Designing courses
Find out how we ensure courses are developed to the highest quality standards to benefit all students across the university.
How we design our courses
The Centre for Academic Development & Quality (CADQ) ensures NTU courses are developed to the highest quality standards and result in the best possible outcomes for all students.
CADQ achieves this by providing structures and guidance for course design and approval while supporting course-teams to develop high-quality courses.
A key element of CADQ support is a designated Senior Quality and Standards Advisor (SQSA) whose main responsibility is to ensure that the course process remains collaborative and enhancement-led with the aim of continually improving NTU’s offer and the learning experiences of our students. Along with school leadership teams, the allocated SQSA will ensure that the proposed course meets NTU quality requirements and is ready to be considered for approval by the Academic Course Approval Sub-Committee.
Academic Course Approval Sub Committee
The role of the Academic Course Approval Sub Committee is to provide university governance and oversight, which ensures that all newly designed NTU courses and high impact changes to existing courses are academically sound and viable, offering students the best possible learning experience. The group is chaired by Dr Kathy Charles, Executive Dean of Learning & Teaching and Head of the Centre for Academic Development & Quality.
How CADQ can help you.
In addition to the Senior Quality and Standards Advisor, the Educational Development team within CADQ have a comprehensive staff development offer available to course teams whilst they are developing their provision, particularly during the ‘designing the course’ stage of the course approval process. The staff development offer is available and bookable through Thrive@ntu (Internal log in required).
Professional development in areas related to course design:
- Course and curriculum design;
- Success for All;
- Assessment and Feedback;
- Student engagements and transition;
- Personal Tutoring;
- Apprenticeships and HTQs.
For further information or if you can’t find what you are looking for, please email cadq.enquires@ntu.ac.uk
Find out more about the Educational Developers - Learning and Teaching in Professional Development | Nottingham Trent University
Guidance and resources
Below is a list of the guidance and resources available to School Quality Managers, Learning and Teaching Managers and course teams on course design and approval.
- Guidance on Course Design and Approval Quality Handbook Section 5
- Guidance and Resources for Course Design at the Academic Quality Hub (internal only)
- Guidance and resources for CourseLoop including the Integrated Business Evaluation and Academic Approval process on MyHub (Internal only)
- Course Design and Approval Implementation model including phases of the design and approval process Quality Handbook Supplement 5B
- Guidance on external input in Course Design and Approval Quality Handbook Supplement 5D
- Guidance on School leadership checks with regards to the course suitability Quality Handbook Supplement 5C
Professional and informative, excellent and helpful feedback provided to us in a timely manner…. Will really improve the quality of our offer. Thank you!
Curriculum Management
Course and module definition information is a key asset to NTU and is captured in the CourseLoop platform.
CourseLoop (log-in required) has been designed to support NTU’s strategic plan to help deliver a future-facing curriculum that supports employability, professional attributes and personalised learning.
CourseLoop’s intuitive system provides NTU with: confidence in the integrity of its curriculum information; supporting robust and effective governance while enabling NTU to confidently report on the curriculum at a strategic level.
If you would like to find out more about CourseLoop please email courseloop.support@ntu.ac.uk.
Get in touch
If you have a question or would like to find out more about the work of CADQ please email cadq.enquiries@ntu.ac.uk. Your query will be directed on to the right team / person.