Important Changes to Academic Review This Year

From this year we will no longer be running a single Academic Review data collection. Instead, departmental staff will be given the tools to maintain their curriculum data throughout the year with cut-offs for updates when data is required for key processes with as little effort as possible.

What’s changing?

If no changes are being made to modules, module deliveries, or diets in your department you won’t need to do anything; we will roll-forward the data assuming that everything is the same as last year. Where changes are required, you will need to identify what needs to be updated and, using the new Portico tools, make those changes. A suite of comprehensive reports will be available to support this activity.

Heads of Department will be asked to sign-off, confirming that they are satisfied the department has undertaken the necessary activities.
Please note that the earlier deadlines for programme and module approvals/amendments remain in place.  These processes are timed so any required approvals and systems updates by Academic Services are processed prior to opening up Portico to the departments to edit permitted data.   

Why are we making this change?

In recent years, as the sophistication of our systems have grown, the workload involved in the Academic Review process has become increasingly challenging for departmental staff. 

Analysis has shown that although the process required administrators to confirm every module, module delivery, and diet relatively few year-on-year changes were actually made. There is significant scope to reduce workload for staff in departments.

With the publication of the module catalogue in Spring 2020 we need more so than ever to have our data in a good state earlier in the year.

More information will be available shortly, including the dates for comprehensive training sessions. 

Contact email for further information: academicmodelproject@ucl.ac.uk