Purpose

To ensure that Unit Guides provide a consistent and public source of information about coursework units offered by Macquarie University as evidence of a well-planned high quality process of learning and teaching.

• undergraduate coursework units with a teaching start date of 30 July 2012 or later
• postgraduate coursework units with a teaching start date of 1 January 2013.

Overview

A Unit Guide provides students with a concise and public source of information about a coursework unit, including, but not limited to, the aims, expected outcomes, structure and requirements of a unit of study. Students may use unit outlines to make decisions about programs of study and to manage their workload during a session. They also serve to introduce students to the expectations, values and priorities of Macquarie University as a community of learners and teachers.

For teaching staff, developing a Unit Guide can be a stimulus to reflection on the nature and purposes of teaching in a discipline, a faculty and in a university. Unit Guides may be considered as evidence of a staff member’s effectiveness as a teacher, and successive Unit Guides can be used to demonstrate the development of a teacher’s approach to learning and teaching over time. In these ways, Unit Guides are a valuable resource for writing the learning and teaching section that forms part of an application for promotion.

Scope

The Policy

Every coursework unit offered by Macquarie University, including all seminar and zero credit point units, will have its own Unit Guide.

Units that are co-badged with another Macquarie unit, or units, will each have a separate Unit Guide that details different learning outcomes and assessment requirements.

Each Unit Guide will be written and available in English.

Each Unit Guide will be available in either printed and/or electronic form no later than the first officially scheduled class, or in the case of students studying online or externally, the date of commencement of the unit, whichever is the earlier.

All Unit Guides remain the property of Macquarie University.

The contents of the Unit Guide will be reviewed in concert with periodic reviews of the unit.

- full unit title
- unit code
- owning Faculty
- teaching Department(s)
- credit point value
- study period and year of offering
- name and contact details of the Unit Convenor and all other staff involved in teaching the unit
- whether the unit is co-badged and if so, the unit code and title of the co-badged unit
- unit description (as a minimum to match the Handbook entry)
- technology used and required
- expected learning outcomes
- graduate capabilities developed
- summary of the assessment tasks students must undertake to demonstrate their learning
- what is required to complete the unit satisfactorily
- extension requests
- examination conditions
- required unit materials and/or recommended readings
- link to the University’s academic honesty policy
- link to the University’s special consideration policy
- short statement about any changes made to previous offerings of the unit