Transforming the undergraduate curriculum at MMU Birmingham | May 2012 Professor Mark Stubbs Head of Learning & Research Technologies m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk http://twitter.com/thestubbs http://slideshare.net/markstubbs Tuesday, January 01, 2019

An interesting place to work! Large, popular, multi-campus university 37,000+ students | 1,000+ courses | consolidating from 7 sites Pursuing an ambitious transformation initiative New Buildings, New Curriculum, New Admin Processes & Systems, New Learning & Mobile Tech, New Quality Processes… AIM = step-change improvement in student experience

Student Experience: mixed? And how do you find the student experience? I assure you parts of it are excellent ! Learning Environment Learning Environment Corporate Systems Admin Systems

Student Experience: varied? 37,000+ students 1,000 + courses 1,500+ tutors 7 sites

Student Experience: declining?

Doing something about it… In the current climate “We can’t change anything because we’d have to change everything” but Diminishing unit of resource but but Everything depends on everything else but but We are large and risk averse

“Who dares wins”  Necessary Sufficient ? In the current climate but “So.. let’s change everything!” vc Diminishing unit of resource θ but but Everything depends on everything else but but We are large and risk averse

EQAL New Curriculum New Admin Systems & Processes A coordinated strike for step-change improvement In the current climate Diminishing unit of resource Everything depends on everything else We are large and risk averse but New Curriculum designing new units, … New Admin Systems & Processes personal timetabling, … New Virtual Learning Environment Moodle & myMMU web/mobile, … Programme Board chaired by DVC Student Experience New QA & QE Processes facilitating curriculum transformation

MISSION: 2010 Q1: Plan Programme & Projects 2010 Q2: Approve curriculum rules 2010 Q3: Develop Unit Spec forms 2010 Q4: Enter new L3 + L4 Units 2011 Q1: Approve new Units 2011 Q2: Set up SRS, TT & VLE 2011 Q3: Launch new curriculum & systems 2011 Q4: Enter new L5 Units ….

Cut-down Unit (module) web form Data entry had to be simple using forms familiar to academics 30 credits, max 2 summative assessments Constructive alignment & grad outcome tagging Data collected once with precision & structure necessary for re-use

Flow of new curriculum definitions moodle.mmu.ac.uk CustomTables Agresso Students 868 Units designed, approved, set up in Agresso, timetabled, populated in Moodle & ready to go in 12 mnths Capture once with right structure & precision then re-use as needed

Getting the experience back Strong calls for consistency New Systems, Processes & VLE Hygiene factors impacting overall experience Learning Environment Admin Systems Personalised egg cups for 37,000 ! Two stripes: Web services + Consistent identifiers Admin Systems

Wrapping the institution around the learner This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence Wrapping the institution around the learner news, events email, storage past exams, digitizations deadlines, enrolments resource lists timetables moodle.mmu.ac.uk … and faculty-based ELSOs to give staff the confidence to use Moodle

Wrapping the institution around the learner This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence Wrapping the institution around the learner Student ID Timetable

Wrapping the institution around the learner This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence Wrapping the institution around the learner Student ID (+ Unit code) Hand-in dates / extensions / marks Personalised submission sheet

Wrapping the institution around the learner This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence Wrapping the institution around the learner Unit code Resource list Relevant resource

Wrapping the institution around the learner This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence Wrapping the institution around the learner Unit code 10,000+ past exams uploaded since Christmas Past exam papers Past exam paper

EQAL priorities for next cycle Communication, communication, communication CeLT as critical friend in module redesign Getting data earlier for timetabling New L5 live Sep 2012 New L6 live Sep 2013

Find out more about… MMU’s EQAL curriculum transformation Our initial drive for responsive curricula http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/29224166/Supporting%20Responsive%20Curricula%20%28SRC%29%20project http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/src/ MMU’s EQAL curriculum transformation http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/eqal/index.php Our review of learning technologies http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/ltreview How we built our integrated VLE http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/w2c Where we’re going next with Assessment & Feedback http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/traffic/

Student feedback Institutional Student Survey Nov 2011: 10,716 left 58,000+ comments Mar 2012: 7,106 left 33,000+ comments All data tagged with module / course codes Module/Course leaders see their anonymised feedback Statistical analysis ranked predictors of overall satisfaction Course organisation Building confidence Teaching quality (explanation, feedback, advice) Learning resources Age

In the coming year… Continuous Monitoring & Improvement Presenting module & prog leaders with BI data & capturing plans for improvement / modification Resource utilisation Student engagement Student satisfaction Student success New Mobile Strategy for 2013 More personalised, more self-service, more location-aware Institutional tech which complements personal tech