Harmonising Handbooks

Over the last few months I have been working with colleagues to develop a template for a harmonised Student Handbook. Early last year, I undertook a full review of the range of handbooks currently produced across the University. There is currently an inconsistent approach to handbooks across the University, with approaches varying between (and sometimes within!) academic schools.

I have also been exploring how other Universities have approached this area and achieved a more standard approach to handbooks. In particular, I have been working with colleagues from the T-SPARC project which is funded under the same programme, who have also been undertaking work in this area. Birmingham City University have been running pilots in which they have published University level information on the web and issued School and Programme level information to students in a ‘Course Guide’. You can find out more on the T-SPARC Project Blog here: http://blogs.test.bcu.ac.uk/tsparc/2011/04/15/student-handbook-course-guide-update/

In line with the new Education Strategy for the University, we planned to take this work forward in partnership with students. We began by working with the Academic and University Affairs Officer, Cardiff Students’ Union and held Focus Groups to explore what information students want to receive, when and in what format. The students that we spoke to gave a strong steer. They wanted:

• To receive information about the University and their School in a handbook, provided to them early on in their studies;

• To receive information specific to their programme of study in a separate programme handbook;

• To receive the information in hard copy and to be available electronically;

• For the University/School Handbook to be structured around the Student Lifecycle;

Following the focus groups, we have developed a suggested template, based around the Student Lifecycle. The template has been developed based on the concept that it will contain generic information about the University, which will be provided by the Directorates and updated annually, supplemented with further information that is specific to each School, which will be the responsibility of individual Schools to provide and maintain. 

This work has become more important, as we work in partnership with students to develop the Student Charter, which will outline clearly and transparently the roles and responsibilities of the students and the University. The Student Charter will be developed during Session 2011-12 for publication in July 2012.  The development of a consistent approach to information for students will be essential to support the delivery of the Student Charter and will be developed during August 2011.

The concept and approach to handbooks and the standard template was considered by ASQC in June, who indicated that this was a welcome development and resolved to endorse in principle the standard template for a Student Handbook that was presented. They asked that Registry Officers prepare fully worked examples of the pilot Handbooks and circulate to Members for further comment.

PALET SpicyNodes - Communicating the Project Scope

We have been exploring ways to document and communicate the broadened remit of the PALET project and clearly define the scope of the different workpackages/sub-projects that now fall under the PALET umbrella. In an attempt to do this, we have developed a 'SpicyNodes' map, which you will find below. This is a starter for ten and we intend to build upon this - but we thought we would share it sooner rather than later to communicate what the project is working on. Comments welcome!

JISC Programme Meeting: Brass tacks: Key challenges in delivering a flexible curriculum

Last Wednesday, Andy and I travelled to Birmingham to attend the JISC Programme Meeting for all of the JISC funded Curriculum Design projects. The meeting started with a general update from the JISC about the activities that the organisation will be focussing on over the next few years, to name a few - technology enhanced assessment and feedback, learning and digital literacies and learner achievement and learner data. Next, each cluster group (A, B and C) gave a short report back on the work of the clusters and progress with individual projects. 

The first main agenda item for the day was concerned with 'Managing Course Related Information' and included presentations from several projects, including OULDI (Open University) and PiP (Strathclyde University). I was struck by just how many projects were facing almost identical challenges, despite the core focus of the projects being different. It seems that the other projects have also opened a "Pandara's box" of challenges, in seeking to revise and enhance different aspects of Programme Approval/Curriculum Design.

I was interested in the representation of different 'course views', being developed as part of the OULDI Project. The idea seemed to be that five course 'views' (listed below), can be used to interrogate, and represent a programme of study: 1. Design Decision Tool; 2. Course Map; 3. Pedagogy Profile 4. Cost Effectiveness; 5. Course Performance. The project is aiming for better articulated courses, which are more cost effective. In defining the detail of the new approval process designed by PALET, we are starting to consider our reporting requirements at various stages of the process. It might be useful for us to consider developing these requirements in a similar way - i.e. the reports generated during the process being a different 'representation' or 'view' of the programme, dependent on the information needs of the stakeholders involved at each point.

The presentation given by the Principles in Pattern (Strathclyde) Project Team, could have easily been about PALET. The team have been exploring very similar challenges to us, with regards to their current programme approval process: little standardisation, the same information presented in different ways depending on the School/Directorate, no version control when developing programme information, a focus on what will be taught rather than on learning opportunities - all things that were identified during the review undertaken through PALET. In fact, if comments on the twitter feed (#jisccdd) were anything to go by, these challenges seemed to chime with most of the institutions present. It will be interesting to see how the projects unfold and work to address similar challenges in their own, and often very different contexts.

Many of the projects funded under the programme also seem to be involved in some sort of process mapping at the moment. There was a general consensus that it might be useful to work across cluster groups/across the programme to share practice, to avoid reinventing the wheel. We'll see if and how this will be taken forward...

Final comment: A one day meeting just wasn't long enough!

"No CAMEL route is long, with good company" – Turkish Proverb

It’s nearing the Easter break and there is no doubt I’m wishing away the time until Good Friday – but, I’m feeling refreshed, enthusiastic and excited about the PALET Project once again. I can only draw one conclusion - I must have been to a CAMEL meeting! Andy (Lloyd) and I spent Wednesday/Thursday of last week meeting with staff from four other institutions, all working on similar projects to PALET under the ‘Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design’ programme, funded by JISC. We take it in turns to host, and this time it was the turn of colleagues from the University of Greenwich. We had a busy agenda for the two days, including the following:

Generic customisable process template (Day 1)

As a cluster, we discussed the potential for the development of a shared and customisable curriculum design and approval process map. We spent time exploring the key questions around the curriculum design and development process, looked briefly at the current practice in project institutions and finally discussed the potential development of a common model. The cluster then began to consider whether the high level model developed by PALET, could be adopted as a common model across institutions. It was felt that if the cluster could agree a common model, then it might be possible to begin collaborating and sharing resources – for instance common and customisable templates, guidance notes, business case development tools etc. We agreed to explore this further offline, and other projects will soon be offering their comments on how well the PALET model fits with their own institutions – should be interesting.

Evaluation Update (Day 1)

The session explored the various approaches that are being used by the projects – which range from completely independent through to entirely embedded. The cluster discussed evaluation methods – both the evaluation of the more tangible outcomes emerging from projects, and also the importance of evaluating more intangible elements, for instance stakeholder engagement.

Cluster Dissemination (Day 2)

The Cluster is due to present at the SEDA Conference in May, the theme of which is ‘Communities of Learning’. Our cluster is presenting on the ‘CAMEL’ model, our experiences of working in this way and the potential benefits and pitfalls that it can bring.  For more information, please visit the SEDA website.

Student Engagement (Day 2)

We had a useful session exploring how each of the institutions had engaged with/intended to engage with students in their projects. Several of the projects reported that the students at their institution felt over-surveyed, and were making use of data that had been collected for other purposes instead. Birmingham City University (T-SPARC) described a strategy to embed students in the programme development/approval process, through a method of “co-creation”, facilitated by payments of £10 per hour to students. We were all very interested to hear more about this, and agreed that student engagement should feature on the agenda for the next CAMEL meeting in Birmingham.

Quality Assurance / Quality Enhancement Session (Day 2)

Day 2 of the CAMEL meeting was rounded off nicely by a session with Peter Findlay, Assistant Director at QAA for Higher Education. Peter summarised how the QAA works at the moment, and gave an indication of the potential changes on the horizon (e.g. a greater focus on the quality of student learning experiences, more meaningful student involvement in quality processes and clearer information to be made available to students about the pathways open to them and what is expected of them.)

The session was of particular interest to us at Cardiff, as it focussed on how the QAA might respond to significant changes to quality process, which of course is fundamental to the PALET Project. Peter stressed that the QAA welcomes institutions that are looking to enhance and develop their processes and that most QAA requirements are more negotiable than is commonly believed (as long as the HEI has a clear rationale!) He indicated that the QAA will accept a degree of risk in a process, as long as quality standards and the quality of the student learning experience are not harmed.

Peter advised that the work of our cluster group is of great interest to the QAA, and has the potential to be very influential, as it clearly addresses significant aspects of the QAA agenda. Peter agreed to provide feedback on the high level process map developed by PALET, and we’re looking forward to working with him, and the QAA, as the project progresses.

Social Activities

A valuable part of each CAMEL event is the social activities, which offer a good opportunity for cluster members to reflect upon the sessions of the previous day, continue informal discussion about projects and build good relationship and mutual trust between project teams. Our hosts from Greenwich took us for an early evening walk to the point where East meets West at the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich. This was followed by an evening at the Trafalgar Tavern on the banks of the Thames, and once popular with the likes of Charles Dickens and William Thackery. The cluster also enjoyed a session to reflect upon the activities and outcomes of the CAMEL, whilst spinning around on a capsule of the London Eye - Andy and I were unable to attend (a good job as we’re both petrified of heights!).

All in all, a very successful and positive CAMEL – I look forward to the next one hosted by Birmingham City University later this year.

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work." [Peter Drucker]

  And I guess the hard work starts now, following the approval of the new high-level model for new programme approval by the University's Academic Standards and Quality Committee on 13^th January 2010.  The paper received by the Committee set out the model below, reported on the next stages to be undertaken by the Project, and identified the issues that have arisen from the work conducted to date.

At first glance this doesn't appear to offer a significantly quicker or leaner process.  Indeed, the inclusion of a stage focussed on the business case is an addition.  Schools did however feel it is important that this stage is included, and for the business case to be considered separately from the academic content.  Everyone we consulted with also agreed that there is a need for a more collaborative approach to be taken and for relevant support and guidance to be made available from appropriate directorates at different points in the process.  This will enable the process to be managed more efficiently by and within schools.  Other time savings will be made by reducing the volume of information required to support a new proposal and by ensuring the information collected can be re-used to support a programme's operation, by reducing the number of approval points to one, and by ensuring that information has to be entered once only.

So, what happens next - well - apart from further revision to the Project Plan, supporting implementation of new programme information templates, revising the Project's Evaluation Strategy, liaising with JISC and the other projects in our cluster, and looking at ways of disseminating outcomes from the Project - the main task for the Project will be to define all the precise steps in each part of the new process, and to engage and consult with stakeholders to find the best solution for everybody.  This will enable a technical specification for the IT based toolset to be developed in detail (all we all know that the 'devil' is always in the detail).

Thoughts or comments welcome

Andy

"Oh Manchester, so much to answer for" - reflections from Alt-C

The Alt-C conference (8-10 September 2009 at Manchester University) proved to be an excellent opportunity both to reflect on where the PALET project is currently, and to develop ideas and explore new themes relevant to the project.  In particular, it served as a timely reminder that the project needs to engage more fully with the ways in which new curricula are actually designed.  The challenge remains to find ways through which the full range of internal stakeholders can properly engage with these issues, and ensure that the redesigned process fully captures the discussions and decisions that appear to now take place outside of the current approval process.

Overall the conference was both useful and informative; it included some great keynotes, and parallel sessions that inevitably ranged in quality, a number of which demonstrated the unfortunate consequences that arise from implementation of projects that have not fully engaged different stakeholder groups.  The PALET project itself was involved in two presentations, one led by the JISC Advisory Services team, which introduced attendees to the web-based "Design Studio", as well as to the projects themselves.  The other, "Herding Cats? Engaging stakeholders in complex institutional change projects", was delivered by the projects in our cluster, led by Prof. Stephen Brown, critical friend to the cluster.  Judging by the feedback we received this proved to be a very successful session, participants being invited to discuss a series of "top tips" for stakeholder involvement that have been identified by the projects on their experiences to date.  Short video clips from the session are below:

Overall, it was really useful and valuable to catch up with colleagues working in the cluster, as well as with staff from other projects and from the JISC.  In fact, it was in some ways more like a "programme meeting", albeit one that had the added benefit of a whole range of contributions from other participants at the conference.  It also demonstrated how far the cluster has developed as an identifiable "community of practice".  I really hope we can continue to positively support each other as we move forward, the next Camel meeting being in Cardiff next month.  I just hope everyone remembers to bring their brollies.  And BTW, it rained in Manchester as well "plus ca change,

Andy

Programme Info Update and a conference at the Rovers Return

Is it me, or do four day weeks feel even longer?! Anyway, this week, we have spent some time looking at the information gathered at the ‘Programme Information Workshop’ that took place last Monday. The participants of the workshop were split into four groups to represent four key audiences of the programme specification and the module descriptions:

1. Prospective Student
2. Entrant/New Student
3. Graduate
4. Employer/Professional Bodies

Following this, the four groups reconvened and started to identify which bits of information about a programme, should be found within the programme specification and module descriptions. The information gathered at the workshop will be looked at further next week and eventually, and hopefully, very soon, new templates will be developed. These will then be circulated for comment, so watch your inboxes…

In project dissemination news… Andy and I are off to the ALT Conference in Manchester next week where we are presenting at two symposium sessions. The first session is titled ‘Herding cats? Engaging stakeholders in complex institutional change projects’, and is being run by the five institutions in Design Cluster B (Cardiff, Cambridge, Birmingham City, City University, Greenwich). The second session is titled, ‘Curriculum challenges: ‘big words that make us so unhappy’’ – it’s a session looking at both Curriculum Design and Delivery Programmes, which will try to identify the outcomes/dissemination that the community wants around these themes.
 http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009/index.html

Review of the Approval Process - and the results of the Cardiff jury are ...

Firstly, many thanks to all the staff across the University who have engaged positively with the project, particularly those who have attended the workshops and one-to-one interviews with Georgia to help review the University's Programme Approval Procedure.  I hope you'll find it to be time well spent.

The results of this exercise are now in, and are being filtered into reports for both the JISC and the University's Academic Standards and Quality Committee (ASQC).  The outcomes emerging from this review are not that surprising - the three issues that emerged most strongly being around the business case developed to support a new programme, a wish to be able to re-use approval documents for different audiences, and a frustration with the length of time it takes to approve a new programme.

The exercise has also been really valuable in helping staff feel that their thoughts and input are properly valued.  The participatory design approach is one that we intend to maintain, and I hope that staff will simlarily be able to join us, especially when it comes to the redesign of the process.  But first, the initial report, a draft of which will be circulated for comment in the next couple of weeks, needs to be considered by ASQC.  This will aim to both set out the outcomes from the consultation, and the questions and issues identified that now need to be addressed.

My feeling is that we are now entering a crucial stage for the project, and that the way the Committee responds to this report will have a significant influence on the direction of the project.  More to follow, so watch this space ...

Andy

"Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit" - William Pollard

Normally, I take two weeks annual leave - find myself worrying slightly about the amount of things will have happened/moved on in my absence - then returning to find out in fact, nothing has changed. However, after sunning myself in Sardinia for two weeks, I returned to find significant developments had taken place. 

Since it began in September 2008, the PALET project has been looking at the range of documentation used within the formal Programme Approval Process - e.g. programme specifications, programme regulations, module descriptions etc. It has become apparent that often similar information can also be found in the prospectus, website, in Blackboard and on the Univeristy's Student Information Management System (SIMS). The School's then have the onourous task of keeping the different sources of information upto date and consistent - quite a job!

So, the Academic Standards and Quality Committee (ASQC) at Cardiff University, has just approved a proposal to streamline the documentation - ensuring that the different versions of similar information are upto date and consistent. It was agreed that the programme specification will be revised and expanded, different elements of which can be made available to applicants, new entrants and graduates. In addition to this, a standard template detailing the programme structure will be developed and the module description template will be updated.

The PALET project has already established good links with a number of staff in academic Schools and has a number of workshops and interviews already scheduled. So, it has been agreed that the above will be taken forward by the good ship PALET, so as not to place any additional or unecessary administrative work in Schools. We are already using a participatory design approach in the PALET project, encouraging the users of the programme approval process to get actively involved in the design of a new process. We will adopt the same approach to review and revise the programme information templates, to ensure that what is developed genuinely meets the user's requirements.

So, all aboard the good ship PALET, and full steam ahead!

PALET, So, is it art?

I'm well aware that our chosen acronym is not a real word (in either English or Welsh), and I've always pronounced it as 'pallet', which brought to mind the wooden crates (which I spent two miserable summer's stacking boxes of wine onto).  Georgia, however, has adopted the artist's palette as the logo for the project.  Much more refined.

I've now learned that this 'art' analogy is to be extended, as Georgia, Simon and I are to be caricatured by Picasso Griffiths, as part of Cardiff's Positive Health and Environment Week (PHEW), the resulting pictures providing us with images that will be used as avatars for the project.  The outcomes will be posted here first.

As for the project itself, I think good progress is being made with the collection of baseline data and process review, and more staff across the University have become aware of the project.  We are also all keeping fit, not least the consequence of having to carry documentation for a new programme that weighed in at over 4.3 kilos.  (Is this another quantitative data source to record as baseline data?).  We are also due to attend the Programme meeting in Birmingham tomorrow.  It will be good to catch up and share experiences with others.  I hope it proves useful, reflections will be posted here.

Andy

Welcome to the PALET Blog!

Welcome to the blog for the Programme Approval Lean Electronic Toolset (PALET) project. Please find below a short overview of the project:

PALET Project Overview

Utilising the Lean Thinking methodology for process improvements, the PALET project will develop revised procedures for the approval of new programmes to create a more agile, efficient and flexible approach to the design of new curricula and the subsequent programme approval process. In the context of the University’s Modern IT Working Environment (MWE) project, a service-oriented approach will be utilised to develop a toolset to support academic and support staff through each stage of the new programme approval process, which will also ensure that the resulting programme and module information is clearly defined and can be seamlessly utilised by other business applications.

The project will build on and extend a recent end-to-end review of the process conducted through the University’s Lean University Project and will redesign this procedure to ensure that new programmes are attractive, innovative, market relevant and of a high academic standard. This will include a focus on the business case developed for new programmes, on the information required within a programme proposal, and on the process of curriculum design.

The revisions will be guided by input from staff within academic schools, the main users of the process. The project will draw upon the tools being utilised across the University within version 2.0 of the MWE, specifically those that will support collaborative working and the development and management of online processes. The project will also link with the work being undertaken to improve the University’s data quality, to facilitate the most effective use of this data, and to improve the ability to find, access and publish corporate information.

The project has been identified as a high priority for the University, and it is linked with a number of key strategic matters and other ongoing University-wide projects. These include the ongoing implementation of the Student Information Management System (SIMS) across the institution, review of the University’s future approach to portfolio management, implementation of the University’s learning, teaching and assessment strategies, and a move towards a definitive single data source to cover the lifecycle of a programme from inception through to delivery. While the success of the PALET project is not dependent on the implementation of the related projects and initiatives, a holistic approach to policy and practice will help to transform institutional business processes over the short to medium term.