Largescale, long-term learner models supporting flexible curriculum definition

Taking a view of curriculum design as the definition of a long-term learner model, we are exploring ways to capture the complex set of goals for tertiary institutions, their faculties, staff and students as well as accreditation requirements. This can serve several important goals: greater flexibility for students; providing academic staff with greater understanding and control of the curriculum; improved quality control at the level of school, faculty, university and more efficiency and effectiveness in accreditation procedures. This requires several ontologies: the graduate competencies and generic skills, the accreditation types and, the teaching methods. It also requires excellent user interfaces (UIs) for staff to maintain these. The paper describes the broad vision and reports experiences on the current implementation, particularly its value in ensuring for institutional and professional goals for generic skills as well as and its limitations especially in terms of scalability to the institutional level.