Mapping, connecting
and visualising real-world
curriculum for QUT

Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Challenge: Manual, fragmented processes used to design and manage curriculum made it difficult for curriculum teams to analyse and connect underlying changes across programs of work and multiple repositories of data.

Outcome: The ability to create and view mapped relationships between curriculum items providing evidence of the assurance of learning.

Challenge

Digitally transform curriculum management capabilities to map, connect and visualise real-world curriculum. Enhance the student learning experience and enable high-quality curriculum management through efficient and connected processes.

Like many universities, QUT has journeyed through the world of education investing time and energy into teaching and research leaving little space for improving their curriculum management capabilities. This meant curriculum teams had to apply individual rigor to manage and govern their processes manually and often in isolation. QUT wanted a solution that provided:

  • A definitive source of truth of structured curriculum data.
  • Scalable, digital tools to build, map and visualise their curricula.
  • Visibility of in-flight proposals and the ability to identify and respond to changes.
  • Improved oversight with robust, repeatable workflow approval and governance processes.
  • The ability to evidence the assurance of learning and support professional accreditation.

QUT identified a strategic opportunity to implement a university-wide digital solution to map, connect and visualise their real-world curricula. The ability to visually map curriculum items such as learning outcomes, assessment items and standards across the curriculum would support QUT in attracting more students through high-quality curriculum design and an engaging real-world learning experience.

QUT knew that the critical first step was to create a structured model and definitive source of truth for all curriculum data management. They also knew that point solutions would only create more fragmentation, so they set out on an ambitious program to find a complete, integrated approach.

"CourseLoop has made it easier for me to manage all the course changes that come through on a regular basis. It’s easy to find everything tracked and cataloged in a single place and I have confidence that the history of changes is maintained and accessible."

- Associate Professor Judith Smith, Director of Next Gen Learning, QUT -

Solution

QUT wanted a solution to digitally transform their curriculum content and delivery, enhance the student real-world learning experience, reduce the time and effort required to manage complex curricula, and support their Blueprint 6 strategic priority: Digital Transformation and Technology, ensuring students and staff have access to the latest teaching technology. Importantly, the solution needed to be flexible, configurable, tailored to suit their data sets, and designed by curriculum management experts from the university sector who understood their needs.

QUT selected the CourseLoop platform due to its ability to map, visualise and connect curriculum information. Being scalable, user-friendly and highly configurable with rich functionality offered further support during QUT’s rigorous procurement process.

By partnering with curriculum management experts, QUT has been able to deliver a fresh way for their staff to digitally manage their complex curricula. And, to top it off, their implementation team won the QUT 2020 Vice- Chancellor’s award for excellence: Innovative and creative practice excellence as well!

Create and view mapped relationships between curriculum items providing evidence of the assurance of learning.

Outcomes

  • The ability to create and view mapped relationships between mappable items in the data model, e.g. learning outcomes, assessment items and standards, supporting high quality curriculum design.
  • A curriculum information repository, structured document templates to create and revise curriculum information, and the ability to use that information in downstream systems through integration.
  • Collaborative tools to support robust yet nimble governance, including notifications, tasks and the ability to allocate proposals to governance meetings.
  • A configurable Dynamic Workflow Engine.
  • The ability to evidence the assurance of learning as part of curriculum governance processes.
  • With more than 1,600 staff now using the CourseLoop Platform, QUT academics and professional staff are more engaged with their curriculum than ever before.
  • The CourseLoop Platform now supports an incremental, value-building approach to Curriculum Management and currently offers eight Modules that can be combined into Solution Packs.

About QUT

Known as being ‘the university for the real world’ with close industry links, relevant teaching and applied research, QUT offers a practical perspective to theoretical education. Recognised internationally in university rankings, QUT consistently performs high in teaching, student engagement and employability. Servicing more than 52,000 students with a staff of more than 13,000, QUT has identified Digital Transformation and Technology as a strategic priority in its Blueprint 6 for delivering real-world education and has committed to ensuring that students and staff have access to the latest teaching technology.

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