The JISC Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design programme has responsive curricula, and responsive curriculum processes, as a priority outcome. This is in direct response to demands from funders and stakeholders, including Government, that further and higher education should be fit for purpose, and curriculum offerings should meet the changing needs of students and the economy.

Different projects have taken different approaches to transforming institutional practice in this area.

1. Developing flexible curricula

These can be highly responsive to the needs of individual learners or cohorts of learners, or other stakeholders such as employers. However, they depend for their successful delivery on the expertise of teaching staff in supporting the negotiation and adaptation process, and on the engagement of learners.

PC3 (personalised curriculum creation through coaching) model

Inter-disciplinary inquiry-based learning model from the Co-Educate project

Rich Pictures of the new flexible Curriculum Design process from the UG-Flex project

2. Developing effective curriculum design tools and practices that allow for rapid development from ideas to approved courses 

Compendium LD and the Learning Design Toolbox from the OULDI project

Viewpoints Information Skills tool

Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback Tool

3. Ensuring the approval and review process supports proven design principles which include making courses more responsive to students emerging needs

The Principles in Patterns (PiP) project and ESCAPE projects both made use of the earlier REAP assessment principles, to good effect. The Viewpoints project has based some of its materials on the 8LearningEvents model. The CoEducate and PC3 teams have successfully validated courses based around a negotiated or competence-based curriculum that is highly responsive to students' aspirations and circumstances.

4. Securing sustained stakeholder engagement in the curriculum, whether from employers or learners

T-Sparc stakeholder engagement model

Co-Educate enquiry based model

5. Reforming the business processes involved in curriculum design to enhance efficiency and so make it easier to review and revalidate programmes - for example reducing duplication of effort, instituting lighter weight processes, and enhancing information management

PALET scoping model

SRC scenarios

CourseTools flexible timetabling approach

6. Investing in staff development and support a culture of innovation

Enable project guidance, workflows, and new enterprise support

Use of Learning Development Associates through the Predict project