Program Delivery

The Programs are designed to suit the needs of people in full-time employment. This has been done by the following course-delivery features:

The teaching year has been extended from the normal 28 weeks to 36 week. The purpose of this is not to increase the workload but to reduce its intensity. Thus, the course starts at the beginning of February and extends almost to the end of November. This includes a two-week mid-year break.

The ‘supply-side’ of information delivery has been made very efficient. Instead of attending lectures, taking notes and trying to make sense of these notes, students are given printed lecture notes, together with a list of tutors that students can contact at any time as they work through the notes at their own pace. The lecture notes are provided in the form of manuals, which also include attachment material, i.e. the type of material that in traditional courses students had to locate themselves, e.g. chapters from books, review articles, key government documents, etc. A typical manual consists of about 300-400 pages of lecture notes plus about 250 pages of attachment material. The chapters have been specially written for the course, usually by experienced practitioners working in the pharmaceutical industry or in bodies closely related to the industry. Each module (i.e. subject/course) is based on a manual of about 500-600 pages (more in some cases where a large body of attachment material is needed). Most of the attachment material is not assessable but provides reference material needed to support the lecture notes and to handle assignment material. Students are expected to read all the attachment material and consider its content in the light of the lecture notes and assignment work.

The streamlining of the provision of information means that more time can be spent on mastering concepts and learning to apply these concepts (the ‘heuristic approach’ to education). A major emphasis in the program is placed on assignment work based on critical appraisal of the primary (i.e. research) literature.

Tutorials and examinations are held out of normal business hours. Tutorials will be delivered by telephone and/or electronically. Where telephone tutorials apply these are generally held between 8 - 9 p.m. Workshops are held on weekends, and examinations are held on Saturdays.

Only one course at a time is studied. The teaching year is divided into four nine-week blocks and, generally, only one course is included in the block. All assessments take place during this block, and, once completed, there is no further assessment, such as a comprehensive examination at the end of the year.