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Case study, Academy of Art University

Curriculum dashboards: one view of a whole degree

A catalog-wide rebuild forecast and department curriculum dashboards I conceived and built at Academy of Art University. They bring every course data source into one place so departments can review their whole degree and plan rebuilds proactively.

Role
Conceived and built
Context
Academy of Art University
Approach
Custom MCP servers, curriculum graph
Status
Piloted with first department

The idea

With a fixed number of course builds each year, the most valuable decision is where to invest them. Rebuilds are often prompted by what comes up during a term, such as student feedback, faculty requests, or a tool that has changed. I wanted to give departments a way to look ahead across their whole degree and plan rebuilds proactively.

The information needed to plan ahead already existed, but it was spread across systems built for different purposes. The version record shows when a course was last touched rather than when it was last rebuilt, the build history lives in a legacy tracker, and degree requirements, course ownership, and retention data each live in their own system. Bringing them together also made it possible to trace course and program outcomes down to where students are taught and assessed on them.

The pipeline

How the dashboards come together

  1. 1

    Six data sources

    Master List, version tracking, degree breakdowns, retention data, build history, and course catalog.

  2. 2

    Custom MCP servers

    SharePoint and Brightspace servers I built bring the data into one place.

  3. 3

    Curriculum graph

    Outcomes, content, and student work linked, course by course.

  4. 4

    Department dashboard

    Pathway, outcome mapping, course reviews, and a recommended rebuild order.

  5. 5

    Department planning

    Academic leaders review the evidence and plan rebuilds proactively.

    Human in the loop

What I built

  • A data foundation that connects the Master List and Version Tracking List (the SharePoint tracking systems I originally built), the Course Tracker's full build history, the curriculum office's degree breakdowns and catalog, and Tableau retention data.
  • A SharePoint MCP server that reads my two lists, and a Brightspace MCP server that reads the live courses, packaged as a Claude Desktop extension so my team installs it in one click.
  • A curriculum graph built from the live Brightspace courses, linking every program, course, and module outcome to content pages, assignments, quizzes, and discussions.
  • A catalog-wide rebuild forecast that separates a course's last update from its last true rebuild, using documented rules validated against known build histories.
  • Department dashboards for academic leaders, starting with an undergraduate design program.

A dashboard per department

Piloted with an undergraduate design program, each dashboard brings a department's whole degree into one place: the pathway, how its outcomes are supported by student work, and where to invest the next rebuilds.

  • In use

    Degree pathway

    Every required course by year and term, shaded by time since its last rebuild, with production status and advising slots.

  • In use

    Outcome mapping

    Module, course, and program outcomes traced to where each is taught and where student work is collected in assignments, quizzes, and discussions.

  • In use

    Course reviews and priorities

    An instructional design review of every course on the pathway, cross-course concept tracing, a recommended rebuild order with estimated scope, and priorities ranked by effort and student impact.

Illustrative views of the dashboard. The program, courses, and data shown are samples, not real course data.

Illustrative dashboard view of a four-year degree pathway, with each course shaded by time since its last rebuild.
The full degree pathway, shaded by time since each course's last rebuild.
Illustrative outcome mapping view tracing program outcomes to course outcomes and graded student work.
Program outcomes traced to where they're taught and where student work is collected.

Why it works

  • One place to see the whole catalog, across 23 departments and roughly 200 course builds a year, with each course's real rebuild age instead of its last-touched date.
  • Departments review their entire degree at once and plan rebuilds based on evidence across the full program.
  • Tracing program outcomes down to student work shows where each outcome is supported and where it can be strengthened, which also supports accreditation review.
  • Built on existing tools: self-contained pages on stable links, backed by a local database and refreshed by a weekly scheduled task.

Takeaway

The curriculum dashboards show how I build the connective layer an institution needs: custom tools that bring scattered data together, grounded in how courses are actually built and taught, so the people planning the work can see the whole picture.

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