Development of proposal

Developing the proposal prior to validation
In summary the key development stages are:
• Submission of the new proposal for approval in principle by the programme management board
• Authorisation by the Faculty Academic Planning Committee (FAPC) and the University’s Academic Planning Committee (APC)
• Full development of the proposal and Faculty Academic Committee (FAC) consideration
• Approval of the validation document by the Dean
• Validation on behalf of the FAC or the Academic Quality and Standards Committee (AQSC)
• Endorsement of the recommendation of the validation panel by the FAC and the AQSC.
Programme management board support and project management Whichever type of validation event you are preparing for, experience has shown that the most successful proposals
have been developed using a managed approach with a designated project or team leader. The Programme Developer’s Guide (which can be found on the Department
of Academic Quality (DAQ) intranet site: intranet.dmu.ac.uk/qa) sets out some tips for programme developers including approaches to project management.
The team approach is particularly important where your proposal crosses departmental and faculty boundaries or is a collaborative development with colleges and/or
employers. Once an outline proposal has support from the FAPC and
subsequently APC, it is the responsibility of the programme management board chair, or nominee such as a designated project leader, to take the proposal forward to validation. It
is the responsibility of the faculty Head of Quality to monitor that the correct processes are being followed and to check that good practice regarding quality and standards is being
applied. On behalf of the programme management board the chair
indicates support by signing a New Programme Planning and Approval Form which accompanies the proposal. Faculty scrutiny The FAC has a role to play scrutinising new proposals and
ensuring that they have been well prepared for validation. It is recommended that the FAC delegates scrutiny to a small team of faculty staff, drawing in faculty expertise of
validations, and this group then gives feedback to the programme developers and makes a brief report to the FAC and Dean on whether the proposal is ready. On behalf of the FAC the Dean indicates that the proposal is ready for validation by signing a New Programme Planning and
Approval Form which accompanies the proposal. Timing
For further details about the planning cycle and schedule of activity leading up to the validation event, please refer to the Curriculum Planning Office’s Guide to Programme Planning.
The latest date for a validation event to take place is the end of March prior to the academic session when the programme is planned to start, for example, for a programme commencing in September 2008 the validation should take place before the end of March 2008. There
may be exceptions, where proposals are approved for fast-track validation, but as a rule the faculty Head of Quality should advise the Dean not to support any
validation event occurring less than six months prior to the planned start date.
For devolved validations, the faculty Heads of Quality are responsible for drawing up a faculty validation schedule in the autumn, following the FAPC meeting. For non-devolved
validations, DAQ are responsible for establishing the validation schedule. The consolidated validation schedule is presented to the AQSC.