Creating and editing course instances

Each course offered at UQ has a course instance in Jac, which provides a course overview and description of the learning outcomes, learning activities and assessment items. When the course instance is published, a course profile will be generated. Remember, the course profile is the final published document. 

You can generate a preview from within the course instance to see how the published course profile will look. Click the 'Preview' button in the top left.

The published course profile is important for several reasons:

1. Curriculum planning. Course learning outcomes, learning activities and assessments of the course are all specified in the course profile. The course profile needs to be studied by course coordinators, lecturers and tutors to understand the course they are teaching.
2. Course resource planning and information. The course profile provides information for staff, students and the public. All other communications and information need to align with the course profile. Sensitive and detailed information that should only be available to staff and students can be added to the learning management system (e.g. Blackboard).
3. Course promotion. Students use course profiles to determine which courses they will enrol in.
4. Administration. The course profile specifies the course coordinators and lecturers, contact information and timetabling, and specific learning activities and resources which students rely on. Automatic SECaT generation systems depend on accurate information to generate course and teacher evaluations.

If you are a course coordinator, your course instance can be accessed and edited by logging into the Jac curriculum management system.

Course instances are developed and published before the beginning of each teaching semester so the published course profile is available to students and other stakeholders according to the school's publication deadline. Your school administrator usually sends an email informing course coordinators of this deadline.

If the course has been offered before, most of the content in the course instance will be copied automatically from the previous version. If the course is new, some information will be available from the parent course such as aims and learning outcomes. It's the responsibility of the course coordinator to check through the course instance before publication and to make sure this information is correct, including making any necessary changes to learning activities, assessment and so forth.

This can be done through Jac as follows:

1. Once logged in, you will be presented with a homepage. The homepage can have several tiles depending on the access you have been provided. As a course coordinator, you should have the 'course instances' tile as a minimum. If you don't have this tile, you should contact your school’s Local Area Expert.
2. Click on the ‘course instances’ tile and you will be presented with the dashboard. You can search for your course or if available, click on the 'I am coordinator' checkbox below the ‘course code’ filter box. If the 'I am coordinator' checkbox is not present, please contact your school administrator as you may not have been assigned as a course coordinator. You should only commence updating your course instance after you have been notified by your school administration team.
3. Frequently utilise the 'Preview' function in the course instance to check how the information will be presented in the published course profile. Some information is not shown on the course instance but will show on the course profile (e.g. University policies). Other information is elaborated on the course profile based on the value selected within the course instance (e.g. extension information).
4. Once you have updated your course instance, it can be workflowed to the next step, typically School Review. Click in the ‘State’ box in the top right corner and select the next state in the dropdown. Your school processes may differ, so check what your local process is. Once reviewed by the school administration team, and if it’s ready to be published, school staff with the CI Administrator role will publish the course instance.

All areas other than the assessment portion of the course instance can be amended at any time throughout the semester to reflect changes in activities or other information that comes to hand. However, you will need to contact your school administration team who will initiate the process.

All published course profiles are accessible from Learn.UQ (Blackboard) and the Programs and Courses website.

Ask your school's administrators what the procedure is for making the course profile available to students.

As a general rule, it's up to the course coordinator to make necessary changes to the course instance, and then workflow the course instance for review by the relevant staff (e.g. Major Convenor or school administrator. Once the course instance has been reviewed and subsequently published by the school administrator, a course profile will then be generated.

Course coordinators generally receive an email alert from the school administrator when course instances must be updated and submitted. Course instances should be submitted in a timely manner so that they can be reviewed and made available to students as soon as possible before the teaching semester.

The Course Design Policy states that the course profile must be published no later than a week prior to the course's first scheduled learning activity.

Course overview

This section contains administrative information about the course. Fields in the ‘Course information’ sub-section will not be editable as the information is obtained from the parent course. Contact your school administration team if any of these fields need to be updated. 

Fields under the ‘Instance information’ contain information specifically for this offering of the course. The Course Instance Description should not replicate information in the Course Description. Contact your school administration team if you need assistance with these fields.

Course requirements

All fields in this section are obtained from the parent course and cannot be edited in the course instance. Contact your school administration team if any information requires updating.

Information in this section outlines requirements to enrol in the course.

Course enquiries

All fields in this section are obtained from the parent course and cannot be edited in the course instance. Contact your school administration team if any information requires updating.

Information in this section does not get published on the course profile. 

This information is shown in the course instance so the user is prompted to also make changes on the parent course, should there be changes to teaching staff within the Course Contributors section of the course instance. When changes to the parent course are published, this information will appear on the UQ Programs and Courses website. 

Course contributors

This section lists all teaching staff involved in delivering the course. Your school may have different processes as to who is listed, particularly tutors. Check with your school administrator to ensure local processes are followed.

You can add teaching staff by clicking the '+Add Course Contributors' button at the bottom of this section. Each course contributor entry is for one staff member, but one course contributor can have multiple roles by clicking the '+ Add Row' button under the Staff Roles table. (i.e. you don’t need multiple course contributors for the same person if they have multiple roles. For example, one staff member can have course coordinator, lecturer and tutor roles.)

Whenever listing staff, it's good practice to use the search fields to find the correct person and auto-populate their details. You can do partial searches using the First Name and Last Name or User ID. Only UQ staff are searchable. For non-UQ staff (e.g. guest lecturers), you can manually enter their details. 

Your school's administration team can help setup any course contributors.

Course coordinators

The course coordinators in the course instance are typically updated by school administrators. You should check with your school administrator before changing course coordinator details.

For staff listed as a course coordinator, it's vital their User ID is correctly populated by using the search, as this will be used to update SI-net Class Schedule and for the SECaT process.

Lecturers

The lecturer role will need to be assigned to relevant staff. You can add the lecturer role to staff by clicking the '+Add Row' button under the Staff Roles table.

It's vital the User ID is correctly populated by using the search to find the staff member’s details. This is because the electronic SECaT (teaching evaluation) is automatically generated via this system. Accurate staff lists need to be in place by the course profile closing date to ensure teaching evaluations are provided.

Guest lecturers

Consult with your School Manager if you would like to include a guest lecture as part of your course. These can be unpaid or paid. Paid lecturers are dependent on the school's budget allocations – there is sometimes a budget provision for one or more paid guest lecturers in the course. Unpaid lecturers can include industry guests with an expertise on a particular subject, who are happy to offer their services at no charge.

Aims and outcomes

All fields in this section are obtained from the parent course and cannot be edited in the course instance. Contact your school administration team if any information requires updating.

Ensure outcomes align with the aims of the course. Consider consultation with other course coordinators to refine learning outcomes at a program level.

The UQ Study and Programs and Courses websites link to both undergraduate and postgraduate programs and plans, containing requirements that provide a comprehensive list of courses and their course codes. By clicking on a relevant course code, you can access the published course profile for that course.

Academics need to look at other courses being offered in their discipline, school and faculty, in order to align their course with the rest of the curriculum. It's also helpful to know what courses are offered within a teaching program, especially prerequisite courses, in order to answer possible student questions.

Your school administration staff, program/plan convenors and relevant course coordinators can provide further information on courses in your teaching program.

Assessment 

Students refer to the Assessment section of the course profile frequently, so it's important to include all appropriate information. The course profile should provide enough information for the reader to understand what is required. Detailed information and marking criteria or rubrics will need to be contained within the learning management system (e.g. Blackboard). 

The Assessment section also includes the course grading breakdown, and other assessment information which may include supplementary assessment and hurdles.

Assessment items 

Each assessment item provides further information about assessment and contains the task description, assessment attributes, due information, submission guidelines, and extension/deferral availability. 

Where possible, use the relative date functionality when setting up due dates as this will reduce maintenance of the course instance following rollover for the next year. Avoid stipulating specific dates in free text fields as this will need to be manually updated when the course instance is rolled over for the following year.

Please check with your school administration staff, Head of School, Chief Examiner or School Director of Teaching and Learning if you require any assistance.

Learning resources

This section contains information for any learning resources students will need to complete the course, excluding reading resources.  

There are 3 main components to this section: 

1. Other course materials. These are any additional resources a student may need, such as personal protection equipment (PPE) or specialist equipment.
2. Additional costs. Any costs incurred by the student to complete the course, such as for field trips or professional memberships.
3. Software requirements. This information is not published on the course profile but is used by central ITS to ensure any software stipulated is centrally supported.

Reading resource information

Reading resource information will be included in the published course profile and maintained in a separate system, Talis Aspire. See the section Library Resources for further information about reading resources. 

Learning activities

Create a list of learning activities 

A list of learning activities can be organised either by week (e.g. Week 1) or over several weeks (Week 1 – Week 13). While not necessary, you can include study breaks and public holidays, depending how you structure the information. Ensure the most appropriate Activity Type is selected.  

Include all associated learning activities, laboratory practicals, workshops, lecture series and any other activities you expect your students to complete. 

Other teaching and learning activity information 

You should also include all other learning activity information that you deem essential for your students to know before the commencement of the course.

Learning outcome mapping

This section is an interactive table and demonstrates the relationship between the learning outcomes for the course and the learning activities used to develop each outcome. It also includes the assessment task used to assess each outcome.

Policies and guidelines

This section contains the details of and links to optional University policies. University policies that apply to all courses are automatically included in the course profile. You can check which policies are included by generating a preview of the course profile. For further details on policies, visit my.UQ and the Policy and Procedures Library.

This section should also contain associated information concerning your course and any other school or faculty policies that relate to the completion of the course.

The Library offers services for teaching staff.

Faculty Services librarians

Faculty Services Librarians are your primary contact with the Library. Librarians work with staff and students to deliver information services in support of teaching, learning, research and practice at UQ.

They can partner with you to identify suitable Learning Resources for your course, including Open Educational Resources and resources to support Indigenising the Curriculum. They can also work with you to develop your students’ Information and Digital Literacy competency, which in turn supports their development of Graduate Attributes.

Contact the Faculty Services Librarian team

Course reading/resource lists and information

You should update and edit your course reading list using Talis Aspire. Once you have published your list, the Library will check it and purchase any items not in the Library collection including new editions of works, and digitise print items according to copyright.

Once published, a link to your reading list will appear in the course profile in Library Resources. Students will also have direct access to their list via the Learning Resources area of the Learn.UQ (Blackboard) course site, and the Library website.   

Items on your course reading list marked with the importance Required – own copy needed will appear on your course profile.   

Course coordinators can contact the Library Learning Resources team at  learningresources@library.uq.edu.au or the Faculty Services Librarians with any questions about reading lists or learning resources

Referencing style guides

Referencing style guides are available from the Library website. You can inform your students of these resources and can embed a link to them in your course via the Learn.UQ (Blackboard) site.

Copyright advice

The Library can provide expert advice on copyright inquiries concerning:

• teaching, learning, research, publication and open access
• training and seminars for researchers and staff.