The curriculum map: outcomes across courses

Marking where each program outcome is introduced, practised and mastered, and reading the gaps.

5 min read · For: Curriculum developers, curriculum management

A program’s PLO–CLO map is a grid: each course learning outcome on the left, each program learning outcome across the top. In every cell you say how far that course takes that outcome.

Reading it

• The default levels are Introduced, Practised and Mastered, shown by their letters. Your institution can rename them, change what they mean, or use more of them — up to six — under Settings → Curriculum mapping and framework.
• Detailed: each CLO is the full grid. Summary: each course collapses it to one row per course, which is the view most committees want.
• The warnings above the grid are the point of the exercise: an outcome with no course at the highest level means students may never demonstrate it at graduating level.
• Print friendly version, at the top right, lays the map out for a committee or an external reviewer, on paper or as a PDF. The versions list, the qualifications framework, the activity log and an assessment plan each have the same.

The same map from the course side

A course’s CLO–PLO map tab shows the same links from the other direction: this course’s outcomes, and what they carry in each program the course belongs to. A course used by four programs shows all four.

Where coverage shows up

• The dashboard reads the map to work out outcome coverage for each program.
• Learning assessment uses it to suggest where an outcome could sensibly be assessed early and at the end.
• The qualifications framework tab takes it one step further out: which degree-level standards each program outcome meets.