These slides support a workshop at the 2010 JISC-CETIS conference on integrating and subverting corporate systems for educational purposes. They focus in particular on lessons drawn from a major curriculum transformation project at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.

1. Thursday, January 29, 2015 1
Integrating Corporate Systems for
Educational Purposes: lessons from MMU
Professor Mark Stubbs
Head of Learning & Research Technologies
m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk | http://twitter.com/thestubbs
http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/w2c #jiscdvle
http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/src #jisccdd

2. What we are learning from JISC CDD
‘Many problems with the
management of course-related
information can be put down to
the fact that this is still a
document-based rather than a
data-based system (and paper-
based at most institutions).
This gives rise to duplication of
effort and of information, lack
of version control, poor re-use
of relevant information for
different purposes, and a
tendency for information to be
designed for approval rather
than any other purpose.’
• BCU is concerned with
capturing the ‘lived experience’
of curriculum design
• Strathclyde and the Open
University are exploring how to
represent the curriculum in a
way that can be reused to meet
the needs of various
stakeholders
• MMU identified representations
of curricula as a barrier to
responsive provision
Adapted from Sarah Knight’s 2010 JISC Curriculum Design & Delivery Reflections

3. Barriers | Dependencies
Event Name and Venue 3
QAA commend our
robust processes
We keep it vague to
avoid tortuous QA
Practice is too
varied to
systematise
We struggle to
interpret vague
QA docs
We can’t get
concrete details on
courses for website,
so maintain our own
Student Records QA
Marketing Course Teams
Central systems don’t
support local variety
so we build our own
Why do marketing
never have up-to-
date info about our
courses

4. Solution | Change Everything!
Scope of MMU Change Programme...
• Curriculum Framework
• Admin Systems + Business Processes
• Seamless Student Access
• Quality Processes
Implications...
• New rules for Curriculum (30 Credit, max 5 LOs...)
• Every UG course & module will be re-written
– Entirely new first year goes live September 2011 !

5. Barrier | Joined-up Imagination
• Co-designing an alternative to the status quo
• Blending specialist expertise without blinkers!
Student Records
+ Enrolment
+ Transcript (HEAR)
QA / QE
+ Definitive documents
+ Annual monitoring
Marketing
+ Prospectus
+ UCAS
Curriculum Innovation
+ Learning Outcome mapping
+ Competence development
Curriculum
Database

6. Solution | Creative Dialogue
• Scenarios
• Rapid Prototyping
• Multi-stakeholder walk-through workshops
• Enterprise Architect know-how
– Understand how islands of info can be joined
– Ensure identifiers are in place for integration
– Remember: new interfaces might enable new practice
– Build buy-in by demonstrating that the integrated
approach works!
Thursday, January 29, 2015

7. VLE
enrolments
Submissions
enrolments
+ hand-ins Student
Records
Timetable
enrolments
+ tut groups
specs + linkages
Course
Records
enrolments
skill mappings
Portfolio
active units
Library
Understand how islands can be joined

8. Unit Spec Unit Instance
Assessment
Element
Spec
Assessment
Element Instance
Assessment
Element Hand-in +
Marks
Unit Enrolments
Course Spec
CourseYear
Instance
Course
Enrolments
Course Structure
Assessment
Structure
Student Details
Student RecordCourse Record
Ensure identifiers in place for integration

9. New interface, new practice?
9

10. apis.mmu
Course
Records
Business
Intelligence
Data Feeds
Student
Records
Financials
Timetable
Library
Catalogue
Old
VLE
Mobile
Apps
New
VLE
Email +
Calendar
Digital
CollectionsReading
Lists
Demonstrate the approach works

11. Thursday, January 29, 2015 11
Integrating Corporate Systems for
Educational Purposes: lessons from MMU
Professor Mark Stubbs
Head of Learning & Research Technologies
m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk | http://twitter.com/thestubbs
http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/w2c #jiscdvle
http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/src #jisccdd