Murdoch University’s Curriculum@Murdoch program has been recognised at the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM) annual Best Practice Awards.
The awards recognise and celebrate excellence in the higher education sector, with Murdoch University winning the Award for Excellence in Innovation category of the awards.
Murdoch University’s Director of Academic Quality, Curriculum Management and Policy, Mr Paul Comiskey, welcomed the award and said it was a great credit to the members of the Curriculum@Murdoch team for the work they had put in over a number of years.
“The Curriculum @ Murdoch program is supported by a cross-functional team of staff across Information Technology Services, Student Management, the secretariat, and the academy, with the core business unit Curriculum Information and Systems,” Mr Comiskey said.
“The program was developed to transform the way Murdoch designs and manages curriculum information, through sector-leading processes, policies, and technology.
“While many staff are familiar with the CourseLoop curriculum management system introduced as part of the program, Curriculum@Murdoch has been responsible for several large business activities, including an improved curriculum management process; development of a suite of new student-facing platforms, including a more contemporary and accessible Handbook, improved Course Pages and a Fee Calculator; and system integrations where downstream platforms - such as the Handbook and student management systems - are fed up-to-date curriculum information from CourseLoop.
Mr Comiskey said the program has been responsible for significant technological and cultural change.
“Curriculum information is more accessible,” Mr Comiskey said.
“Data integrity has improved as a result of greater transparency, guided governance workflows and improved reviewing.
“Reporting capacity is enhanced, with increased potential to interrogate curriculum information to generate insights to drive University activities.
"Though there will always be further improvements to be made, time-intensive, manual processes have been streamlined, academics and disciplines have more ownership of curriculum, and there is an increased awareness of governance and policy requirements.
“On behalf of everyone at Murdoch University, I congratulate all those who’ve contributed to the Curriculum@Murdoch program on winning this award.”
The ATEM citation for the Award stated:
"The Curriculum @ Murdoch program is a massive positive transformation of curriculum management. While technology has been available for some time to enable this type of change, it takes innovative thinking to utilise the technology and it is a very major achievement over many complicated components. The Judging Panel particularly liked the newly gained ability to analyse and obtain insights into curriculum changes over time and the single point of truth which is a significant efficiency gain that underpins all benefits. Well done on the one-team approach, and for utilising IT students to create parts of the project. The sheer logistical achievement and energy required to modernize the business processes is hugely impressive."