The Nottingham Trent University
Faculty of Construction & the Environment
Burton Street
Nottingham
NG1 4BU

Contact:
Harry Houldsworth
Tel: 0115 9251745
Email: HarryKenneth@cs.com

Aims:
The aims of the curriculum design described in this case study are to:

• provide a curriculum that ensures a high confidence of employability on graduation;
  
• ensure integration across modules in order to smooth progression from Level 1 to Level 3;
  
• allow students flexibility in their choice of pathway up until entry into the final year of the programme;
  
• provide a curriculum in Level 1 and 2 which enables students to capitalise on their learning in order to secure a quality industrial placement.

Resources:
Providing quality programmes within a framework of a constantly diminishing resource has prompted course teams to search for cost-effective ways of delivering programmes. The mass lecture which involves bringing together a large cohort of students from different programmes to some extent provides an efficient way of providing lecture material to a wide audience but questions have been raised about the learning which takes place within this mass arena.

A team effort is required to deliver the overall lecture programme and this, to some extent, allows students to benefit from staff specialisms which improve the overall quality of delivery.

Details.
The success of NTU in Building education has been to avoid the temptations of removing course content and to capitalise on over a quarter of a century of experience in designing undergraduate courses for the construction industry. The result has been to offer a wide portfolio of programmes that embody the essential characteristics and ensures the employability of graduates. These essential course characteristics are: having appropriate critical mass of subject matter, maintaining coherence of the overall course syllabus, ensuring integration across modules and logical progression from levels one to three.

The design of courses in the School of Property and Construction is a product of nearly half a century of corporate experience in developing courses at technician and honours degree level for building students and a consequence of the success of the School in consistently attracting sufficient numbers of students to enable divisions to continue to offer bespoke courses to meet the needs of the construction industry. This is in sharp contrast to developments in many HE institutions, where course designers have been forced to offer suites of courses with very large numbers of common modules and very little distinctiveness to justify the diversity of named awards. In these cases the concept of commonality in the curriculum is pushed to a level where the wishes of individual customers are not being heeded.

In the School of Property and Construction there is a broad range of provision that allows students to select a subject, mode and level of study to suit their needs. Flexibility is provided in the undergraduate courses in a number of ways. The construction suite of programmes offers different degree awards in building, construction management, residential development, and architectural technology, based on specialisms studied mainly in the final year. The construction suite and the two degrees in Surveying (Building Surveying and Quantity Surveying) also offer electives in the final year. The balanced nature of the surveying courses and their emphasis on technical skills has inevitably produced a curriculum, which will have lower flexibility for students in both subject matter and choice. However, the gain is that the learning outcomes are tailored to match student career aspirations and the wishes of practising surveyors.

A major feature is that all the undergraduate awards are accredited by appropriate professional bodies, such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Chartered Institute of Building, the British Institute of Architectural Technology, and the Association of Building Engineers. Consequently, graduates are very successful in obtaining career-related employment.

Having a sufficient critical mass of students permits the Faculty to support its courses with high quality teaching staff with appropriate qualifications and experience. Curricular design and content are informed by the research and professional activities of staff, and are further enhanced by the educational research carried out in the departments. This has led to a number of innovations, including the development of distance-learning degree programmes. In turn, the distance learning materials have facilitated innovations in methods of learning and teaching associated with the full time and sandwich programmes.

The curriculum for each course provides good coverage of subject-specific material and transferable skills, and sound progression between levels of study. Induction in the use of information technology (IT) skills is provided for all students at an early stage. A one-year work placement is an important component of undergraduate programmes and staff have an excellent record of obtaining placement opportunities for students. New programmes are given extra help in this regard. The Division of Real Estate & Construction Management is actively seeking to increase placement opportunities for Building Surveying students and the Division of Building & Design/Environmental Health & Safety is adopting a similar policy for Architectural Technology students. Other areas of the curriculum prepare students effectively for the placement (e.g. the Engineering Surveying modules and field course on the Construction Suite); the aims and objectives of which are well defined.

All building related courses have been carefully designed to meet the needs of employers in the construction industry. Curricula benefit from close contact between staff and employers and the professional institutions. The undergraduate programmes provide a sound preparation for students wishing to move to postgraduate studies, typically through an emphasis on the development of research skills, project work and a final year dissertation.
The postgraduate programmes in building serve specialised needs and are recognised as being innovative. Two are delivered in part-time mode by distance learning, enhanced by periods of attendance at the University. They form excellent examples of this mode of delivery and are supported by learning materials developed from a clear research base. The MSc in European Construction Management is a multi-centre course, which links the Division of Building & Design/Environmental Health & Safety with institutions in France, Germany and Ireland. It has clear aims and objectives, and is subject to periodic review and enhancement.

Evaluation:
Generally speaking the feed-back from students demonstrates that the curriculum is suitable to their needs. Employers readily attend the School to interview students for placements and for final graduate employment and again the indications are that they favour our graduates in preference to other institutions. In this sense the aim of allowing students to capitalise on their learning to maximise employment opportunities is fully achieved. No curriculum can stand still and part of the School evaluation process is to review the curriculum on a regular basis to ensure that its currency remains.

Benefits:
The main benefit for the course programme is the flexibility built into the course by this type of curriculum design. Our own market research indicates that students entering undergraduate courses are more likely to stay the full course if they have an option to change pathways relatively easily right up until entry into the final year. This is beneficial to the School in terms of marketing the programme.

Issues and lessons to be learnt:
The main issue for a course programme and a subject base, which requires a considerable amount of resources to keep it current, is that of the diminishing resource. If the intention is to retain a high quality programme, which is well respected by employers, then this issue needs to be seriously addressed via the curriculum design.

One essential lesson to be learnt is that curriculum now need to be designed to allow for change to be easily implemented at relatively short intervals. In the widening participation era it is likely that programmes of this nature will increase their intake. If that intake increase includes students with relatively weak numerical skills then it is perhaps time to acknowledge this and take a fresh look at the actual skills required by graduates entering the construction industry.

Ongoing developments:
The School is currently reviewing all of its course programmes and there is an opportunity to address some of the issues now facing construction related undergraduate programmes. Attracting high calibre students means providing attractive programmes which make a real and serious link to the named programme. Current School curriculum development for the construction suite of courses is reflecting the changing nature of undergraduates entering higher education and will provide a sound base for future development which will reflect and build upon past good practice.