, maintaining a curriculum integrity that enables student transferability from one site to another. For example, although students generally would be studying the same overall knowledge, skills, and abilities at the same time, placements for learning this content will vary from site to site.
