Understanding the Education Modification Cycle (EMC) Process at WU
The Education Modification Cycle (EMC) is the annual process through which Wageningen University updates all courses and study programmes for the coming academic year. The EMC is the source for the new Study Handbook, the programme-specific part of the Education and Examination Regulations (EER), but also for the Student Information System (Osiris) and for the agreements on how each course is funded. Every programme has to be programmed within its available budget.
In this article:
Contact: [email protected]
For deeper learning, try answering these questions for yourself before you read on:
- Do you know which tool is used to update the Study Handbook every year?
- Do you know the difference between how a course is taught and how it's funded?
- Can you name who has to approve a change to a course's learning outcomes?
- What do you think happens if a Programme Committee disagrees with a proposed change?
1. What is the EMC?
The EMC is the yearly cycle in which all Bachelor's and Master's courses and programmes are reviewed and, where needed, updated. Anyone who "owns" a course or a programme, a course coordinator, a Programme Director, a minor coordinator, has a role in this process. All participants log in via emc.wur.nl.
The EMC feeds directly into several systems. Everything that is entered and approved in the EMC tool becomes the official, published description of a course or programme in the Study Handbook. The same data also flows into Osiris, the university's Student Information System, and forms the basis for the funding agreements for each course.
The EMC covers a wide range of elements, including:
- Course descriptions: the basic facts published in the Study Handbook
- Learning outcomes: at both course and programme level
- Teaching methods: how a course is taught (e.g. lecture, practical, group work)
- Funding methods: how a course's funding is determined
- Assessment methods: how a course is examined
- Software: which applications students need for a course
- Skills learning trajectories: for BSc programmes
- Course codes and levels: the level of a course (introductory to advanced), determined using the Framework for course codes
- Programme structure: such as specialisations, minors and electives, as laid down in the Framework for Education
2. The EMC timeline
The EMC runs roughly from October to April each year, in a fixed sequence of steps:
- Oct–Nov: Programme Directors, minor coordinators and coordinators of free-choice courses meet several times to plan across programmes. In parallel, course coordinators enter existing and new courses into the EMC tool, and minor coordinators finalise their minor programmes.
- Dec–Feb: Course coordinators apply for field trip budgets. Programme Directors finalise their programmes in the EMC tool, and Programme Committees receive an export of the proposed changes. The Examining Board also approves examiner and examination changes during this period.
- Mar–Apr: Programme Committees submit their formal written advice to the Board of Education, which reviews the programmes and courses in a preliminary meeting in March, followed by final approval in April.
- April: The Study Handbook editors process the final updates, and the new Study Handbook is published.
This is a simplified overview. For exact deadlines per academic year, see the detailed time schedule.
3. Who does what?
Several roles work together in the EMC, each with a different responsibility:
| Role | Role in the EMC |
|---|---|
| Course coordinator | Enters and updates course information in the EMC tool: descriptions, learning outcomes, teaching and assessment methods, software. |
| Minor coordinator | Enters and updates minor information in the EMC tool: descriptions, learning outcomes and finalises the program. |
| Programme Director (PD) | Has a quality-assurance role: finalises the programme, checks that courses fit together and stay within budget, and decides on issues such as course-level mismatches or new partially funded courses. |
| Programme Committee (PC) | Has a right of advice or approval on specific EMC fields, such as learning outcomes and specialisations. If a PC withholds its approval on a field where it has a right of consent, the proposed change cannot go ahead as submitted. Where the PC only has a right of advice, the Board of Education can still decide differently, but must explain why. (See the EER article for more on the difference between these two rights.) |
| Examining Board | Approves examiners and changes to how a course is examined. |
| Coordinator Programmes | Checks the programmes and courses submitted by Programme Directors, and prepares the decision-making by the Board of Education. Also receives field trip budget applications from course coordinators. |
| Risk assessment coordinator | Assess the risks within courses and measurements
taken in order to prevent these risks |
| Lead Minor coordinator | Coordinates minor programmes and acts as a liaison when a course has no obvious Programme Director. |
| Skills coordinator | Maintains how skills learning trajectories (e.g. communication, research skills) are visualised in the EMC tool, in dialogue with course coordinators and Programme Directors. |
| ESA / Study Handbook editors | Manage the EMC tool and publish the final Study Handbook. |
| Board of Education | Gives final approval for programmes and courses. |
A useful way to think about this: course coordinators supply the information, while Programme Directors use it for quality assurance. Checking that what is entered adds up to a coherent, fundable, well-structured programme.
4. The EMC tool
The EMC tool organises course information into a number of tabs. Below is a short introduction to each, with a pointer to the relevant instructions for more detail.
Course data & descriptions
The basic facts about a course (name, credits, period, target group) that are published in the Study Handbook.
Learning outcomes
What students are expected to know, understand, or be able to do after completing the course. Learning outcomes follow a fixed format (verb + object + context) and should be assessable. As part of their quality-assurance role, the Programme Director checks that a course's learning outcomes are well-written and align with the programme's learning outcomes, before the course is finalised in the EMC tool.
See: Guideline for writing and using intended learning outcomes at WUR
As generative AI becomes more and more a part of the changing professional and educational landscape, it is worth reflecting on how this may affect your course learning outcomes and assessment.
For more information read Quickstart guides: Course and Programme Design in Times of GenAI or contact: [email protected]
Teaching methods
How a course is taught, described in terms students recognise: lecture, tutorial, practical, field practical, excursion (one day or multiple days), group work, individual paper, or independent learning. These are the teaching methods published in the Study Handbook. A course's credits represent its total study load: contact time, self-study, assessment and other learning activities combined.
Funding methods
Each course is also linked to a funding method, which determines how the course is funded. Funding methods use their own, more detailed classification. For example, a practical can be funded differently depending on group size or the level of support staff involved in preparing it. These funding methods are not published in the Study Handbook; they use a different vocabulary from the study handbook teaching methods, since they serve a different purpose (staffing and budget, not informing students). Course coordinators and the responsible Programme Director agree on the funding methods together, and the Programme Director checks that the total cost of a programme's courses fits the available budget.
If a course coordinator is considering a (re)design of a course, it's worth discussing this with the Programme Director both beforehand and throughout the process. The available budget is an important constraint for any redesign.
Examination
The summative assessment methods used in a course, and the examiners appointed to oversee them.
For the assessment strategy, course coordinators select one or more prescribed assessment methods (e.g. written test, assignment, oral test) and, for each method, fill in details such as group or individual, minimum partial grade, weighting, validity period, and exam type/facilities. The validity period indicates how long a partial grade remains valid for a final pass of the course; the default is one academic year following the EER, but this can be changed or vary between assessment methods within the same course. Each assessment method is then linked to one or more learning outcomes, so it is clear which outcome each assessment covers.
Examiners are nominated by the chair holder responsible for the course and appointed by the Examining Board. As a general rule, examiners are expected to hold a University Teaching Qualification (UTQ/BKO); the exact requirements differ slightly depending on whether it concerns a regular course or an MSc thesis/internship. Examiners are appointed for one academic year and can be reaffirmed in following years.
See: Procedure to appoint examiners and to describe an examination
Software
Any software students need for a course must be registered here, so it can be made available through the WUR AppStore. Requesting software that isn't yet available follows a separate procedure.
See: Software
Skills (BSc programmes)
How skills learning trajectories (e.g. communication, research skills) are visualised in a course. Updates are made by skills coordinators, in consultation with course coordinators and the Programme Director, who is the process owner for skills implementation in the programme.
Course level
The level of a course (1–4, introductory to advanced) is determined by scoring the course's learning outcomes against a framework of five criteria: three related to complexity (depth, novelty of knowledge, complexity of application) and two related to autonomy & responsibility. Together, these scores indicate the most suitable course level.
If the current course code doesn't match the outcome of the framework, either the Programme Director adjusts the level in the tool, or the course coordinator adjusts the course content so it fits the current level.
The development of a student from their starting level after high school to their entry level at the labour market. Courses (and thesis/internship) gradually prepare the student for the next steps. Each course should increase the student's ability to deal with complexity and/autonomy & responsibility.
Programme structure
Beyond individual courses, the EMC is also where programme-level structure (specialisations, minors, electives) is finalised. The rules for this are set out in the Framework for Education, which Programme Directors use as the reference when proposing structural changes.
This is not an exhaustive list of everything the EMC tool covers. The further reading section below links to instructions for more specific processes, such as peer reviews and field trip budgets.
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