A fundamental expectation in the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, which underpins module design, is that all students should receive a high-quality academic experience. This requires curriculum development, review and redesign to incorporate key stakeholders and respect inclusivity. 

Current understandings of student identity do not explicitly and systematically include what we define as disciplinary affiliation identity. Many students take modules taught to a mixed audience of students enrolled in different degree courses.

Pressures to create more innovative programmes, combined with increasing student numbers, have meant that such modules are increasingly prevalent. Some modules typically start as part of one degree courses and become shared modules at some point in their life cycle. For shared modules, there is a need to gain a sector-wide and explicitly articulated understanding of how curriculum design processes take account of issues such as differences between tutor and student disciplinarity, multiple disciplinary affiliation identities and interdisciplinarity. 

This project explores how differences in student disciplinary affiliations are balanced with tutor disciplinarity when designing shared modules. The report below contains our findings. By identifying specific activities, contexts, barriers, enablers and other factors that will increase the likelihood of successful implementation of an interdisciplinary and inclusive approach, this research will inform the development of a tool that will explicitly underpin curriculum design in the case of shared modules.

The project produced a proposed typology for shared modules based on a literature review examining their past and current use in higher education programmes, available below. 

The project will produce three further key outputs, including:

The resources aim to:

Lead:

University of Greenwich

Partners:

Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Lincoln