Utilizing an Alignment Details Report

The Alignment Details Report

The Alignment Details Report for an Award (actually an Excel spreadsheet) contains all the details for a given Award, including which Job Profiles the Award targets, which Courses are included in the Award and which individual skills are taught in or missing from the Award.

The Main Sheets in the Report

The Alignment Details Report has five main sheets which give an overview of different aspects of the Award.

1] Summary 

Description: summary of the Award including title, Award level and Report date.

Best used for: quickly seeing the number of assigned and unassigned skills in the Award. This gives an indication of how well aligned the Award is. The objective is a high degree of alignment, but not necessarily perfect alignment.

2] Target Profiles and Courses 

Description: a list of Target Profiles and Courses in the Award, along with their identifiers (column A).

Best used for: quickly locating a Target Profile or Course identifier, which can then be used to find a Target Profile or Course on other sheets in the Report.

3] All Skills

Description: a list of all the skills in the Award, organized by skill category, which includes what Course each skill is taught in (if any), and how critical each skill is for each Target Job Profile.

Best used for: getting a big picture view of how the skills in the Award are mapped to the various Courses and Target Profiles.

4] Unassigned Skills 

Description: a filtered version of the All Skills page showing only unassigned skills, which Target Profiles they're coming from and how critical they are to those Target Profiles.

Best used for: discussions with faculty about what Courses the unassigned skills should be taught in, or if they should be omitted from the Award altogether.

5] Assigned Skills

Description: a filtered version of the All Skills showing only assigned skills, which Courses they're taught in, and if they are additional skills not needed by any Target  Profile.

Best used for: viewing which skills are taught in which Courses, identifying potentially irrelevant skills and if a Course is addressing too many or too few skills.

Additional Pages

In addition to the five main sheets, the Alignment Details Report has two additional sheets for each Course in the Award. The first details the Course Outcomes, while the second details the skills included in the Course.

6] Course Outcomes

Description: a list of the Course Outcomes for that Course which includes the Outcome identifier. If a Course does not include any Outcomes, this sheet will not be included for that Course.

Best used for: quickly locating an Outcome identifier, which can then be used to find the Outcome on the skills sheet for the Course.

7] Course Skills

Description: a list of skills in the Course and which Outcomes they're assigned to (if any).

Best used for: seeing if the skills being taught in the Course are assigned to the right Outcome(s).