Funded by the: Jisc e-Learning programme.

Lead Institution: Birmingham City University

Learner Provider Type: Higher Education

Project Duration: September 2008 - July 2012

The Technology Supported Processes for Agile and Responsive Curricula (T-SPARC) project at Birmingham City University has sought to transform the institutional culture and practice of curriculum design and approval. Our intention has been to move from a position where curriculum design as a process is undertaken primarily as a prelude to an end-point approval event to one that embraces iterative collaborative design from which approval cascades. Furthermore, we have sought to develop technology that supports this approach within an online environment and to enrich the design process by making technology-based tools available to programme teams so as to broaden their opportunity to engage meaningfully with a wider range of stakeholders than do our extant processes. In summary, we have created and deployed both policy and systems that allow for successful iterative collaborative design and ‘emergent approval’. However, our pilot technology offered a steep, and at times frustrating, learning curve for our (pilot) users. This has contributed to (though by no means fully) some cultural inertia in relation to full embracement of the potential of the new process and system by our pilot users.

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