MQCMS is now live: here’s what you need to know

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Wednesday 17 July was a big day in the land of Macquarie CMS. This was the day our Curriculum Management System – now known as MQCMS – went live, marking a significant milestone in our curriculum transformation journey. 

Many teams, in fact hundreds of individuals, have been working hard for nearly 18 months to deliver our new MQCMS. So, congratulations and well done to the project teams and users who have helped to get us to this point.

It’s a complex project with diverse stakeholders across the University. Today we’re keen to share a back to basics overview of the system and let you know how you can access MQCMS training and support.  


What exactly is a Curriculum Management System, or CMS? 

A Curriculum Management System (often referred to as a CMS) stores curriculum data and assists with development, mapping, approvals and publishing of curriculum items (ie courses, units and course components). Ours is now known as Macquarie University Curriculum Management System – or MQCMS for short.

Who uses/interacts with MQCMS at Macquarie?

Whilst the majority of MQCMS users are faculty-based staff, both academic and professional staff from across the University can collaborate in the MQCMS. This includes librarians, property and marketing teams. Academic staff can collaborate in the co-design of new courses or co-teaching opportunities. Faculty Boards and other governance committees will use information in the system to generate agendas, share documents and host meetings.

The MQCMS is a work tool for MQ staff, not students. The system will certainly sit behind (and enhance) our student-centred deliverables including the Handbook and the new CourseFinder. The system will enhance the coursework review process and provide a nimbler approach to management of our coursework lifecycle.

What benefits will it deliver to staff?

The MQCMS provides a new curriculum system to give staff one ‘single source of truth’ for all activity relating to our Macquarie curriculum (courses, units etc). It brings together aspects of the multiple systems we currently use (such as webforms and spreadsheets), streamlining the curriculum management process and providing an overall better user experience for staff. This includes improved version control and data quality, automated (and transparent) workflows within the system and improved opportunities for collaboration…to name a few.

In a recent interview, Kerri Mackenzie, Senior Education Program Officer in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences described it like this:

“Although the new system is replacing several others, we haven’t just taken everything existing and squeezed them into one new place. It’s a new, efficient and intuitive system, where course development tools are connected, captured in the same place and visible to everyone. It will have better reporting and notification functions, enabling consultation and decision-making. By moving all aspects to one platform, we are supporting good governance whilst also eliminating the double-handling that happens now.”

How does the new MQCMS benefit students?

In short, the system promises to deliver a more accurate handbook and up-to-date unit and course materials. As we become more confident in using the system academics with teaching responsibilities will save time and effort in maintaining their course and unit offerings each teaching cycle. Streamlined and optimised development, amendments and review systems will simplify processes and provide busy academics with more time to focus on what really matters…which is empowering our students to succeed.

What kind of support activities have been delivered in preparation for go-live?

Whilst the Program team have been working with faculties since last year to understand how best to work with them to deliver training and support, the activity has stepped up a notch in the preceding weeks. For instance, we’ve conducted faculty-based User Acceptance Training (UAT) workshops, delivered faculty-based training sessions, train-the-trainer workshops and scheduled drop-in sessions for the remainder of the year.

What kind of support is being offered after go-live?

Over the next six months the Program Beacon team will work with faculties to embed the system across the organisation. The team have developed training to meet the faculties’ requirements and workshops to support committee servicing and member participation. We’re also working with faculty leaders to build awareness of the systems capabilities through a ‘Train the Trainer’ model. Over 250 people have already registered for training over the coming weeks, so there’s clearly an appetite to get skilled up!

Visit the MQCMS Toolkit to access resources including process maps, videos and training material.

Will there be future releases of the MQCMS? 

Whilst this is an important release (Release 2), there are two more Releases already planned for the coming months. Release 3 will deliver the Handbook and a Double Degree advisor, while Release 4 will happen in the first half of 2020 and is all about replacing the current CourseFinder.

For any team members who might need more detailed information around this, or any of the other Program Beacon streams of work, why not sign up for “Beacon Bytes” by emailing beacon@mq.edu.au?


Register for training using our online training registration form

Visit MQCMS here

 

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