Why Universities Need Better Course Development Tools
It is in the areas of course delivery and management that Universities have the greatest power to determine the quality of student experience.
In terms of the student satisfaction with current courses, however, one of the lowest overall satisfaction scores from the most recent National Student Survey (NSS) is in the perception students have of how universities respond to course feedback (61%).
NSS: Course Organisation and management (2023)
How well organised is your course? 73%
How well were any changes to teaching on your course communicated? 75%
Student voice:
To what extent are students' opinions about the course valued by staff? 74%
How clear is it that students' feedback on the course is acted on? 61%
NSS Survey, Published September 2023
https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/national-student-survey-data/
Underpinning these figures are individual institutional NSS scores for the student view of how course feedback is acted upon that are far lower than 61%.
Even high ranking institutions achieve NSS scores in the low 40% and 50% for student satisfaction with the responses to student course feedback, course content and organisation.
Student Academic Experience Survey (2023)
This survey from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Advance HE identified the top 10 reasons why only 37% of the students surveyed regarded their courses to be ‘Good or Very Good Value for Money’.
After cost of living, fees and teaching quality, students cited course organisation and content as major reasons for regarding their University experience as poor or very poor value:
Student Academic Experience Survey 2023, page 16, June 2023
How are universities responding?
In terms of the areas of course organisation and curriculum content, universities are investing huge amounts of resource to address these challenges.
However, many of these investments are hampered by vast libraries of outdated legacy courses, designed from a traditional knowledge-led perspective and inefficient and often paper-based course management and approval systems, which can be a barrier to innovative course development.
As early as 2021, in its report Approaches to curriculum and learning design across UK higher education, JISC found that across the UK HE sector there was significant interest in reviewing course design since the pandemic, and identified the key barriers to achieving curriculum change at the time as:
staff workload
investment in academic staff development
the engagement of students as co-creators in curriculum design
The challenges are undoubtedly greater now for Universities who want to develop a culture of co-development of courses between academics and students given the squeeze on resources.
Students as co-creators
Even if there was a benign environment where staff and students had the free time to explore curriculum transformation together, the task would be substantial.
In reality, however, academics in higher education rarely have time outside of preparing and teaching courses, undertaking assessment and completing research and publications to be able to explore extensive innovation in course development.
Similarly, students are too busy focusing on their own degrees and managing their lives outside their courses, including working in jobs to offset the cost of living impact, to be readily available for course development workshops.
Systems and tools that enable the cooperative development of curriculum with functionality that supports innovation and includes the capacity to incorporate student engagement within course design will be attractive to HE organisations and will save considerable resources in delivering a new curriculum.
Course development will be enhanced through the intelligent use of AI based curriculum tools that support the academic and student
These tools provide accelerated research and development capabilities to produce curated content more efficiently
The system supports streamlined and automated approval and quality processes to accelerate course development
The functionality includes student feedback data on course experience to underpin the development of a co-designed curriculum
The sector will benefit from a course development system in which the student and academic can participate in creating new courses whilst reducing the workload impact
This system will help to create courses that are responsive to personal learning styles whilst incorporating the expertise and support from the academic teams
Universities need a system which can intelligently utilise tools to create truly innovative and flexible programme offerings
These programmes can be managed efficiently across all organisational systems to deliver a fluent student journey
Such a tool will bring huge value to the sector by saving time and resources whilst enhancing course quality for all involved
Future Horizons Education is utilising new technologies now available to deliver such a product to the sector.
