Abstract:

Aligning student learning to demonstrable, practical competencies is at the heart of the Transforming Programmes process at the University of Hull (UK). This paper reports on the approach created by the Department of Computer Science and Technology (CST) to deliver a levelled set of programme competencies and innovative degree structures giving students the space to demonstrate them.

We set out to create, from first principles, a refreshed set of degree programmes, with triangulation across student view, industry views, staff views and recognise (ACM, IEEE, QAA & BCS) subject benchmarks. The aim of gathering this rich picture from multiple stakeholders and sector benchmarks is to personalise a new curriculum for CST at Hull. A consultation period was opened with industry partners, alumni, current students and staff to identify competencies. These were driven by what one would expect a graduate from these programmes to be able to do, or skills they should possess. We assumed that no modules existed, and were not constrained by what we did, but what we could do.

Once ideas were collated, affinity mapping and grouping occurred in line with the University’s definition of styles of competency. Module titles were drafted to give a meaningfully space to deliver the material pertaining to a programme competency. A key feature of our proposed module grid is what we term our Backbone structure, a large module running over the full year for each academic level/stage.

The following details the rationale for the Backbone Approach:
- Space to run both individual and group projects to ensure competency attainment and application in a group setting
- Time to build evidence of competency attainment over the two trimesters with reduced pressure and more inclusive assessment methods
- Overall reduction in complexity and assessment points
- Scope to allow students to bring skills from the degree-specific modules into a joint project setting.

This approach allows us to use a spiral curriculum that develops through the stages of the programme.

This paper reports on the processes, both top-down and bottom up, that we used to design the degree programmes. It discuses areas we found challenging while creating levelled competencies that balance discipline specific content with graduate-level competencies and provides a reflection on staff engagement with substantial period of change.

Keywords:

Competency Frameworks, Staff Engagement, Co-creation, Industry Ready Graduates.