Course Coordinator Page

Overview list of course coordinator responsibilities - taken from UQ policy 

For the Blackboard course resources related to Course Coordination from ITaLI (requires login)

4.3.1 Course Coordinator

Course Coordinators are assigned by a Faculty or School and have primary responsibility to oversee the design, planning and delivery of a course (refer also to Course Design Policy).

Course Coordinators need to be familiar with key University policies on teaching and learning. In team- taught courses, the Course Coordinator has an important role in ensuring integration of teaching and assessment across different sections of and different contributors to the course.

Responsibilities may include but are not limited to:

• Providing leadership in course and curriculum development and implementation, quality assurance and improvement and professional accreditation where required.
• Negotiating, with a range of stakeholders, the goals and academic content of the course, the course assessment, and the mix of teaching methods that will be used.
• Managing course quality and continuous improvement processes.
• Monitoring the student experience and graduate outcomes through SECaTs and other internal and external quality assurance data sets/measures.
• Ensuring processes are implemented, reviewed and maintained to provide appropriate information on the course to students and other staff as appropriate.
• Course-specific training of tutors, markers, and other sessional staff associated with the course.
• Teaching into the course.
• Devising, providing, and managing the assessment of the course materials.
• The Course Coordinator has primary responsibility for ensuring that consistent, accurate and timely information is provided to students on all aspects of the course.

To ensure the course is appropriately aligned to the goals of the course, a key function of the Coordinator role is the liaison with stakeholders including:

• Students in the course.
• All contributors to teaching in the course.
• Program Convenors, Major Convenors, and Year Coordinators relevant to the course.
• Chair of the relevant School Teaching and Learning Committee.
• The Chief Examiner in the School.
• School professional staff (e.g. staff supporting laboratory, field or computer teaching).

These responsibilities should be read in conjunction with the Checklist of Specific Responsibilities for Course Coordinators (refer to Appendix B in section 6.2 below).

6.2 Appendix B – Checklist of Specific Responsibilities for Course Coordinators

Before the commencement of the teaching semester, Course Coordinators are responsible for:

• Liaising with the Program Convenor and School T and L Chair as appropriate regarding course objectives.
• Liaising with Course Coordinators of prerequisite courses to establish expected prior knowledge of students.
• Developing a coherent schedule/timetable for all learning activities and assessment in the course in collaboration with other contributors and in collaboration with Year Coordinators and Program Convenors, where appropriate.
• Liaising with professional staff to ensure that appropriate locally controlled space is booked as required – e.g. tutorial rooms, computer laboratories as necessary.
• Ordering textbooks and other learning resources at least 8 weeks prior to the commencement of a course.
• Liaising with Librarians for course resource list at least 8 weeks prior to the commencement of a course.
• Developing and submitting the Electronic Course Profile (ECP) for the course by the due date, in accordance with UQ PPL.
• Ensuring that appropriate tutorial staff are appointed and briefed on duties and expectations.
• Developing the Blackboard site for the course.
• Checking on SI-net at the start of semester for any changes to the timetable and venues and for class lists.
• Communicating in a timely fashion with all contributors (lecturers, tutors etc.) so that they are clear about the expectations of them in the course (including times, dates, places, deadlines).
• Understanding the resources available to support the course to ensure their appropriate management.

During the semester:

• Ensuring all items of assessment (including central exams and deferred exams) are prepared in a timely manner, and checked carefully for accuracy and clarity.
• Preparing a sample examination if exemption is sought from release of examination papers.
• Ensuring that all submitted assessment items are consistent with advice given in the ECP and consistent with the stated goals of the course.
• Managing the Blackboard site for the course.
• Training sessional staff in course-specific elements of their teaching and learning work.
• Ensuring that there are adequate opportunities throughout the course for students to evaluate their understanding through appropriate and timely formative feedback on work in progress, on progressive assessment tasks and other means.
• Ensuring that assessment is marked and returned in a timely fashion with appropriate feedback.
• Ensure examiners have arranged to provide the Examinations Section with their contact telephone number, or the contact telephone number of a delegate, to answer questions in relation to possible errors or ambiguity in the question paper.
• Taking overall responsibility for the quality of marking of exam papers, assignments and other summative assessment items and to give reliable final grades and ensuring that marks are appropriately moderated.
• Ensuring marks and recommended grades are submitted by the due date.
• Acknowledging notification of student Disability Action Plans.
• Responding to student feedback in accordance with UQ PPL.
• Referring incidents of suspected misconduct to an Integrity Officer or the Academic Registrar according to the Academic Integrity and Misconduct policy.
• Responding to requests from Faculty and Central Administration with regard to student progress and participation to inform decisions on withdrawal without academic and/or financial penalty.

After the semester:

• Providing students access to examination scripts and papers.
• Marking deferred exams.
• Setting and marking supplementary assessment.
• Managing the process of approved re-marking items of assessment in a fair and equitable manner.
• Finalising incomplete results within the required timeframes.
• Responding to student feedback from SECaTs and other tools in the development of the next offering of the course.
• Reviewing the course description for the following year.

Other tasks may be required in some courses, for example:

• Ensuring that the Risk Assessments and other compliance requirements for the course are current.
• Recognising possible ethical issues likely to be raised in the course and being prepared to address student concerns in this area.