CITATION – from the Global Teaching Excellence Award, Higher Education Academy, UK

Congratulations on receiving your award for being a Finalist in the Global Teaching Excellence Award 2018, the Higher Education Academy’s, UK international award.

This is what the Higher Education Academy judges said about the Charles Sturt University entry:

“The curriculum is impressively designed and undergoes regular constructive alignment with industry practice and backward mapping between learning outcomes and assessment activities, with specific graduate attributes in mind. Charles Sturt University is to be commended for its strategic focus on teaching and learning and support to enable this to its faculty, especially in online education.”

The Charles Sturt University application for the award included reference to the course design process and the bespoke software, CourseSpace.  These two curriculum innovations were led by Elizabeth Thomson.  The excerpt from the application describing the two initiatives is as follows:

Course Design

Courses are reviewed every 3-7 years. Alignment to professional standards and to our graduate attributes is at the heart of the process. Course & subject improvements are also identified through the subject moderation process and student experience surveys. Course reviews are supported by a central Course Design Team using a platform, developed at CSU, called CourseSpace. CourseSpace instantiates as real practice, constructive alignment and backward mapping between learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In 2017, CSU’s distinctive process was reviewed externally by an international Learning Design expert, and a national reference group. Quote from the external review:

CSU is to be commended on their work to create a new and innovative tool for curriculum mapping and course design… The Course Design initiative and associated supporting systems are seeking to engender new ways of working and shift long held higher education cultural traits all within a dynamic external context introducing new standards.

74 courses have undertaken curriculum transformation since 2014. The target was impact 80% of students by 2019. 9,726 students are in redesigned courses, 77% of the expected target.