Teaching and Learning Committee

Curriculum Sub-Committee

Minutes

Minutes of the Ninth Meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 20 January 1998

By Invitation: Professor B A Marples, Mr W P J Maunder, Dr R B Wilcockson, Dr G Shama (for item 5), Dr L A Leger (for item 6)

Apologies: Professor J P Feather

In Attendance: Mr J S Wilcox

1. Minutes

2. BSc in Business Studies (Peterborough)

It was AGREED to recommend the proposal for the consideration of Teaching and Learning Committee. But, certain features of the proposal were commented upon and some of the documentation available to CSC was inadequate, to the extent that Teaching and Learning Committee was advised to seek further information and/or comment from the Business School before proceeding further.

Specifically:

a)

the replies to questions 3, 5 and 6 on the covering pro forma were not informative

b)

the Sub-Committee had had no access to an external assessor's view of the proposal

c)

the module specification for European Union Business Policy was missing

d)

the proposed programme would be unique in offering students no optional modules at all

e)

the proposed programme would be very unusual in not including a final year project.

3. MA in Education Studies (Peterborough)

It was AGREED to recommend the proposal for the consideration of Teaching and Learning Committee.

Most of the module specifications were thought to be in need of improvement, generally in the Aims and Objectives fields. The Associate Dean (Teaching) for the Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty was requested to receive revised module specifications in due course.

4. MSc in Engineering Design and Manufacture (Peterborough)

It was AGREED to recommend the proposal for the consideration of Teaching and Learning Committee. But, certain features of the proposal were commented upon and some of the documentation available to CSC was inadequate, to the extent that Teaching and Learning Committee was advised to seek further information and/or comment from the Department of Manufacturing Engineering before proceeding further.

Specifically:

a)

a signed covering pro forma should be supplied

b)

the draft programme regulations would need to be edited so that the module codes corresponded to those created on hpa

c)

there was concern that the hours of study were not sufficient to justify the modular weights of the modules

d)

there were some discrepancies in the proposed examination structure. A two hour examination corresponded to 60% of one module while a three hour examination corresponded to 50% of another module. Students would want to know how this could be justified if action were not taken

e)

the module listed with a "B" code should be recoded to "P" in order to show that it would be assessed at a postgraduate level.

5. MSc in Microbial Technology

The Sub-Committee noted with approval the arrangements which proposed to register all students initially as Leicester University students. It was envisaged that those students wishing to undertake a project at Loughborough would transfer (with modular credit) to the Loughborough programme at the end of the taught section of the degree and would then graduate with Loughborough degrees.

It was AGREED provisionally to recommend the proposal for the consideration of Teaching and Learning Committee. Certain features of the proposal were commented upon and some of the documentation available to the Sub-Committee was inadequate, to the extent that the chair of the Sub-Committee was requested to satisfy himself in these matters before Teaching and Learning Committee received the unqualified support of the Sub-Committee.

Specifically:

a)

no module specification for the Loughborough project module had been made available

b)

the student effort (in hours) required in the two Loughborough taught modules was thought to be insufficient at 78 hours per 20 weighted module

c)

it was important to be clear that the admissions tutor would be based at Loughborough but that the programme tutor for the taught part of the degree would be based at Leicester.

6. MSc in Banking and Finance

It was noted that final approval would be subject to agreement yet to be obtained from Operations Sub-Committee and from Social Sciences and Humanities Directorate and Faculty.

7. BSc in Electronic, Computer and Systems Engineering

It was noted that final approval would be subject to agreement yet to be obtained from the Engineering Directorate and Faculty.

8. MSc in Packaging Technology

It was noted that final approval would be subject to agreement yet to be obtained from the Science Directorate and Faculty.

9. Service Teaching

The decline in volume of service teaching was noted with regret. It was suggested that future models used to allocate internal resource should make it more attractive to undertake service teaching; in this way the University might move closer to its stated objective of reducing the number of modules being taught.

The protocol used to set the availability codes allowed recoding as part of the annual review of modules and this was subject to the scrutiny of the Associate Deans (Teaching). Departments wishing to utilise modules coded at 2,3 or 4 had a duty to indicate the intention to the teaching department. The pro forma required as part of the proposals for new programmes might be amended to make explicit reference to this requirement.

Since the module database was searchable both for titles and for keywords, it did provide a way for departments to check on possible duplication before taking steps to create a new module. The pro forma required as part of the proposal for a new module could be modified to make such searches a requirement.

It would be technically feasible to maintain a database linking programmes to the modules which were available in those programmes. However, the maintenance costs would be high which would make it difficult to justify the operation. It was not clear that departments or any other section would be willing to undertake the task. If the effort could be linked to the automatic production of programme regulations then this might be an important consideration.

The Sub-Committee noted that there was a rule which required a providing department to consult before it was allowed to withdraw teaching for a core module within another department's programmes. It seemed sensible to extend this principle to significant optional modules; some programmes allowed students to select from the whole range of modules within the University which ought not to confer the same rights. Members were particularly concerned to point out the critical importance of timing in the consultation process: adequate notice must be given if a department was to be required to seek a replacement module for a programme.

The Sub-Committee agreed that it would review its procedures in order to make it more effective in policing the issues generated by service teaching activity.

10. Dates of Next Meetings

.1

The Secretary would seek a suitable date in late March 1998 for an additional meeting of the Sub-Committee at which the principal business would be to consider draft programme regulations for LUSAD.

.2

Thursday May 7th 1998 at 2.15 pm.

11. Any Other Business

.1

Business of the Sub-Committee

It was AGREED that the Sub-Committee required full and adequate documentation for every case submitted for its consideration. It would be helpful if the Associate Deans (Teaching) would undertake to vet the papers circulated before each meeting and make an immediate approach to any department if there were lacunae. It would be reasonable to expect these to be made good with tabled papers by the time the Sub-Committee met.

.2

Bringing Higher Education to Peterborough

It was AGREED that it would be of benefit if Mr Newton would submit a paper to Teaching and Learning Committee, giving a summary of issues which needed to be addressed when developing plans to bring Higher Education to Peterborough. There were a number of student-centred issues which required adequate solutions in order to maximise the student benefits from this initiative.

.3

LUSAD Proposals

It was AGREED that the additional meeting would receive draft programme regulations. Where the programme regulations formed a set with negligible differences between members of a set then one exemplar would suffice for that set. Module specifications would, in the main, not be required so long as they could be made available through web pages. A small sample of module specifications would be circulated with the agenda.

.4

Procedures of the Sub-Committee

It was AGREED that it would be helpful to review the detailed procedures operated by the Sub-Committee. Ideally this would be done in May so that changes could be introduced in time for the next academic year. On the other hand, it was likely that the May meeting would have a great deal of business to transact arising from the process of converting postgraduate programmes to a 180 credit tariff. The Chair and the Secretary would consider this matter further.

.5

Student Workload

The Chair reminded the Sub-Committee that the question of how much time in total a student should spend on a module had received a preliminary discussion at Teaching and Learning Committee Steering Group. He had not been present and the matter had rested. He would be seeking to open the matter again. A number of the proposals which had just been discussed by the Sub-Committee had shown the confusion and inequalities which seemed to exist at present. The University should develop module specifications so that the total student workload expected in connection with each module should be explicit. The move to adopt a 180 credit tariff for postgraduate programmes made this requirement quite obvious. Additionally, there were national developments which increasingly set norms for student workload in degree programmes: Loughborough could not afford to ignore these, nor could it sustain a case for expecting less work from its students than other universities. It was AGREED to draw these matters to the attention of Teaching and Learning Committee Steering Group.

.6

Postgraduate Programme in Geographies of Global Change

The Sub-Committee was content to recommend to Teaching and Learning Committee a proposal received from the Associate Dean (Teaching) for Social Sciences and Humanities that the postgraduate programme in Geographies of Global Change should be re-titled as Global Transformations with effect from October 1998. It was noted that final approval would be subject to agreement yet to be obtained from the Social Sciences and Humanities Directorate and Faculty.

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Date - January 1998

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