Tackling programme specification at Leeds Metropolitan University
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880010356066 |
| Pages | 173-180 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | Malcolm Shaw |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Tackling programme
specification at Leeds
Metropolitan
University
Malcolm Shaw
Context
Awards at Leeds Metropolitan University
(LMU) are developed, organised and
delivered by 17 schools, located within four
faculties:
(1) business;
(2) cultural and education studies;
(3) information and engineering systems; and
(4) health and the environment.
Schools have considerably devolved
responsibilities for course review and
curriculum development within parameters
agreed and monitored by the faculty and the
university. A culture of team approaches to
course development and delivery, with all the
attendant opportunities for collegiate decision
making along with peer review of detailed and
transparent curriculum documentation, have
been retained as positive legacies from the era
of CNAA.
All courses are modularised to a common
tariff system, have key/generic skills explicitly
identified and assessed within the curriculum
and in a significant number of cases are
organised as routes within larger schemes.
There is a strong emphasis on courses that are
multidisciplinary, applied and vocational, a
long-established range of student-negotiated
programmes and a small but quickly growing
provision across the university in work-based
learning awards.
A large majority of courses and schemes
ensure their progression and standards by
reference to variations on established
taxonomies of learning outcomes that have
been in use in LMU for around seven years
(for a fuller account see Shaw and Stoney
(1995, 1996) and Shaw and Green (1996)).
The university has also developed a strategy
for exploring curriculum issues of common
interest across LMU through identification
and participation in major projects ± recent
and ongoing examples include:
.assessment;
.study skills;
.managing large and complex schemes;
.open and flexible learning;
.programme specifications;
.work based learning.
This approach (see Shaw, 1998) represents a
rational and coherent response to national
imperatives and trends that is contextualised
to the mission and ethos of LMU. At the
same time it allows the exploitation of the
The author
Malcolm Shaw is Academic Development Manager at
Leeds Metropolitan University, where his responsibilities
include supporting generic aspects of curriculum
development, e.g. key skills, level descriptors, open and
flexible learning, benchmarking, and of course
programme specifications.
Keywords
Curriculum, Development, Specifications, Policy,
Central government
Abstract
This article shows how an external policy imperative can
be assimilated into the process of managing change
within a university. It describes a project-based approach
to develop an understanding of the practical implications
and use of programme specifications. It identifies a
number of generic issues that will need to be addressed if
the opportunities provided by programme specifications
are to be fully exploited but concludes that there are
benefits for institutions, academics and the users of
programme specification information.
Electronic access
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173
Quality Assurance in Education
Volume 8 .Number 4 .2000 .pp. 173±179
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0968-4883
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