Curriculum Methodology

A review of the contemporary literature on curriculum development indicates that much of the existing work either: (i) focuses on the development of educational resources; or (ii) identifies desirable features of development methods without providing any practical guidance. This article describes the development and application of a methodology for curriculum development. The methodology is flexible and evolutionary, and is soundly underpinned by accepted theory and practice from the field of information systems.The methodology was successfully appliedto a ‘live’ curriculum development project, i.e. the 1999 revalidation of the BTEC/EdExcel Computing Scheme at the University of Glamorgan. More recently, one of the authors has been involved in the development of an online degree programme as part of a European-funded project based in the University of Glamorgan.The author has identified that the prototype methodology needs to be extended to cover the development and approval of e-learning materials. The extensions are outlined in the conclusions.