JISC

JISC has funded a number of projects to explore, describe and pilot new approaches to aspects of the course management lifecycle, from specification through validation to description and course advertising.

The administrative processes associated with course management – including course development, validation, advertising, review and quality assurance – are often carried out in a number of different places within an institution (or across more than one institution, in the case of joint provision.) This often results in data about courses and their validation residing in more than one place, leading to difficulties with version control and authority and currency of data. Potential learners can also have difficulty accessing appropriate information about courses available to them, for example all part-time courses on a given subject in their area.

Projects in this area are building on the work of the COVARM and XCRI reference model projects. COVARM explored the business processes around course validation, describing two of the sub-processes in formal detail. XCRI developed a draft specification for course description, which has now been simplified into a Course Advertising Profile and is being trialled and refined.

See the projects funded