Analysis of Course Specifications

A good course description must describe the perceived outcomes demonstrated through assessment of the course by all students upon the successful completion of the course. Course specifications must be in conformity with the necessities of quality assurance agency which comprises framework of qualifications for higher education, course benchmark statements, and the quality assurance agency’s programme of practice (Williams & Harvey, 2015). The Process of Course Specification The process of course specification must take into account particular course guidelines such as basic information like general information and course identification, overall aims and objectives of the course, the course content comprising topics to be covered, intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning methods as well as the student assessment methods (Ahmed et al. Moreover, it must consider student academic counseling and support, a list of peer reviewed books, articles, and other references, the facilities required for learning and teaching and lastly the course improvement and evaluation processes (Ahmed et al.

The process of course specification is done by a committee of academic assessment. Besides, if a given course is offered in more than one program, then it qualifies itself as an important component of those programs. That is, a list of those programs is made after which explanation on their connectivity is done. General courses like those dealing with IT and other elective components require just a mention of the list of programs. Following chronologically is the writing of the name of the instructor who teaches the particular course and is responsible for writing the report for the course. These instructors may be professors, doctors, lecturers or tutors. Course specification also encourages an abstract view of the system that is; it focusses on what should be accomplished by a proposed system rather than what ought to be accomplished thus promoting reality and discouraging idealism.

Formal course specification also delivers support for preset processing. It generates codes and units and their subsequent interpretation which enables a course to become easy in understanding. Furthermore, course specifications are precise but entirely define the correctness of a program and how they are intended to be accomplished. They spell out the aims and objectives as well as the goals for a given course. In this way, the knowledge departed to them from these instructors may not make them to compete favorably in the job market and delivery of their duties and responsibility as a whole. Instructors should therefore come up with broad and extensive specifications. Some course specifications employ the use of complicated formats and terms they are generally user unfriendly.

These course specifications are very difficult that even junior instructors too find difficult to interpret and understand. The complications and use of bombastic words may lead to inexactness resulting from irrelevant misinterpretations so much so that the students end up blank upon the completion of the course. Moreover, the students are also bound to the course specifications since course specifications contain policies of the institution relating to exam cheating and dishonesty such as class conduct, plagiarism, and examinations policies and penalties on exam cheating. These terms and policies are common to most institutions though they may not be exactly the same. Through these measures, students come to view course specifications as a tool that inform their learning (Robertson, 2012) The Main Goal of Course Specifications The main goal of course specification is to acquit the learners with the requirement of the given course as is taught by the instructor.