• In the 2005 Curriculum Revision Exercise all programmes have articulated ILOs, so it can be as simple as copying directly. However, to ensure that the outcomes assessment exercise will not create excessive workload on staff, you may wish to concentrate on a smaller number of key programme outcomes that are of greatest interest/concern to the programme team or other stakeholders, or those that are more likely to sustain under the new 4-year undergraduate degree structure.

• Again, it may be useful to use this opportunity to review and further refine these. In this case, the following three points might be useful for you to consider:

• Check whether the stated ILOs cover both profession-specific and generic outcomes.

• Don't try to include too many programme learning outcomes. About 12 is a good number to give you a comprehensive overview of your programme without making the exercise unwieldy.

• Keep them realistic: if you are too ambitious in setting learning outcomes that might be difficult for undergraduate students to attain, you will then be accountable and need to explain why they might not have been achieved. On the other hand, if you set outcomes that are too easily attainable you will not be offering your students the opportunity to extend themselves.

• Note that, although you are not required to do so in this LOAP exercise, for the purpose of accreditation or accountability audit, your programme might be expected to demonstrate:
  • How these ILOs actually align with your programme missions and goals, and
  • How these ILOs will be realized through your curricular and co-curricular activities.

Curriculum maps that show the relationship between programme goals and programme ILOs, and between programme ILOs and where in the programme each ILO is to be introduced, reinforced and assessed is a useful tool to accomplish this.