PROGOSS: Mastering the curriculum

Abstract

In education, we need to design effective degree programs of study that meet authoritative curricula guidelines. This is challenging because of the size of the curriculum and complexity of degree program structures. When dealing with data of this size and complexity, traditional spreadsheets are a clumsy way of storing the data. A database is a better option, especially when the database is accessible over the web. We created ProGoSs to effectively tackle this complexity. ProGoSs is a web-based system that maps curricula learning goals and mastery levels to individual assessment tasks across entire degree programs. ProGoSs enables academics to answer important questions such as: Does our degree teach the essential core defined in a recommended curriculum? Where in our degree are particular parts of the recommended curriculum taught? Does our degree ensure a solid progression in building skills? Where and how do we assess the learning achieved by bare-pass students on particular parts of the recommended curriculum? We present the design and implementation of ProGoSs and report on its evaluation by mapping multiple programming subjects from multiple universities to the ACM/IEEE Computing Science 2013 topics and learning objectives. This includes a mapping to various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.