The continuous development of our degree programmes and courses is a crucial prerequisite for offering education at the highest academic level.
Therefore, work on programme regulations and course development is a central part of quality assurance at Aarhus Universitet – Health.
The purpose of this work is, among other things, to create well-structured degree programmes that support students’ learning and their ability to complete their studies successfully.
As a student, you play an important role in the revision of programme regulations and courses, both directly and indirectly.
Directly, for example, through representation in the board of studies and project groups, and indirectly through course evaluations and semester representation. You can read more about the work on course evaluations here.
As a teacher or course coordinator, you play a key role in the development and description of courses within a new programme structure. The focus is on learning outcomes, study activities, and assessment methods, as well as ensuring alignment between student workload and the course’s ECTS credits.
As an instructor or course coordinator, you have the opportunity twice a year to adjust the content of the course catalogue within the framework of the programme regulations. The course catalogue contains specific information about the current course offerings. In this way, you help ensure that course descriptions remain accurate and up to date.
It is the responsibility of the Board of Studies to propose new programme regulations and suggest changes to existing ones. The Dean is the authority who approves a new programme regulation.
In certain situations, the Board of Studies can revise an already approved programme regulation without creating an entirely new one. Changes to a programme regulation or to individual courses may, for example, be motivated by academic considerations or by issues identified through systematic quality assurance work, such as course evaluations, feedback from the Board of Studies, and other educational data.
The Board of Studies and the Programme Director can, among other things, monitor students’ average ECTS accumulation per semester. This data can provide an indication of whether the programme structure is effective or whether certain semesters or courses systematically delay students’ progress.
It is the department management and the Dean’s office that have the authority to make strategic and resource-related decisions in this area.
When planning a course, the Study Activity Model is an important tool. The model provides clarity on how the various study activities are integrated within the course’s allocated ECTS credits. It also helps align expectations with students and ensures a balanced workload for individual courses and semesters, as well as across the programme as a whole.
The Study Activity Model is part of a larger catalogue of resources that we use when designing and redesigning courses at Aarhus Universitet, Health.
When designing courses, we pay close attention to ensuring alignment between the course’s learning outcomes and the programme’s competency profile. When developing new programme regulations, we always map the learning outcomes to the programme’s competency profile, and the competency profile to the programme’s qualification framework, in order to ensure the programme’s academic level and coherence.
We also ensure that there is alignment between learning outcomes, study activities, and assessment methods. In other words, teaching activities should support the learning outcomes and give students the opportunity to practice what will be assessed in the exam. For example, if teaching has been case-based, it is natural for the exam to reflect that as well.
On AU Educate you can read more about alignment between goals, activities and exams.
When we revise programme regulations at Health, we typically follow a standard practice. This practice can be divided into the following steps:
The motivation for revising programme regulations is often a desire to:
The need may arise from the academic environment, programme management, or through dialogue with the programme’s stakeholders, examiners, professional associations, or other external actors.
If you have any questions about working with programme regulations or the course catalogue, please contact Eline Skjøttgaard Lorentzen (esl@au.dk) at Health Studies.
