Curriculum mapping and assessment blueprinting

Why map your curriculum?

One way to ensure that your assessment is doing what you want it to do, and is assessing the intended learning outcomes of your programme is to map your curriculum and then overlay (or blueprint) your assessment methods onto that map. This can initially be a time consuming process. However, once complete, your curriculum map will enable you to reduce repetition in content, highlight areas that are missing or under-taught from your curriculum and ensure that you are using a coherent assessment strategy that assesses the intended learning outcomes of each course and of the programme as a whole.

Key points

  • Curriculum mapping enables you to interrogate your curriculum as a whole.
  • Assessment blueprinting allows you to ensure all course and programme ILOs are being assessed.

Further reading:

► CMAB presentation

► University of Glasgow CMAB case study

University contact:

Kimberly Davis

Keeping feedback in mind

Opportunities for feedback on formative assessment are also mapped during the CMAB process, to identify where students have access to feedback throughout the course. This is particularly useful for teaching teams in helping to identify where they might need to increase and/or decrease these opportunities.

Further information

For further information about curriculum mapping and assessment blueprinting, please see the Introduction to Curriculum Mapping and Assessment Blueprinting document‌, written by the Leading Enhancement in Assessment and Feedback (LEAF) team at the University of Glasgow. It contains also contains information about the Transforming Experience of Students Through Assessment (TESTA) process and there are links to TESTA here.