Building the case for end-to-end curriculum management: Key takeaways from our webinar with UniSQ 

As higher education institutions face increasing financial pressure, recruitment shortfalls, and growing regulatory demands, effective and agile curriculum management has become mission-critical, reflected in the growing momentum for dedicated curriculum management platforms like CourseLoop. With increasing expectations for more flexible learning and delivery to support a better student experience, robust curriculum management has become a must-have for universities, underpinning institutional agility, quality and compliance. 

In our recent webinar, we spoke with Lyn Alderman, Dean of Academic Transformation at the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) and UCISA, about why curriculum management has become a non-negotiable for universities. Drawing on her unique real-world experiences, Lyn shared insights on UniSQ’s transformational curriculum management journey.

The webinar is built on the learnings within our hugely popular thought leadership paper, authored in partnership with UniSQ, Durham University and UCISA.   

What sparked the initial shift at UniSQ?  

As Lyn explained: “In Australia, universities get reviewed every seven years by TEQSA (the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency). In 2018, UniSQ was encouraged to improve the evidence available to support curriculum decision making. We also have an Australian Higher Education Standards Framework, which requires external reference points and benchmarks for program reviews. When I joined the University as a quality expert in 2019, I was tasked to design a curriculum quality framework to meet all other ongoing Higher Education Standards’ quality assurance requirements.”  

From the outset, Lyn identified two core needs: a transparent and auditable process for curriculum approvals and a robust, institution-wide review system – the university’s legacy systems could not support both requirements.

Why curriculum management became a strategic focus 

Faced with declining enrolments and the need to enhance the student experience, UniSQ recognised that improving its curriculum was essential to bolstering recruitment and retention. 

The University’s legacy systems lacked the structure and transparency necessary for effective oversight, resulting in a lack of auditable processes for curriculum approvals and reviews, fragmented data, and issues with staff access, as well as frustration with manual workflows and poor overall visibility across the curriculum lifecycle.  

Lyn, as Dean of Academic Transformation, was tasked with:  

• Creating a single data portal for academic staff  

• Developing a suite of standardised reports to support curriculum conversations  

• Benchmarking national learning and teaching policies and procedures  

• Building capacity and capability to utilise data and evaluation outcomes in curriculum design and change  

• Embedding a culture of continuous improvement across the university 

How the right technology partner enabled transformational change at UniSQ 

By partnering with CourseLoop, UniSQ was able to tackle several systemic issues in its curriculum management processes and benefit from increased efficiency, transparency and collaboration. For example:  

• A definitive source of truth for curriculum information, complete with robust version control 

• Dynamic workflow and automation that support efficient accreditation and governance processes 

• Clear, auditable approval processes that provide certainty over approvals of major curriculum changes 

• Complete visibility across the curriculum pipeline 

• Scheduled periodic and annual curriculum reviews that support evidence-based continuous improvement across the institution 

“Without an audit trail, we simply wouldn’t know what was happening with our curriculum. Doing an evaluation of the curriculum approvals used to take 150 hours of work – with CourseLoop, I can now do it with one single printout.”  

 For UniSQ, CourseLoop’s highly structured data model has been a game-changer – especially in how curriculum data is used downstream. Powered by real-time curriculum data from CourseLoop, the university has built Power BI dashboards and a new Recommended Enrolment Pattern (REP) Tool – all of which not improve the curriculum experience for staff and students. 

“CourseLoop is a standout platform that gives you revolutionary change and has allowed us to turn off four end-of-life technology systems. It’s the answer to the automation of business that every university has to do.” 

 

The webinar with Lyn underscores how end-to-end curriculum management is foundational to academic excellence, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency. 

Want to learn more? Watch our webinar on-demand or download our latest thought leadership paper for more real-world insights.