ENhance

Edinburgh Napier's Curriculum Enhancement Framework​

What is the ENhance framework and what is it for?

ENhance is Edinburgh Napier’s own curriculum enhancement framework. 

It was developed in 2021-22, reflecting themes of importance to ENU’s staff and students. It is designed to support curriculum design and enhancement through:

• ​Providing a shared reference point and vocabulary.
• Giving a clearer structure to curriculum design and enhancement work, and the support on offer for this.
• Facilitating more systematic sharing of existing effective practice.
• Make internal expertise in curriculum development, from academic and professional services colleagues, more accessible 
• Support and encourage external sharing of effective practice 

The ethos is one of appreciative enhancement. The framework focuses on what is already successful in programmes, and how can that be built upon further. 

What does it look like?

 

 

Consultation identified the framework’s five main themes for curriculum enhancement as: Employability; Global Focus; Inclusion; Sustainability; and Research & Practice Integration. Because these words can have different meanings, student focus is at the framework’s heart, encouraging us to ask: how does our curriculum enhancement engage, involve, respond to, and benefit students? Embedded in all the themes are two cross-cutting ones: digital and information literacy; and community and citizenship (represented by the circle surrounding the five themes in the diagram). There is overlap between many of these themes – eg. Employability and Inclusion – so it’s possible that a single curriculum enhancement might be effective at addressing more than one of them at once.

What does it mean in practice?

Programmes are expected to show full engagement with a minimum of three of the five main themes by 2025. It’s expected that many programmes will be able to do this already. Full engagement is defined in the Threshold Definition (see links to documents from this page), and involves evidencing engagement with each theme using a variety of sources, in relation to the four ENhance Principles, which are also explained in the threshold document.

From 2022-23, Enhance will be embedded in the Quality Framework, through a combination of Annual Monitoring, Institution-Led Review, and (for new programmes) Programme Approval. The ENhance project will also contribute support and resources outside the Quality Framework. 

The Annual Monitoring programme leader report form has been changed to create some new prompts to encourage reflection and self-evaluation of the threshold across all themes and opportunity to demonstrate examples of engagement in one or more themes. There will also be a new action planning element.

The information shared here can be used by programme teams to feed into future, formal threshold claims. It will also be made available to DLTE to inform the development of ENhance training and support. 

Institution-Led Review (ILR) provides a natural opportunity for a threshold recognition claim in the context of a detailed review of the programme. To support this, there will be new prompt questions and additional guidance in the Self Evaluation Review template. No new documentation is required, but it is expected that programme documentation from Curriculum Management and the annual monitoring reports and enhancement plans for the review cycle will be made available. 

Programme teams will discuss engagement and progress with ENhance, in order to share good practice and challenge and confirm achievement against the threshold. 

 

The ILR follow-up after one year will be an opportunity to review and possibly update threshold decisions from the previous year, where only minor changes were needed.

An ILR Mid-Point conversation (title tbc) is an innovation, based on feedback from the ENhance pilot. Three years after a programme’s ILR, it is an opportunity to discuss progress and to make a formal threshold claim in relation to any of the themes. 

 

 

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