JISC

This project will improve the University’s ability to manage these challenges by reviewing, adapting and streamlining the appropriate internal processes around course management to provide an automated and sustainable source of course advertising information.

The University has embedded the improvement of the management of course related information within its Learning and Teaching strategy. This recognises that the changing nature of HE and the changing expectations of students mean we must engage our students as partners in the learning process and become increasingly customer led, where students are provided with clear and consistent information about our courses and are able to influence course development. Drivers within this include the changes in fee structure, the need for increased transparency from Quality Assurance agencies, and the benefits gained from enabling students to be better informed and therefore able to choose the right course for them.

This project will improve the University’s ability to manage these challenges by reviewing, adapting and streamlining the appropriate internal processes around course management to provide an automated and sustainable source of course advertising information, initially for PG Certificate, PG Diploma, and PG master awards, but providing a model that is expandable for all types of awards. This will be used to produce an XCRI-CAP v1.2 feed with COOL URI for these initial courses.

This project will enable the internal aggregation of course data from a variety of identified sources into a single course database based upon the XCRI-CAP data model and will embed this into ongoing course management processes.

This will lead to a reduction in duplication of work and to more cost effective working. It will provide a single source of truth for consistent and accurate course data using a standardised data format that can be made available to both internal and external aggregators ranging from the electronic prospectus to external bodies such as UCAS.

The data within this feed will be in a standardised format enabling it to be aggregated with the feeds of other institutions where the result will form a critical mass that demonstrates the great potential and opportunities this offers both Universities and other external bodies such as UCAS.

The dissemination of key challenges within this project, recommendations of approach, and lessons learnt will provide valuable information to other institutions facing similar challenges in the future.

Objectives

The objectives are to

• Review and streamline internal course management processes
• Provide an automated and sustainable source of course advertising information for PG Certificate, Diploma, and Master Awards, but expandable for all types of awards. 
• Aggregate our course data from a variety of identified sources into a single course database and embed this into ongoing course management processes.  
• Reduce duplication of work
• Provide an electronic single source of truth for course data that can be made available to both internal and external aggregators ranging from the electronic prospectus to external bodies such as UCAS. 

Anticipated Outputs and Outcomes

The anticipated output and outcomes will be documented in a regularly maintained blog, in six monthly reports and project closure reports. 

The key outputs will include:

• documentation of our current and revised course management processes
• implementation of a populated course database based upon the XCRI-CAP model for PG Certificate, PG Diploma, and PG Master awards
• generation of an XCRI-CAP v1.2 feed with Cool URI. 

Alongside this, reports will be produced to disseminate information about key challenges within this project and to provide recommendations about best practices for similar projects within other institutions in the future