Project outline

The Coeducate project was part of the JISC e-Learning Programme that funded 12 institutional projects, "to review course design and validation processes, and the ways these are supported and informed by technology, in order to transform learning opportunities to address an identified issue or challenge of strategic importance to the institution involved".

This story line provides an overview of the project, setting out the main activities and events in the project, the University and the wider context in which it is embedded.

 

The Coeducate project can trace its origins back to the work of the BAILO project (2001) and most significantly the Ultraversity project (2003). It is these two projects where the issues to be addressed by the project were first encountered and the ideas behind the IDIBL model were explored and developed.

The Coeducate project was conceived to support the development of new approaches to higher education for students in full-time work who are unable to take advantage of face-to-face provision.  To meet this market segment, a curriculum model based on online inter-disciplinary, inquiry-based approaches to learning (IDIBL) was developed to enable learners to study at a time and place convenient to them, delivered and supported wholly online.  This requires students to undertake projects for improvement for the benefit of their workplace and to gain academic credit from the scholarly practices used to inform and evaluate their activities.  This pedagogical model was based on the work of the Ultraversity project at Anglia Ruskin University.  The Coeducate project also aimed to support staff to embed this work based curriculum model in the different faculties across the University.

This was an ambitious aim, and in seeking to make transformational impact in the capability of the institution it was necessary for the project to address technical systems and business processes impacting on course development, and staff capability and capacity building focussed on adopting new approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment.