Models to flows to Information, Advice and Guidance

As mentioned in 'Flying Forward' the Enable team, and others in the department, have been working on creating a ToolBox (known internally as the FLAG project) for supporting curriculum design and development for those roles involved in the process.The project team started with the original baseline models and then modified them based on the existing information available on the websites, once a 'trail' process was in place interviews took place with Teaching & Learning Directors, faculty quality staff, and the Director of Quality Improvement.

The first thing we learnt with moving from models to online work-flows, is that the models 'viewpoints' hadn't been fully considered, and were therefore either too detailed or included too many different roles. Therefore the team went back and created models from the viewpoint of the person who had come up with the new course idea. This then raised a number of issues with complexity of the work-flow, and how they delegate different steps, and what they need to consider as opposed to a module designer. The process was broken down to different views:

• Approving the idea in Faculty,
• Approving the idea in the institution,
• Developing the Idea,
• Preparing for Validation

To keep it simple we needed a 'parent' work-flow (including all the above views) which then allowed the stakeholder engaged in CDD to move to 'child' work-flows whenever needed. (For example Validation is in the parent work-flow, but filling out the different documents would be a child work-flow). This would allow those happy with the high level process of CDD to move to a specific child process they could be struggling with (what roles do I need to consider when picking my course team?).

This was great in theory however it was noted that there was no clear way to link process within Pineapple. Thankfully the Plymouth team were contacted before we started this project and have been very supportive in developing Pineapple to support processes beyond the original intention of APEL. After putting together a specification document for this change they are now working on making this possible.

Enable had already noted that the course development process was under review, and that faculties have their different ways of doing their side of the development process. The creation of the 'trail' process within Pineapple has helped us identify a baseline for faculties and the Quality Improvement Service to discuss and view issues/ holes already highlighted. It helped those engaged in the process see how the tool would be used, identify differences in their processes & best practice, and inform us of any useful information/advice/ guidance (IAG) that they provide to members of staff for the different steps.