Start here
Start here
The EDLC in one page, a one-minute quick check, and a route in for the work you do.
The story in a page
The paper argues that most learning programs are built once, audited occasionally and improved rarely. The Education Development Lifecycle (EDLC) is a loop designed so each cohort can get a better version than the last.
If you already rewrite your program every term, the first sentence may not describe you. The paper's point is that what the rewrite learned rarely reaches the design on record.
In a minute, in a teacher's words: start from the standard you teach to, be it a syllabus, a unit or your own framework. Write the assessment task and its marking criteria before the lessons. Plan the sessions against the term you actually have.
Record which version of the program each class received. After the term, write down what did not work, and put the fix into next year's version rather than into your head.
The paper says this as ten stages, each ending in a review. Stages 1 to 8 design and release a program. Stages 9 and 10 run it with real learners and feed what is learned back into the design; the lifecycle walks all ten.
Two things to know before you read on. The model does not depend on a regulator: regulation sets how strict a gate is, not whether the stage exists. So a program nobody regulates uses the same stages with lighter gates.
And the model is a proposal. None of its effects has yet been tested, and the research agenda says how they would be.
Which route is yours
A route is a short path through the stages, not a copy of them. Pick the one that sounds like your week.
| Route | For | Starts at | Then |
|---|---|---|---|
| "I build courses" | Designers, resource developers, teachers writing programs | This page | Stage 2, Specify to stage 6, Develop; then stage 8, Validate and release, where your work is reviewed before use; the gate checklist; a worked example when one is published |
| "I teach and assess" | Trainers, teachers, facilitators | The loop | Stage 9, Deliver and observe and stage 10, Improve, and how what you notice travels back |
| "I run quality or a faculty" | Quality managers, curriculum leaders, associate deans | Your sector | What a gate is, versioning, curriculum debt (the cost of patches and ageing examples that build up unpaid) |
| "I lead an organisation" | Provider owners, heads of academies | If you pay for it, on the home page | Stage 9, Deliver and observe and stage 10, Improve, the paper's implications (§8), then the research agenda |
| "I study this" | Researchers, regulators | The paper | Sources, the research agenda |
If you bill by the unit, your route is "I build courses". It reaches a worked example with a real unit code only when one is published, and none is yet. Two are planned: TAEASS412 Assess competence, and one light, unregulated program.
Until then the route ends at the gate checklist. You can take it into a client's review as a list of questions, not as evidence of anything.
If you run programs nobody regulates, leadership workshops or coaching say, your route is "I build courses" or "I teach and assess". The workplace and soft skills section says where your standard comes from.
The model does not promise behaviour change. It asks you to write down what evidence would show it before you run the program. Then collect that evidence and treat it as a signal to investigate, never as a verdict.
Quick check
Ten questions, one per stage, each answered yes, partly or not yet. The result is a list of the stages to read first, with no score, no level and nothing about compliance.
The check runs in your browser and sends and stores nothing: no account, no submission, no cookies. Without script it is a plain list of the ten questions, each linking to its stage.