Sofia goes live at University of East Anglia

Sofia, the curriculum mapping tool developed by Isotoma in conjunction with Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine, has been rolled out at UEA, the University of East Anglia. 

Isotoma and Norwich Medical School have been working together over the past year to map out the school’s entire curriculum, and recreate it within Sofia in a way that will allow students to visualise and plan their studies throughout their time at UEA.

Sofia shows how lectures, practicals, tutorials, and homework link together, and how each skill learned relates to another. This is essential in helping UEA demonstrate to the General Medical Council (GMC) that its course gives students the knowledge and skills to succeed in medicine. 

With the launch of Sofia, Norwich Medical School no longer has to worry about the ongoing logistical nightmare of attempting to provide evidence to the GMC manually; Sofia takes care of that.

UEA, like all other UK universities and colleges were impacted by the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), created in 2017. The TEF was created by the government to help students judge the teaching quality of the universities they are interested in applying for. (Learn more about the background to the creation of TEF here).

Sofia was launched at Imperial in 2018 and quickly generated interest from universities both in the UK and abroad. UEA is the first subsequent launch of the tool, and work is currently underway to deliver Sofia to Swansea University Medical School and the veterinary school of University College Dublin. 

Though TEF is technically a voluntary exercise, it has been taken up throughout the UK by learning institutions and is likely to become more formalised in time. 

As Isotoma director and co-founder Andy Theyers explains;

“With the sudden focus on digital delivery across higher and further education caused by COVID-19 Sofia has really come into its own; giving students direct access to the context of their learning in an accessible and easily digestible way.“

Curriculum mapping addresses some of the most technically challenging requirements of TEF which universities and colleges have to contend with, and offers significant benefits to students and staff outside of any compliance benefits. It can be a daunting task, but is one which Sofia was built to make easier.

To find out more about how Sofia could benefit your university or college, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.