Ensuring the quality and continuous development of the programme is at the heart of the Programme Director's role. This responsibility covers both the day-to-day oversight of the programme and its longer-term strategic development. As Programme Director, you are responsible for ensuring that the curriculum remains coherent, relevant, feasible, and aligned with the programme's educational objectives and quality standards.
Daily activities:
Monitor student progress
Student success provides valuable insight into the effectiveness of a programme. Monitoring student progress allows you to identify both strengths and potential bottlenecks within the curriculum.
Relevant indicators include course pass rates, courses with recurring performance issues, first-year completion rates, study success and graduation rates, average time to degree.
Much of this information is available through the UT tool Education Dashboard. In addition, study advisers can provide valuable context and insights into student experiences, challenges, and emerging trends. Regular contact with study advisers is therefore highly recommended.
Resources
- UT tool Education Dashboard
- regular meetings with the study adviser of your programme
Safeguard and improve educational quality
A key responsibility of the Programme Director is to continuously monitor and enhance the quality of the programme: one of your responsibilities is to draw up a Programme Development Plan every year, and develop and implement the quality policy for your programme. In order to do so, you need to:
- gather and interpret feedback from students, staff, alumni, and external stakeholders
- monitor programme and course evaluations
- review educational outcomes and performance indicators
- identify opportunities for improvement, and
- lead discussions about programme development and innovation.
Quality assurance is not merely about identifying problems; it is also about recognising what works well and building on existing strengths. A good system for quality assurance is therefore important. At UT, we work with PDCA-cycles to continuously work on monitoring and improving quality, also for education.
When developing improvement initiatives, it is important to involve relevant stakeholders, including teaching staff, student representatives, and the Programme Committee. Changes to the curriculum should always be discussed with the Programme Committee.
For major curriculum redesign projects, CELT can offer dedicated support via an Educational Advisor and the website on curriculum (re)design.
Resources for educational quality
- Faculty quality assurance coordinator
- UT Quality Assurance policy
- CELT website on quality assurance
- overview of CELT educational advisors
- CELT website on Curriculum (re)design (under development)
- video on cooperation with the Programme Committee:
Decide on department contribution and supply of teachers
Although you, as Programme Director, are responsible for the programme as a whole, the teaching is delivered by staff residing in different departments. Close collaboration with these departments is therefore essential. Regular discussions with department chairs or educational representatives of departments can help you to coordinate teaching contributions, discuss staffing and capacity needs, align educational developments across the programme and anticipate future teaching requirements.
Strong relationships with departments are often key to successfully managing and further developing a programme.
Understand the UT context
Your programme operates within the broader educational governance structure of UT. Many decisions and developments involve collaboration with university-wide and faculty-level bodies. It helps when you know this context, and when you understand who has what responsibility in education and who is doing what.
Resources UT Context
- CELT Canvas page ‘Expedition Education’. You are automatically added to this page.
- Overview of formal organisational structure of education at UT
- Overview of relevant bodies and departments for education at UT
- Overview of available educational support at the UT
Longer-term activities:
Develop and implement a vision on content, structure and educational philosophy
Every programme is based on a vision: what kind of contribution does the programme want to make to society, and therefore what kind of graduates does the programme want to deliver. This not only includes a clear idea on the content of the programme (the what), but also a vision on how students learn and thus how to teach your students (the how) and what kind of teaching format and structure is needed for that. Naturally, your vision on the programme should be in line with UT’s Vision on Learning and Teaching.
Having a clear vision for the programme helps you decide what changes to make and explain these changes to relevant stakeholders to get their support, and it can help you in discussions with teachers about their contribution to the programme.
As Programme Director, you are responsible for the vision of the programme (the what, why and how). You do not need to change the vision on the programme often or rigorously. It can help to check the vision every few years and see whether some adaptation is needed. If you aim for a more extensive redesign of the curriculum, revisiting the vision of the programme is essential.
Practical aspects
You, as Programme Director, have the power to decide in which language the programme will be taught (Ba EER 2.2.2; Ma EER), to appoint module coordinators (Ba EER 3.4.1) and to set requirements for the start of the MSc graduation phase (Ma EER).
Resources on vision
- UT Vision on Learning and Teaching
- latest accreditation report of your programme, to be found on the NVAO website
- CELT website on how to (re)design the curriculum and (re)define your educational vision (under development)
- document on how to write mission and vision on education
Define Programme Intended Learning Outcomes
The Programme Intended Learning Outcomes (PILOs) are important in every programme, as these outcomes define what a graduate student is supposed to know, understand and be able to do at the end of the programme. The PILOs are described in the Programme Specific Appendix to the EER.
All courses in the curriculum should together allow the student to achieve these PILOs. Having clear PILOs also helps when you discuss with teachers how their course fits in the curriculum and contributes to these PILOs.
The Examination Board needs the PILOs of the programme, as they are the committee who decides whether a student has achieved the PILOs and is thus entitled to a degree and a diploma. Finally, the PILOs are an important part in the accreditation report.
You, as Programme Director, are responsible for (the correct formulation of) the PILOs. You do not need to change the PILOs often or rigorously. It can help to check the PILOs every few years and see whether some adaptation is needed. A more thorough check of the PILOs is advisable as preparation for a re-accreditation (see activity 6 in this toolbox).
Resources for PILOs
- Programme Specific Appendix to EER
- Qualification Frameworks - EHEA website describing the Bologna process and the shared qualification frameworks as the Dublin Descriptors, now incorporated into the EQF (see next dot point)
- Level of Dutch diplomas | Nuffic describes the NLQF, the Dutch framework for describing PILOs, derived from the EQF (European Qualification Framework)
- CELT website about curriculum (re)design and how to redefine PILOs (under development)
Develop and implement a vision on assessment
Assessment is an important aspect in education. Based on the results of assessment, teachers make a decision regarding whether a student has learned enough and thus earns credits for the course. This is called summative assessment, also known as ‘assessment of learning’.
But assessment can be much more: it can give students information about where they are in their development towards the intended learning outcomes and what they can do to further improve (‘assessment for learning’), or even be a tool for students in their learning and development (‘assessment as learning’).
As Programme Director, you need to define how you see the role of assessment in the learning of the students – a vision on assessment. A clear vision on assessment will help you in your discussions with teachers, as it provides guidance on how and when students should be assessed and, therefore, how each teacher should design the assessment in their course.
Many UT programmes already have an assessment policy which includes a vision on assessment. Check out the assessment policy of your programme and/or ask other Programme Directors for their assessment policy as a source of inspiration.
Practical aspects
It is your responsibility to determine the assessment scheme per module and course (Ba EER 3.6.3). You can change the assessment schemes of a module (Ba EER 3.6.6) and decide whether you want a judicium (Cum Laude) for your programme (Ba EER 4.3.5).
Resources on vision on assessment
- UT framework for Assessment Policy
- Assessment policy of your own programme
- CELT website on Assessment Quality
- Ba and Ma EER of your programme
Initiate and implement strategic and structural changes and innovations in the programme
As Programme Director, you are responsible for improvement of the programme. Small changes to courses that have only a minor or no effect on the Intended Learning Outcomes of the course can be discussed and decided on by you and the responsible teacher. Larger changes and innovations that affect multiple courses should be discussed with different stakeholders, one of which is the Programme Committee.
Inspiration and ideas for changes and innovations in the programme can come from general developments in the discipline, comments from students and teachers, discussions with your work field committee etc.
Please be aware: as larger changes in a programme are a complicated process with many stakeholders, it may take a few years to be fully implemented in the programme.
Resourses for changes and innovations in the programme
- CELT website on curriculum (re)design (under development)
- video about cooperation with the Programme Committee:
