Current Student Management solutions can be said to focus on the student experience and the administrative transactions associated with the student lifecycle. Those transactions are based upon accurate and up-to-date information about the academic activities of the student – their course choices, enrollments, progress, and achievements. Careful management of the academic portfolio is therefore critical to the student experience.
Whilst ‘Academic Structure’ (CS terminology) configuration is a critical early part of any student system implementation, in advance of setting up Academic Structure on our systems there are generally several processes and policies, not to mention marketing regulations, that first need to be complied with in order to create the items in that structure.
‘Curriculum Management’ can be described as encompassing the design, development and lifecycle management of the ‘academic products’ of higher education – its programmes, courses, assessments, and related data, and their publication.
In response to somewhat of a recent surge in interest in Curriculum Management, seen through a noticeable increase in RFIs/tenders globally and presentations/discussions at conferences, the HEUG Board of Directors has agreed to create a new Community of Practice for Curriculum Management.
Previously, our HEUG community discussions have tended to get buried in our Student Records, Academic Advisement or our Admissions Forums. Now, this new forum provides a focused space for discussion about the tools and solutions you are currently using, the requirements your institutions and academic staff still have, and the challenges you encounter with curriculum management.
Building on forum activity we plan to seek volunteers to come together in a small group to author a white paper documenting the collective business requirements and providing a summary of solutions currently employed and available. We believe this will be of help to many institutions considering their options for curriculum management.
Please subscribe to the forum and consider sharing this blog and the link more widely at your institution – we’d love to have involvement from academic staff/faculty as well as functional and technical experts.
View Discussion Forum
I hope to connect with you there to talk about the following…
Community of Practice Scope:
- awards, programmes, plans, courses, assessments, intended learning outcomes and graduate skills;
- the collaborative processes of design, development, approval workflow, publication, and strict version control;
- professional body accreditation requirements (e.g. veterinary medicine)
- Integrations:
- with websites (to enable compliance with marketing legislation),
- learning management systems, student management systems, library systems, timetabling solutions, HCM/ERP solutions (for staffing and financial cost centre and budgeting management), etc;
- how to support students to plan their curriculum using this information.
Remember: The Higher Education User Group (HEUG) traces its origins to the grassroots efforts of several dedicated individuals from a handful of higher education institutions that were the early adopters, beta partners, and charter institutions for PeopleSoft’s applications. HEUG formed to enable these diverse and early adopter’s institutions to come together and use their collective knowledge to maximize and accelerate the return on investments in these systems. The HEUG allows members to connect and build global relationships, provides proven approaches and best practices for designing and deploying software for their constituents. We continue to do that in new ways as solutions, technology, and our institutions evolve!