Agresso Academic Database Product Information

The Academic Database has been developed as a commercially available management information system specifically designed for the Academic Community and Quality Assurance in the Higher Education sector.  The target user audience includes a wide cross-section of academic, administrative and executive staff currently involved in the creation, manipulation, validation and maintenance of the taught curriculum. 

For the first time in the United Kingdom a corporate software solution is available for academic staff, to support the activities associated with the creation of a robust and secure curriculum record including full version control and history.

Developed using the latest available technology the Academic Database can be distributed to a wide academic and administrative user audience achievable via browser based deployment on the intranet and extranet.

The system caters for the detailed definition of taught curriculum units (e.g. modules, courses, programmes etc.) to form a “programme specification” (consistent with the Quality Assurance Agency document - Guidelines for preparing programme specifications) including the use of level descriptors and subject benchmarks.

The implementation of quality assurance standards and curriculum management rules is parameter driven and can be tailored to suit different approaches to academic quality assurance (from a fully centralised CNAA–type model to a fully devolved model in which academic departments have full responsibility).

Units of curriculum are discretely held in specific areas of the system according to their current status, i.e. work-in-progress, approved and running, or archived.  This allows the re-use of existing curriculum as the basis for on-going development, whilst preserving version integrity and minimising data re-entry.

Special attention has been given to the requirements of the regulatory framework by which curriculum units are combined to form programmes of study leading to nationally recognised awards (the system conforms to the credit guidelines for HE qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as prepared by CQFW, HICATS, NUCCAT and SEEC). In particular the system empowers the flexibility of each individual institution within the structure of the guidelines with rules for credit accumulation to specific types of award, the proportions of modules required at different levels of study, rules for degree classifications etc.