Attributes of my approach of curriuclum development

1. How to develop an new curriculum in a short period? Often a curriculum development period takes some years. By using the available instruments you can bring it back to a half year
2. Use whatever is available. Especially the examples within the existing curriculum. Often, some teachers are forerunners in didactical approaches and implementing new contents.
3. Curriculum development is a design process, because there are no standard formats for a curriculum, there are however important standard criteria for a good curriculum..
4. Look for and apply relevant results of research, evaluation studies and good practices around curriculum models. (Explain why and how you use these)
5. Explain all decisions made in het design and development.
6. The teacher should be able to use the curriculum documents when designing and/or preparing his course.
7. The marketing office should be given  thorough descriptions of the program needed for a website, brochure, study guide (digital), etc.
8. Curriculum development is from the start also an educational change project.
9. From research  a number of quality criteria could be formulated for a curriculum in higher education.
10. Adjust to external requirements, like NVAO, requirements of the Educational institute. Prepare official documents parallel with the curriculum development project.
11. Apply the results of the visitation committee and explain how you respond. When writing a self study teachers will have important discussions. After the visitation most teachers start with a normal live: the advices will be discussed when necessary. That means , too late.

A curriculum description could be used for several purposes. Of course the documents have to be adapted to the specific users. But in principles all elements are available.

1. Designing and developing a new curriculum of to renew an existing curriculum. (1-5)(8.9)
2. official purposes. There exist a  significant overlap between the didactical documents for curriculum development and policy documents (for the NvAO, the Education committee of the faculty, the Board of the University, etc) . Often the didactical aspect are underexposed in the policy papers. The official topics are underexposed in the didactical documents. The transparency of the official documents van increase substantially when special didactical aspects of the involved programs are included in the official documents. A extra bonus is that preparing official documents take less time and the individual programs fit better in the policy of the educational institute. (10,11) For example the overlap between the didactical approaches in the programs of  a research university is significant. So, why not use each other experiences and the results of the educational research for the official and didactical documents.
3. designing and/or preparing a course by the teachers (6)
4. informing students (7)
5. use when introduce necessary changes because of the (in)formal visitation and the intern Quality assurance. It is far more easy to change a well describe curriculum: you can easily see the consequences of changes in the program.