Putting Curriculum Management First!

The following is a case study on why the new Adelaide University decided to procure a digitised Curriculum Management System as the first system implemented for the new university. The post suggests five benefits of choosing the Global IT Factory Curriculum Management System (CMS) and sound advice for how to achieve senior level buy-in for the implementation of a CMS.

 

Context

Adelaide University is being created as the result of a merger between two established South Australian institutions–the research-intensive University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, renowned for its innovation and industrial partnerships.  Adelaide University will officially launch in 2026 as one of the largest universities in Australia with over 75,000 students.

Why did the University prioritise a Curriculum Management System (CMS) before other Educational Technology systems?

Procuring and implementing a CMS before any other system was a strategic decision to support the new University’s vision to offer totally redesigned, contemporary future-focused curriculum that was being developed from scratch.

 

A suite of over 600 new programs (some inspired primarily by those offered by both institutions) were designed from scratch for delivery in 2026 – a considerable undertaking involving over 1500 academics and many professional staff members.

 

To achieve this, the new university urgently required a digitised system to enable the development, approval, organisation and dissemination to facilitate the delivery of new programs and their associated courses and modules efficiently.   It was also critical that the system be able to offer extensive curriculum mapping capabilities that would allow for the analysis of the quality and constructive alignment of all new programs and courses.

 

The governance and automated workflow functionality of a CMS was needed to enable to rapid but robust approval of all the new curricula as it was being developed.   A critical early consideration was the need to advertise the newly developed programs to first international and then domestic potential students on the new university website.

 

Given the extensive curriculum development activity and associated design and governance procedures, along with the evolving web interface, a critical consideration was the need for a single source of truth. A digitised curriculum management system would eliminate the risk of inconsistencies in information during the merger and ensure accurate information was being published across platforms including internal documentation and external web delivery.

 

A CMS was fundamental to enabling the University to succeed in its approach to design, develop, disseminate and deliver a future-focused new curriculum from the start.

Adelaide University’s Five Requirements

Five requirements that Adelaide University specified from the outset, resulting in their selecting Global IT Factory as their Curriculum Management System

1. Capacity for rapid implementation

A typical implementation might take anywhere between 12 months to 2.5 years. The university did not have the luxury of this time. Adelaide University made it clear from the outset that the system would need to go live in a matter of a few months from selection. Global IT Factory worked with the implementation team to meet its very tight deadline and get an initial system operational within six weeks. This enabled the University to meet a key milestone – launching 200 programmes onto the website in time for the first international student application cycle. Just seven months later a further 400 new programs, all entered and approved via the CMS were launched on the website.

2. A CMS system and partner that could adapt to changing needs quickly.

The university originally planned to set up the CMS based on new program data alone. However, the extensive resourcing required to develop a full suite of new programs and courses, along with complexities of transitioning existing students made it quickly apparent that legacy data would need to be migrated into the new CMS. This required a rapid realignment of the scope of work, and as the CMS already has the capability to manage both new and migrated curricula, the team from the university and Global IT Factory was able to accommodate these substantial changes with the desired result.

3. A system that manages and simplifies accreditation.

A wide range of programs that had been previously accredited in the former institutions are now required either in full or in part, to be reaccredited prior to the launch of the new university in 2026. Detailed curriculum mapping functionality in the CMS will be required immediately as well as into the future to support the provision of extensive evidence of adherence to the professional standards frameworks for these accrediting bodies. The automation of these processes through comprehensive power mapping within the CMS will enable multiple accreditations to be undertaken simultaneously, significantly reducing the manual effort that would otherwise be involved.

4. A system that would enable swift analysis of the curriculum and impact on the student

Because of the volume of new curricula being developed, the university identified the need for comprehensive curricular analytics to be enabled through curriculum mapping functionality. It was seen as essential that the constructive alignment of assessments, activities, learning outcomes at all levels and graduate qualities.

For Adelaide University, with its new curriculum, fast, evidence-based analysis will be essential to ensure the curriculum’s currency and quality. This will inform the necessary adjustments that will ensure an outstanding student experience. Both the mapping and reporting functionality within the Global IT Factory CMS were seen as being essential to accomplishing this in a timely fashion.

5. Student advisement and graduation checking.

The CMS’s Program Rules functionality provided a solid foundation for the work involved in transitioning thousands of students from the two original universities in an accurate and orderly manner.  This functionality was also valuable in exposing detailed program structures to potential students on the university’s new website.

One of the requirements of a CMS from the outset was the system’s ability to automatically complete graduation checking and to provide up-to-date program and course selection advice to students.  The CMS as a single source of truth with the capability to provide this accurate advice will streamline graduation checks improve student satisfaction while reducing administrative activities.

Winning buy-in for a Curriculum Management System

A key strategic objective of most universities today is improving the student experience.

 

The single source of curricular truth administratively, for students, and for publication, along with streamlined approval pathways leading to more rapid delivery of new programs to the market will tangibly benefit the student experience.

 

Focusing on how a CMS can improve the student experience links the need for a CMS to university strategy making a strong argument that it should be at the forefront of any university’s system priority list.

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This is a summary of the UCISA Leadership Conference session, Putting Curriculum Management First, presented by curriculum management implementation team leaders from the new Adelaide University in March 2025. View the full recording here: