MBA Programme Review
Everything needed to walk into Breda's meeting tomorrow able to present and defend AI for Leaders cold, and to speak with authority about every module sitting next to it. Built outward in concentric rings: your module, then its neighbours, then the programme, then QQI. Every load-bearing claim is tagged verified, inferred or unverified.
Bottom line
You are not being examined tomorrow; you are the only person in the room who has read all seven descriptors end to end. Breda asked one question, cohesion, and the honest answer is that the programme is strong at module level and unfinished at programme level: the award stage has not been decided, PLO3 never got the amendment she agreed to in July, and AI is absent from three of the seven drafts. Say those three things plainly, early, and offer the fix for each. The deadline for final amendments is 28 August, so tomorrow is the last practical moment for any of them.
Three outcomes worth having by 12:00
| # | Outcome | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The award stage is settled out loud: one 20 ECTS slot, three pathways, and someone is asked to fix the Mandatory-versus-option contradiction. | Breda's decision. She already wrote it this way on 13 July; she just has not said it to the room. |
| 2 | PLO3 gets the AI accountability wording she agreed to on 14 July, in the file of record. | Five words in PLO MBA.xlsx. Offer to send the sentence today. |
| 3 | The AI mapping gap is on the record as a programme-level item, with your direction log offered as the ready-made fix. | One sentence in the review report and an offer of wording to the other owners. Costs you nothing. |
The first forty seconds
“I read all seven descriptors as a panel member and then as a learner. The programme is coherent in ambition and the individual modules are strong. Three things stood out, one of them mine to fix. Do you want them now or later in the agenda?”
What to raise, in order
- Award stage arithmetic. One 20 ECTS slot with three routes, so the programme totals 90. Dissertation says Mandatory, Simulation Project says option. Both cannot stand, and the Applied Research Project is about to be drafted on top of the ambiguity.
- PLO3. The live file still carries the old wording, so your module and Will's map to a PLO that does not exist. verified today
- Cohesion, answered honestly. Two assessment philosophies in one programme, and AI absent from three of seven descriptors. Better said by us than by a panel.
- Three factual defects in other people's drafts: Dissertation 400 hours for 20 ECTS, Dissertation “Capstone: No”, Strategic Planning naming a pre-requisite that is not on the programme.
- Two quick decisions: the validated-from date, and the shared-module approval Nicole Gross is waiting on.
Two hours, roughly
- You lead with your own module. The programme questions are the ones she asked; yours defends easily and can wait for its turn.
- Format becomes the conversation. Breda has QIE looking at layout and word count. Say so, offer to conform, move back to substance. Do not restyle anything this week.
- Will's capstone turns into a two-way debate. Support it publicly, praise the oral defence, and keep the structural point about position to one sentence. The rest goes to him privately.
Reread section 08 (what to raise) and the five-item box below. Have PLO MBA.xlsx and
Will's v0.3 open in tabs so any challenge is answered from the file rather than from memory. One
open item still unanswered: Will's mail of 20 August, 12:06.
- Your module currently has no PLO to map to. Breda agreed on 14 July to fold AI accountability into PLO3. The live
PLO MBA.xlsxon the Hub (modified 15 July) still carries the old wording. Verified today. Ask for it in the meeting; it is a five-word fix and a panel finds it in minutes. - The programme has two assessment philosophies in it, not one. Two of seven descriptors carry closed-book invigilated exams, one of them describing itself as “AI-resistant”. Yours assesses AI use as a graded capability. Breda asked about cohesion; this is the answer.
- AI lives in three of seven descriptors and is absent from three. Business Analytics mentions AI once, inside a reading-list blurb. Strategic Planning and Dissertation mention it zero times.
- The award stage is one 20 ECTS slot with three pathways, not three modules. Breda's own words, 13 July. The Dissertation descriptor says Mandatory; Will's Simulation Project says option. Both cannot stand.
- Two arithmetic errors are already in the folder: the Dissertation is 400 hours for 20 ECTS (should be 500 at NCI's own 25 h/credit), and Strategic Planning names a pre-requisite module that is not on the programme.
Who is in the room
| Person | Role | Why they matter tomorrow |
|---|---|---|
| Breda McTaggart | Dean, chair | Owns the structure, the PLOs, the award-stage decision and the validated-from date. She set the agenda question. Answer it directly. |
| Gaia Barone | Vice Dean | Quality and compliance lens. The one most likely to care about template consistency and the credit table adding up. |
| William Hogan | Associate/Adjunct, School of Business | Author of the Simulation Project capstone v0.3, uploaded yesterday 11:33. You already sent him detailed feedback. Support him publicly; the two open points go to him privately. |
| Corina Sheerin | School of Business | Finance and economics side. Business Analytics is the likely home.inferred |
| Joe Naughton | School of Business | Module ownership unconfirmed.unverified |
| Robert Macdonald | School of Business | Module ownership unconfirmed.unverified |
| Valerie McTaggart | NCI and ATU (invited on both addresses) | Module ownership unconfirmed.unverified |
Not in the room but relevant: Nicole Gross (coordinator of ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business, and waiting on Breda to approve AI for Leaders as a shared module before she folds it into her programme) and Ursula Finlay (author of the ESG descriptor).
The agenda question, in her words
“Before we meet tomorrow, could I ask you to review the material that is currently there through the lens of both a panel member and a learner? In particular, consider whether the programme is cohesive, whether the modules align effectively, and whether there is any unnecessary duplication. We can then discuss and share our thoughts during tomorrow's meeting.”
Breda McTaggart, 20 August 2026, 09:38 verified
That is the whole agenda. Section 08 of this pack is written as the answer to it, in the order it should come out of your mouth.
Her second mail, two hours later
“One observation, and something I had not thought about, is the expected layout, wordcount per sections in modules. We are all working from what we are familiar with and it varies. Hence, I will ask QIE colleagues what the expectation for this is and get back to you.”
Breda McTaggart, 20 August 2026, 09:40 verified
Do not offer to restyle anything, and do not apologise for your descriptor being longer or differently laid out than the others. The house standard is an open question she has escalated. If someone raises format, the correct answer is “Breda has QIE looking at exactly that; happy to conform to whatever comes back.” Then move the conversation back to substance.
The ten modules she listed, and where they stand
| # | Module | ECTS | In the folder? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Research Methods (School module) | 10 | no |
| 2 | Management and Leadership in Professional Practice | 10 | yes |
| 3 | AI for Leaders: Direction, Verification and Accountability | 10 | yes |
| 4 | Entrepreneurial Dynamics | 10 | no |
| 5 | Business Analytics for Economic and Financial Decision Making | 10 | yes |
| 6 | Strategic Management (descriptor is titled “Strategic Planning and Management”) | 10 | yes |
| 7 | ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business | 10 | yes |
| 8 | Dissertation | 20 | yes |
| 9 | Simulation Project | 20 | yes (uploaded 20 Aug 11:33) |
| 10 | Applied Research Project | 20 | no. She wants to see the whole before drafting it |
Seven descriptors are in Draft Modules. All seven have been read for this pack.
The one sentence
“It is a ten-credit Term 1 core module that teaches managers the four things that stay theirs when AI does the analysis: framing the problem, directing the system, verifying what comes back against evidence, and standing over the result in front of a board or a regulator.”
Thirty seconds, if she says “walk us through yours, Victor”
“Ten credits, Term 1, core, shared across programmes. No programming and no maths background assumed. Twelve weeks in five blocks: what AI is and where the value is, how it works at the level a leader needs, then the load-bearing middle on directing and verifying, then governance and the EU AI Act, then the augmented organisation. From week three every learner carries one real problem from their own organisation, and that single problem becomes both assessments. Assessment is one hundred per cent continuous, no exam: a thirty per cent specification brief at week six, and a seventy per cent applied project at week twelve where they hand in something that actually runs plus the evidence that it works. Both come with a direction log, which is the record of what they asked the AI, what it gave back and what they did about it. That log is the authorship evidence and it is also the artefact an organisation would have to produce on audit.”
Three minutes, if she gives you the floor
“The design problem was this. A module written in 2026 for first delivery in 2028 cannot have its credit resting on which tools exist. So the learning outcomes are anchored to capabilities that get more valuable as the technology gets better: framing, direction, verification, governance, and leading a team through the change. The tools sit in a vendor-neutral laboratory that is refreshed every delivery and published as a dated one-page annex to the Programme Committee, stating what was added, what was retired, and confirming the outcomes and weightings are unchanged. That is how the module stays current without coming back to validation, and the annex is the audit trail that proves only the medium moved.
Second, the governing test throughout is capability rather than dependency. The module has to leave the graduate more able to direct and account for these systems, never more reliant on them for the judgement only a person can own.
Third, assessment. Both components are done from home and are not invigilated, and that is deliberate rather than a concession. Directing AI well is the capability the module develops, so competent AI use is part of what is assessed, not something to be policed out. Authorship is evidenced three ways: the reasoning trail in the direction log, the verification evidence, and a working artefact the learner has to demonstrate. An accountability statement cross-references every claim to a specific piece of evidence, and states what was not verified. An honest account of a failed verification scores well. An unsupported claim of success is marked in the fail band. That is the opposite of a module you can hand to a chatbot.
And it is designed as the anchor of AI capability in the programme, not its container. The specification, verification and governance practices established here are available to everything downstream, which is exactly what Will has built on in the capstone.”
The facts, if anyone checks
The five learning outcomes, in one line each
- LO1 Judge the systems. Frontier and agentic AI, what they need, how they fail, the uneven capability frontier and silent error, so a manager knows where they can and cannot be trusted.
- LO2 Direct them. Specify the work on a real ambiguous task, set autonomy limits and stop conditions, integrate outputs into a decision the learner can defend.
- LO3 Verify them. Design and run a verification regime: acceptance criteria, a reference set, a measured comparison, exposing error that would otherwise pass.
- LO4 Govern them. EU AI Act provider and deployer duties, bias, fairness, data justice, environmental and labour cost, provider concentration, so use is auditable and humanly accountable.
- LO5 Lead through them. Organisational, cultural and change requirements; a defended plan keeping teams capable, motivated and accountable, including reskilling, role redesign and consultation duties.
Mapping note in the descriptor: LO2 and LO3 are the home of the amended PLO3 on professional accountability for AI-assisted outcomes; LO4 carries governance; LO2 and LO5 carry communication to specialist and non-specialist audiences. See section 04: that amended PLO3 is not yet in the Hub file.
The five blocks
| Block | Weeks | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| A AI in the global business landscape | 1–2 | What AI is and is not, where value already sits, data as a strategic asset, provenance and consent, data justice. |
| B How AI works, at the level a leader needs | 3–4 | ML, neural networks, generative and agentic systems conceptually. Reading model documentation and system cards as primary evidence. The uneven capability frontier and silent failure. |
| C Directing and verifying intelligence | 5–8 | Load-bearing. Specification before generation. Autonomy limits and stop conditions. Building a reference set of ten to thirty cases, checkable acceptance criteria, measured comparison. Calibration. Reviewing delegated agent runs. Reproducibility and version dependence. |
| D Operating realities, governance, regulation | 9–10 | Load-bearing. Cost, latency, security, data protection. Model risk in the finance function. Build versus buy. Responsible AI as routine, not principle. Governance sized to a small firm with no compliance function. Environmental footprint including Irish grid constraints. The EU AI Act: provider versus deployer, prohibited practices, the Article 4 literacy duty. What a manager does after the error. |
| E The augmented organisation | 11–12 | Strategic implementation and business case. Change models named explicitly. Reskilling and role redesign. The erosion of entry-level roles and the duty to rebuild the development pathway. Worker consultation under Irish and EU law. |
Blocks are deliberately unequal. Where time is constrained, Block E is delivered through the applied project rather than as separate taught sessions, with its content retained in the brief, the week eleven surgery and the adoption and change plan inside CA2. That is written into the descriptor, so the change outcome is taught and assessed at every delivery.
Assessment, precisely
| CA1: AI Opportunity and Specification Brief | CA2: Applied AI Project and Accountability Report | |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 30% | 70% |
| When | Week 6 | Week 12 |
| Outcomes | LO1, LO2 | LO1–LO5 |
| Internal split | Brief 20, verification appendix 10 | Artefact 25, verification evidence 25, report 35, accountability statement 15 |
| Length | 1,500–2,000 words excl. appendix | 3,500–4,000 words excl. artefact and evidence |
| Submitted with | Direction log | Direction log, working artefact or recorded demonstration, verification evidence, signed accountability statement, one-page plain-language briefing |
“The learner has produced something that works and has demonstrated, with their own evidence, that it works; or, where the verification evidence shows the system cannot meet the acceptance criteria for the task, that the learner has documented this rigorously and made a defended recommendation against deployment. The assessed capability is verified judgement, not product success.”
Formative scaffolding, since a panel always asks
- Week 3 problem pitch, peer and tutor critique. Problem confirmed with the lecturer.
- Week 6 CA1 marked, carries its own weight, and reviews viability of the carried problem.
- Week 9 verification plan review: draft acceptance criteria and candidate reference set get written feed-forward.
- Week 11 project surgery against the published criteria.
- Three checkpoints carry no marks, each produces a short record the learner carries into the direction log, and a missed checkpoint is completed asynchronously within one week counting identically.
- A worked exemplar of both components, on a problem no learner may reuse, is released before the first assessment is due.
On assessment, which is where the pressure will come
How do you know the student wrote it, if nothing is invigilated?
Three independent sources of evidence, none of which is a claim. The direction log is a dated record of the material prompts, the significant outputs and the decisions taken, including outputs rejected or corrected. The verification evidence is the learner's own reference set, their acceptance criteria and the measured comparison, with the correct answers established independently of the system under test. The artefact has to run on real inputs and be demonstrated. Fabricating a coherent set of all three, on a problem the learner pitched in week three and defended at three formative checkpoints, is harder than doing the work.
Then the closing move: the accountability statement cross-references every claim to a specific item of evidence and states what was not verified. An honest account of a failed verification is credited. An unsupported claim of success is marked in the fail band, against criteria carrying 40 of the 100 marks. That is a design where bluffing is the losing strategy.
Two other modules use closed-book proctored exams for exactly this reason. Why are you the exception?
Do not frame it as an exception, and do not attack the other modules. Frame it as fitness for purpose.
“An invigilated exam is a good instrument when the thing you are certifying is unaided recall and reasoning, and I would not argue against it where that is the outcome. But this module's outcome is the competent, governed direction of AI systems. You cannot assess that by removing the systems from the room. Excluding AI from the assessment of a module about AI would test the opposite of what it credits.”
Then the constructive close: “What matters at programme level is that the mix is deliberate and that we can say why each module chose what it chose. That is a good thing for the review report to state explicitly rather than leave a panel to infer.”
Is a hundred per cent continuous assessment defensible at Level 9?
Yes, and there is precedent inside the same folder: ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business is 100% coursework, the Dissertation is 100% project, Strategic Planning and Management is 100% project. QQI's Masters award standard does not prescribe an examination and the NFQ Level 9 grid asks for “research or equivalent tools and techniques of enquiry”. The module also has two linked components rather than one, so the early conceptual learning is assessed and fed back before it is built upon.
Seventy per cent on one component is a lot of risk on one submission.
It is one submission with five separately weighted elements inside it (artefact 25, verification 25, report 35, accountability statement 15), each of which can carry marks independently, and it is preceded by a marked CA1 at 30%, a week nine verification plan review and a week eleven surgery. A learner arriving at week twelve has already had their acceptance criteria and reference set commented on in writing. The failure mode a panel worries about, a student discovering in week twelve that they got it wrong, is designed out.
What if a learner has no employer, or their employer will not let them use AI tools on company data?
Three routes, all assessed to the same criteria, none carrying an advantage: their own organisation subject to confidentiality; a curated bank of real problem briefs maintained by the module team from case organisations, published company situations and public and voluntary sector sources; or an organisation they research independently.
Where the organisation restricts external AI or the data cannot leave, the problem is still theirs: the artefact is built and demonstrated on synthetic, anonymised or public data inside College-provided tools, and the restriction itself becomes part of the specified problem. That is the realistic case for most Irish managers and the module treats it as content, not as an obstacle.
What stops a learner losing access to their problem halfway through?
CA1 closes with a viability statement on access to the organisation, data and stakeholders, reviewed at marking. If a problem later proves unworkable it may be exchanged, including from a maintained bank of backups, with no mark penalty for the change itself; the specification work is repeated in compressed form with tutor guidance.
On currency and durability
This is validated in 2026 for first delivery in 2028. Will it not be obsolete?
This is the question the whole design answers, so take it head on.
“The credit does not rest on any product. The outcomes are framing, direction, verification, governance and leading augmented teams, and every one of those becomes more valuable as the systems get better, not less. The tools sit in a vendor-neutral laboratory refreshed at each delivery, published as a dated one-page annex to the Programme Committee recording what was added, what was retired, which capability boundaries moved, and confirming the outcomes, assessment strategy and weightings are unchanged. The validated element is the durable capability; the annex is the evidence that only the medium of instruction moved.”
Worth adding: the reading list has a primary and current band refreshed at every delivery alongside the annex, so currency is a scheduled maintenance task with a named holder, not a hope.
Who does that maintenance, and what happens if you leave?
Written into the descriptor: the recurring maintenance (tools annex, reading list review, bank of backup problems, worked exemplars) is held by the module team, not by any individual, and the annual annex records which member holds each. On staffing, where a single lecturer does not combine the academic and applied profile, the applied profile is met by the delivery team collectively with at least one member holding it each delivery, and may be supported by a contributing practitioner engaged for specified sessions and for calibration of applied marking.
Is the tools annex a way of changing a validated module without validation?
No, and the wording is deliberate. The annex may change only which systems are used to teach a capability. It cannot alter a learning outcome, the assessment strategy, the weightings, the rubric or the threshold standard, and it states so on its face, is approved by the owning committee and is notified to every adopting programme committee. Anything beyond that is an amendment through the normal route.
On the shared-module design
How can one module serve the MBA and other programmes without diluting?
All programmes use the same briefs, rubrics and grade descriptors. Delivering lecturers meet before each teaching term to align the session plan, the tools selection and the briefs. Markers calibrate on a common sample before each marking period. A joint moderation meeting reviews a cross-programme sample spanning all bands and including every fail, and the full cross-programme distribution goes to the external examiner as a single module cohort. Where an approved cohort-scaled brief applies, scaling changes the context and scope of the task only; outcomes, weightings, rubric and threshold are identical everywhere.
Ownership: the master descriptor is owned by the MBA Programme Committee on behalf of all adopting programmes; each adopting programme names a local coordinator and maps the outcomes to its own programme outcomes at adoption.
Nicole is waiting for approval to use it. What is the status?
Factual and neutral: Nicole confirmed on 20 August that she will integrate it into her programme once Breda approves it as a common shared module. So there is a live decision sitting with Breda. Ask for it in the meeting, since it also determines who owns the master descriptor and where amendments are approved. It is a two-minute item that unblocks another programme.
On level, rigour and inclusion
No programming required. Is that Level 9?
The Level 9 demand is not technical difficulty, it is critical judgement under uncertainty and autonomy in complex contexts. The artefact is defined by capability rather than code: a directed and documented AI-assisted workflow, an orchestrated set of prompts or agent instructions with outputs, a no-code automation, a decision-support process or a software build. At every level the requirement is identical, that it runs on real inputs and the learner proves with their own evidence that it works. Designing a verification regime that exposes silent error, and standing over what you did not verify, is harder than writing code.
Is a reference set of ten to thirty cases statistically meaningful?
The descriptor already concedes and teaches exactly this: a set of that size supports “a pattern worth acting on rather than a precise rate”. It also teaches sampling for review when checking everything is impossible, keeping verification independent of generation, and the known weaknesses of asking one AI system to judge another. Naming the limit is the point of the exercise.
Learners from non-cognate backgrounds, or studying in a second language?
Plain-English glossary of every technical term in the descriptor from week one; a complete worked exemplar of both components released before the first is due; the opening session is a structured walk-through of the descriptor itself so every cohort gets the same account of the module; tools are checked for assistive-technology compatibility before each delivery and where a tool is not accessible an equivalent accessible route to the same outcome is provided as a matter of course.
Does this require students to pay for AI tools?
No, and it is written in: where a tool requires a paid tier the College provides institutional access or a free alternative of sufficient capability, and no assessed task may require personal payment by the learner. The module does require institutional access to a general-purpose assistant at enterprise or education tier, under terms where learner inputs are not used for training. That is a College resourcing decision, not a module one. See section 09.
On duplication, which is the agenda question
Does your module duplicate ESG on AI ethics and the EU AI Act?
There is a real adjacency and you should name it before anyone else does. ESG carries AI ethics under its LO2 and a whole indicative-content theme on digital transformation, algorithmic bias, surveillance and the governance of AI. Your LO4 carries the EU AI Act, provider and deployer duties, bias, fairness and data justice.
The clean settlement, and it is already written into your section 5: ESG owns the ethical reasoning and the frameworks; AI for Leaders owns the operating duties on a system the learner is actually directing. ESG asks “is this right”. AI for Leaders asks “what must I do, log, escalate and disclose”. Your descriptor already commits the module owner to agreeing the boundary with other module owners before each delivery. Propose copying that one sentence into ESG and into the capstone, and treat tomorrow as the first exercise of it.
Does Will's capstone duplicate your module?
It did in v0.1. It largely does not in v0.3, and Will fixed it himself before seeing any feedback. Say that in the room; it is true and it is generous.
What remains is continuity rather than duplication: the direction log, acceptance criteria, reference set and measured comparison recur in the capstone because they were established in Term 1 and are being used at organisational scale. His own boundary table says the capstone “does not reassess technical foundations or require a second AI artefact”. Name that recurrence as evidence of programme cohesion, not overlap, and ask that his descriptor state the inheritance explicitly.
One settlement to propose out loud: your mapping note claims LO2 and LO3 as the home of AI accountability; his says his LO4 carries it. Both are right in sequence. Proposed wording for both descriptors: introduced and first assessed in AI for Leaders, demonstrated at organisational scale in the capstone.
Why Term 1? Would it not sit better later, once students have context?
Your own answer from 14 July, and Breda accepted the structure: it is an enabling layer, not a specialist elective. Strategic Management, Business Analytics, Entrepreneurial Dynamics and the award stage all now assume learners can direct AI tools, verify what comes back and stand over the result. If that arrives in Term 2 or 3, the modules that depend on it have already run. It also pairs naturally with Research Methods, since both teach evidence discipline and verification, and with the Leadership module, which carries the accountability thread.
On 14 July you told Breda that no programme learning outcome required a graduate to direct AI and take professional accountability for AI-assisted work, which left a 10 ECTS Term 1 core module with nothing to map to. She replied the same day, 14:31:
“I will add in what you have suggested for 3 to keep them at the 8.”
Breda McTaggart, 14 July 2026 verified
The live file General/Working Documents/Programme Learning Outcomes/PLO MBA.xlsx, modified 15 July 2026 07:55, was downloaded and read today. Proposed PLO3 still reads:
“Analyse organisational, industry, and external factors to support strategic and operational decisions in conditions of uncertainty.”
PLO MBA.xlsx, live Hub copy, read 20 August 2026 verified
So the amendment has not landed in the document of record. Your descriptor's mapping note, Will's capstone mapping note and the AKARI record all reference an amended PLO3 that the Hub file does not contain. A panel opening the PLO sheet next to your descriptor finds this immediately.
Wording to use, gently, since she agreed to it already: “Breda, one small housekeeping point. You kindly agreed in July to fold the AI accountability wording into PLO3. The sheet on the Hub still carries the old version, so at the moment my module and Will's both map to a PLO that is not there yet. Could we settle the exact wording today and get it into the sheet before the 28th?”
Your original proposal, ready to read out: “Apply and evaluate advanced business skills, research methods and AI systems to investigate complex problems, analyse data and develop evidence-based solutions, taking professional accountability for AI-assisted outcomes.”
Entry requirement. Your descriptor says “As per the programme entry requirements. No additional module-level entry requirement applies”, and you flagged the blank as a validation risk in the comparator work. Breda answered on 20 August 09:17: a 2.2 degree, and noted the award will be built as a separate programme as well as an MBA module, with space for it elsewhere on the descriptor document. That can be filled in now. verified
Validated-from date. The AKARI record holds July 2026; the descriptor proposes first delivery 2028/29 and the field reads TBC. Ask for it to be settled in the meeting and minuted, because everything downstream (module code, handbook, adopting programme records) waits on it.
Smaller items, worth clearing before 28 August
| Item | Current state | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Module title | Descriptor header still says “Title provisional pending the Dean's decision” | Breda coined “AI for Leaders” herself and uses it in her own module list. Ask her to confirm it is final so the provisional note can come out. |
| AKARI Long Title | Still carries a trailing “ DRAFT” | Cosmetic, does not block review. Fix via the Chrome sidebar when convenient. |
| AKARI Module Coordinator | May print blank on export | Same pass as above. |
| Authors field | Blank in the descriptor | Fill in before the 28th. |
| Module code | TBC, assigned by QIE | Not yours. Flag it, do not chase it. |
| Owning committee | Descriptor proposes the MBA Programme Committee owns the master on behalf of all adopting programmes | Needs confirming, and it is bound up with Nicole's shared-module approval. One decision, two problems solved. |
Contact-hour drop order, per-programme calibration of the scaled brief, external examiner sight of briefs before first delivery, certification pairing beside the NCI micro-credential, the Term 1 assessment calendar across all three Term 1 modules. All real, none urgent enough to spend tomorrow's two hours on. They belong at Programme Committee.
All seven descriptors have been read. Below is what each one actually says, where it meets your module, and the one sentence to have ready.
Management and Leadership in Professional Practice
Six LOs on leadership in international contexts, self-awareness and professionalism, creating conditions for success, motivation and negotiation theory, leading change, and performance management.
Its assessment rationale, verbatim: “Assessment is designed to be authentic and AI-resistant... the terminal examination is a closed-book, proctored, in-person assessment.” The CA is a supervised in-class case analysis plus a short individual oral defence, also described as “resistant to misuse of generative AI”.
Where it meets you: hardest, and only philosophically. AI appears in this descriptor exclusively as a threat to be designed against. Yours treats competent AI use as the assessed capability. Both sit in Term 1, the same twelve weeks, for the same learner.
Your line: “These two are not in conflict, they are complementary, and the review report should say so in one sentence rather than leave a panel to work it out. The leadership module certifies unaided judgement. Mine certifies governed use of the systems. A graduate needs both, and holding both is a strength if we state it deliberately.”
Also worth noting privately: its LO5 is change leadership and LO6 is evidence-based decision-making, which are the two places your Block E and Block C could look like overlap. Your boundary clause already handles it; offer to exercise it.
Strategic Planning and Management
Six LOs across the strategy process, external and internal analysis, strategic options, implementation and change, international growth, and strategic control.
Content is entirely classical: PESTEL, Five Forces, RBV and VRIO, value chain, SWOT/TOWS, Ansoff, generic strategies, M&A and alliances, Balanced Scorecard. Core texts Johnson 2020, Grant 2021, Porter 1980.
AI mentions: zero. verified
Two defects a panel will find: (1) its named pre-requisite is “Leading People and Organisations (H9LEAD), or equivalent learning”, a module that is not on the MBA structure at all, almost certainly carried over from an earlier programme; (2) the assessment sentence is broken: “Learners will develop a comprehensive for a real or simulated organisation” is missing its noun. Also the title on Breda's list is “Strategic Management”, not “Strategic Planning and Management”.
Your line: raise the pre-requisite as a factual catch, not a criticism. “One for whoever owns Strategic: the pre-requisite names H9LEAD, which is not a module on this programme. Probably carried over. Worth catching now.”
Business Analytics for Economic and Financial Decision Making
Five LOs on macroeconomic influence, financial implications, integrating datasets in MS Excel, justifying analytical techniques, and synthesising evidence into defended recommendations. Three themes: inflation and policy; growth and business cycles; markets, risk and uncertainty. Rich real-data sourcing (ECB, CSO, Eurostat, OECD, FRED).
AI mentions: one. It sits inside a reading-list description of MIT Sloan Management Review. Nothing in the outcomes, content or assessment. verified
Where it meets you: this is the module that most needs your Term 1 output and does not yet reference it. A learner who has spent Term 1 learning to direct and verify AI-assisted analysis arrives in Term 2 to do analytics in Excel with no mention of it.
Your line, offered as help not criticism: “This is a strong applied module and the datasets are excellent. One small suggestion, and I am happy to draft the sentence: a Term 2 analytics module written for 2028 delivery will be read against what analysts actually do by then. It does not need new content, it needs one line acknowledging that learners bring AI-assisted analysis from Term 1 and must verify it before it reaches the board. I can supply the wording so it costs no one any work.”
Also flag privately: the consultancy project is team-based with a team mark, and “Hours of Learner Effort / Week” reads 36, which is the total contact figure in the wrong cell.
ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business
Four LOs: ethical principles and ESG frameworks including digital business contexts; applying ethical theory to challenges arising from “digital technologies, artificial intelligence, data use, automation, and sustainability”; constructing reasoned justifications; autonomy through reflective practice.
Indicative content theme 5 is “Digital Transformation, AI and Emerging Ethical Challenges”: ethics and governance of AI and data, algorithmic bias, surveillance, misinformation, platform ethics, digital labour, and “role and duty of businesses in the governance of AI”.
Where it meets you: the clearest genuine adjacency in the programme. Seven AI references. verified
The settlement to propose: ESG owns the ethical reasoning, the frameworks and the societal critique. AI for Leaders owns the operating duties on a system the learner is directing: the register, the override path, the incident log, the deployer obligations, the disclosure. One asks whether it is right; the other asks what must be done, logged and disclosed. Copy your boundary sentence into both descriptors.
Note: this is also the only other descriptor with a named coordinator and author. Ask that the others get named too.
Dissertation
Six LOs: research question, literature and framework, methodology and ethics, data collection and analysis, critical evaluation, and independent management of an extended project. Shared across multiple business disciplines.
AI mentions: zero. verified
Three findings:
- Workload arithmetic. Total reads 400 hours for 20 ECTS (8 supervision + 392 independent). NCI's own convention elsewhere in this folder is 25 hours per credit: your module is 250 for 10, Will's capstone is 500 for 20. The Dissertation is 100 hours light.
- “Capstone modules (Yes/No)? No”, on the 20 ECTS award-stage module. QQI's own glossary defines an award-stage capstone as “a dissertation or project”. If this is the award stage, that box is answered wrongly.
- Marked Mandatory while the Simulation Project calls itself an option for the same 20 credits.
Your line: lead with the arithmetic, because it is neutral and impossible to argue with. “Small one on the Dissertation: it is set at 400 hours for 20 credits, where the rest of us have used 25 hours per credit, so 500. Worth aligning before the credit table is built.”
MBA Integrated Business Simulation Capstone (Will Hogan, v0.3)
Six LOs: diagnose an established business from incomplete evidence; design and conduct a focused applied inquiry; formulate and adapt an integrated transformation strategy; apply analytics and responsibly directed AI; exercise responsible executive leadership in a role-defined team; defend performance through strategic, financial, ethical, governance and ESG lenses.
Executive roles: CEO, CFO/Analytics, Commercial, Operations/Innovation, People/Governance/Sustainability. Teams of five, four permitted. Seven stages ending in a board accountability review with individual defence.
It carries an explicit boundary table naming every taught module and what the capstone will and will not repeat, including “does not reassess technical foundations or require a second AI artefact” against yours.
Support it publicly. It is the only module where a decision comes back to meet the person who made it, the only individual oral defence in the MBA, and the only award-stage route that currently discharges AI accountability.
Two points for Will privately, not in the room: CA2 remains a team mark on simulation performance; and CA3, the applied inquiry, is now 40% of 20 ECTS, roughly 8 credits of applied research sitting inside the Simulation Project while an Applied Research Project is about to be drafted. Also: he dropped the AI Operating Charter from v0.1, which was the best original idea in it. Ask him to put it back.
The two cross-programme patterns, in one table
| Module | ECTS | Assessment shape | Invigilated? | AI in outcomes or content |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI for Leaders | 10 | 100% CA, two linked components | No, by design | The module |
| M&L in Professional Practice | 10 | 40% supervised CA + viva, 60% exam | Yes, 60% | Only as a threat to resist |
| Business Analytics | 10 | 60% team consultancy + presentation, 40% exam | Yes, 40% | None (one reading-list mention) |
| Strategic Planning and Management | 10 | 100% project + individual defence | No | None |
| ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business | 10 | 100% coursework, 60/40 | No | Yes, as ethics and governance |
| Dissertation | 20 | 100% project, 12,000 words | No | None |
| Simulation Project (v0.3) | 20 | 4 components, 20% team | No, but individual board defence | Yes, inherited from Term 1 |
Roughly 10 of the 70 taught credits are assessed by closed-book invigilated examination, all of it in two modules. Three of seven descriptors contain no AI at all. Those are the two sentences that answer Breda's cohesion question.
The structure of record
| Term | Module | ECTS | Descriptor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Term 1 | Research Methods (School module) | 10 | not yet in folder |
| Management and Leadership in Professional Practice | 10 | in folder | |
| AI for Leaders: Direction, Verification and Accountability | 10 | in folder, yours | |
| Term 2 | Entrepreneurial Dynamics | 10 | not yet in folder |
| Business Analytics for Economic and Financial Decision Making | 10 | in folder | |
| Strategic Management | 10 | in folder (titled Strategic Planning and Management) | |
| Award stage commences | |||
| Term 3 | ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business | 10 | in folder |
| Dissertation / Applied Research Project / Simulation Project | 20 | 2 of 3 in folder | |
| Programme total | 90 | 7 taught at 10, plus one 20 ECTS award stage | |
Why 90 and not 130, in three independent proofs
“Term 3: Ethics, Governance and Sustainability, 10. Dissertation/Capstone/Simulation (continuation and completion) Included in 20 ECTS. Programme Total 90 ECTS.”
Breda McTaggart, 13 July 2026 verified
Sheet 2 of PLO MBA.xlsx carries the proposal table: Term 1 total 30, Term 2 including a 20 ECTS dissertation commencing, Term 3 “Dissertation/Capstone/Simulation 20”, Programme Total 90 ECTS. Read from the live file today. verified
Dissertation is 20 ECTS. Will's Simulation Project is 20 ECTS. Each of the taught descriptors in the folder is 10. Seven taught at ten plus one twenty is ninety. If items 8, 9 and 10 on Breda's list were three separate modules, the award stage would be 60 credits and the MBA would be 130. verified
So the ten-item list is a list of documents to be written, not a list of credit-bearing slots. Three of them are pathways competing for one slot. Say that plainly; it saves the room twenty minutes of confusion.
The contradiction to put in the room
| Dissertation | Simulation Project v0.3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Credits | 20 ECTS | 20 ECTS |
| Status field | Mandatory | Programme capstone option |
| Duration | 24 weeks | Term 2 into Term 3 |
| Hours | 400 | 500 |
Both cannot stand. Either the Dissertation becomes Elective, or the Simulation Project is not actually available to anyone. A panel opening the two files finds this in about ninety seconds, and it is precisely the cohesion question Breda asked us to answer.
The ask: “Can we minute today that the award stage is one 20 ECTS slot with three routes, and that all three descriptors carry the same status wording? At the moment the Dissertation says Mandatory and the Simulation Project says option.”
The PLO3 gap, restated at programme level
The Hub PLO workbook is headed “1st Draft” and carries eight proposed outcomes. Two observations beyond the missing AI amendment:
- Proposed 7 and 8 are near-duplicates. “Analyse organisational situations and apply ethical and professional frameworks to support responsible decision-making” and “Apply ethical and professional principles to support responsible decision-making in business contexts”. A panel will ask why there are two.
- Three areas a Level 9 business panel expects are absent from the proposed eight: leading people and teams, communication to expert and non-expert audiences, and reflective practice. Your June refinement document (
MBA Programme Learning Outcomes - proposed refinement (tracked changes).docx) already restores all three with a full mapping from the existing sixteen, so nothing is dropped without a home. That document is not on the Hub. Offer it.
The PLO refinement is a bigger conversation than tomorrow can hold, and reopening the whole set risks the AI amendment getting lost inside it. Recommended: get the PLO3 amendment settled and minuted tomorrow, and offer the fuller refinement paper separately, by mail, as something for the review report rather than the meeting.
Three descriptors still to come, and what each one changes
| Module | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|
| Research Methods (School module) | The natural partner to your module: both teach evidence discipline and verification. If it is a School-wide module you cannot change it, but the review report should say the two are deliberately paired in Term 1. Also: whoever writes it needs to say something about AI in the research process, or the Dissertation inherits a silence. |
| Entrepreneurial Dynamics | Term 2. Third taught module with no descriptor. Low risk to you. |
| Applied Research Project | The one to watch. Breda is drafting it and has said she wants to see the programme “more holistically” first. Will's CA3 applied inquiry is now 40% of a 20 ECTS module, which is roughly 8 credits of applied research already sitting inside the Simulation Project. If the Applied Research Project is drafted before the pathway decision is made, the duplication is built in rather than resolved. |
Three template formats in one folder
The Dissertation, Strategic Planning, M&L and Business Analytics use the official QQI “Section 7 Module Descriptors” form. ESG is an AKARI export. Yours and Will's are bespoke. Breda has already spotted this and gone to QIE. Do not pre-empt her; if it comes up, the useful contribution is to note that whichever template wins, the MIPLO mapping column is empty on four of the seven (M&L, Strategic, Dissertation and Business Analytics all leave “Related MIPLO #” blank or say “to be mapped”). That is a real gap regardless of layout, and it is the same gap as the PLO3 problem seen from the other end.
What QQI actually says about capstones
- The capstone is required; the dissertation is only ever an example. QQI's glossary defines an award-stage capstone as “a dissertation or project”.
- The Masters award standard never uses the word dissertation, and the NFQ Level 9 grid asks for “research or equivalent tools and techniques of enquiry”. “Original research” appears at Level 10, not Level 9.
- On team assessment: “Grades should be awarded on the individual's performance. They should never be norm-referenced... Individuals undertaking team-based assessment tasks are assessed as individuals.” This binds any team-weighted component, and there are two in the folder: Will's CA2 and the Business Analytics consultancy project.
1. Provenance. The file QQI serves at the “Revised 2022” URL for Assessment and Standards carries PDF metadata titled Assessment_and_Standards Revised 2013.doc, created 30 October 2013. The text is on point and quotable; the version label is not reliable. Quote the text, not the year.
2. Applicability. The same document says “Conventions... are to be observed by all providers. Protocols - Recognised institutions with delegated authority are encouraged to use these protocols. All other providers are required to use them.” So whether the protocols bind NCI or merely guide it turns on whether NCI holds delegated authority. Two independent research passes failed to confirm this; QQI's own delegated-authority page returns 404. unverified Someone in the room will know. It is worth asking and minuting, and it is a good question to ask because it makes you look careful rather than clever.
The finding with the most force tomorrow
From the published validation report of the DBS MSc in Human Resource Management (Level 9, 90 ECTS), panel event 2025-26. The panel was chaired by Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of the School of Computing at NCI.
“the Programme Review Report shows a consistent pattern across cohorts: 100% of learners selected the Dissertation and 0% selected the Applied Research Project throughout the validation cycle.”
“the removal of the Applied Research Project capstone reflects sustained lack of learner uptake.”
“Learner feedback also indicated interest in an HRM simulation option; however, the review confirms that the simulation is being incorporated within a taught module... rather than introduced as a capstone elective.”
DBS validation report, progid-44061, students.dbs.ie. Recommendations: None. verified
The force is evidential, not regulatory. No condition was imposed. The risk to a three-pathway award stage is not that a panel refuses it; it is that the routes do not fill, and we end up maintaining three sets of rubrics, supervision models and moderation streams for a cohort that will overwhelmingly choose one.
Three questions worth putting in the room:
- What uptake do we project per route, and what is the viability floor for the simulation route? A simulation needs teams; four students cannot run five executive roles.
- Do we need three routes, or does Dissertation plus one applied route give us what we want at a third of the maintenance?
- Has anyone asked Paul Stynes what he saw on that panel? He chaired it.
Comparator context, if the simulation route is challenged
- Dublin Business School has already replaced its MBA dissertation with a 30 ECTS Business Simulation capstone under QQI. verified
- Maynooth's MBA has no dissertation at all: a 50 ECTS placement project, 100% CA. verified
- University of Limerick's MSc International Management lists a 12 ECTS simulation capstone, then the word “Or”, then the research dissertation. verified
- Griffith runs two dissertation routes; DCU offers dissertation or practicum. verified
Cesim's marketing says Heriot-Watt uses their simulation as a dissertation alternative; Heriot-Watt's own page says dissertation. And the widely repeated claim that the Carnegie Mellon Tepper Management Game is an MBA capstone is wrong: it is undergraduate. Both would have reached a panel document.
Your module's own comparator position
From the section 2.6 comparison sent to Breda yesterday morning: seventeen credit-bearing programmes examined, twelve met the comparability tests. Of those twelve, no published assessment specification requires the learner to verify AI output against independently established evidence as a graded component. One names the EU AI Act; none names the Article 4 AI literacy obligation. The closest Irish awards are 5 to 6 ECTS and postgraduate certificates are 30, so 10 ECTS sits between the two established volumes and matches the College's own 10-credit minimum for an award. Every figure taken from the provider's own published page, accessed 19 August. verified
That is the sentence that answers “is this distinctive, or is everyone doing it”, and it is already in Breda's hands.
“I read all seven descriptors as a panel member and then as a learner. The programme is coherent in ambition and the individual modules are strong. Three things stood out, one of them mine to fix. Do you want them now or later in the agenda?”
Short, signals you did the homework, hands her control of timing, and does not dump five findings into the first two minutes.
Ranked, with the exact words
| # | Raise | Why now | Whose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The award stage is one 20 ECTS slot with three routes, and two descriptors currently disagree about it: Dissertation says Mandatory, Simulation Project says option. | Breda is about to draft the Applied Research Project. If the decision is not made first, the duplication is built in rather than resolved, and the credit table will not total 90. | Breda's decision |
| 2 | PLO3 still carries the old wording on the Hub. The AI accountability amendment she agreed on 14 July has not landed in the file of record. | Your module and Will's both map to a PLO that is not there. Five-word fix; a panel finds it in minutes. | Yours to raise, Breda's to sign off |
| 3 | Cohesion, answered honestly: the programme has two assessment philosophies and AI is absent from three of seven descriptors. | It is exactly what she asked. Better said by us now than by a panel later. | Programme-level |
| 4 | Three factual defects: Dissertation 400 hours for 20 ECTS; Dissertation “Capstone: No”; Strategic Planning names a pre-requisite that is not on the programme. | Neutral, checkable, cheap to fix, and it demonstrates you actually read them. | Their owners |
| 5 | The validated-from date, and the shared-module approval Nicole is waiting on. | Both are two-minute decisions that unblock other people. | Breda's decision |
The cohesion answer, written out
“On cohesion, two things I would rather we said ourselves than have a panel say.
First, we currently have two philosophies of assessment in the same programme and no stated reason for the split. Two modules carry closed-book invigilated exams, one of them describing its design explicitly as AI-resistant. Mine assesses competent AI use as a graded capability. I do not think that is a problem, I think it is a strength, but only if the review report says in one sentence why the mix is deliberate. Left unexplained, it reads as drift.
Second, AI is in the outcomes or content of three of the seven descriptors we have. Business Analytics mentions it once, in a reading-list blurb. Strategic Planning and the Dissertation do not mention it at all. If PLO3 is going to require every graduate to take professional accountability for AI-assisted outcomes, then on the current drafts a learner meets AI once, in Term 1, and never again. That is not a criticism of anyone's module, it is a mapping gap, and it is the cheapest gap in the programme to close: a direction log and a short accountability statement on every award-stage submission, on all pathways. The direction log is already defined and validated in my descriptor, so nothing new has to be authored, and I am happy to supply the wording to anyone who wants it.”
The Will paragraph, if the capstone comes up
“I would support the Simulation Project. Two things worth the room knowing. Will pulled his assessment from six components down to four and cut the team weighting from thirty to twenty per cent before he had seen any feedback from me, which is exactly the direction it needed to go. And it is currently the only route at award stage with an individual oral defence, which happens to be the strongest authorship assurance anywhere in the programme.
My only structural point is about position, not merit: it should come to us as a design paper rather than as a handbook entry this week. A full 20 ECTS entry in the handbook settles the credit question for slots 8 and 10 by omission, before the room has actually made that decision.”
Three things you can offer that cost you little and buy goodwill
- The direction log wording for other module owners to drop into award-stage submissions. Already written, already validated in your descriptor.
- The boundary sentence from your section 5, to be copied into ESG and the capstone, with tomorrow treated as the first exercise of it.
- The PLO refinement paper (leadership, communication, reflective practice restored, with a full mapping from the existing sixteen), offered by mail after the meeting rather than tabled in it.
Do not absorb these. Name them and leave them with the College.
- Enterprise-tier AI licence cost per learner per adopting programme. Your descriptor requires institutional access at enterprise or education tier with training opt-out. That is a procurement decision, not a module design decision.
- Five-year staffing view for a module whose applied profile has to be maintained.
- Marking and moderation workload across a cross-programme cohort.
- The OpenAI conversation. Breda has a contact exploring an opportunity. Keep it out of the descriptor as a dependency. A validated module cannot rest on an unsigned commercial relationship.
- AKARI dry run with QIE, library holdings, disability support ownership, Marks and Standards verification.
Traps not to re-learn in the room
Workload Frequency must be “Per Semester”. Setting it to “Every Week” is why the live MSc Cloud module publishes 48 contact hours. If anyone cites that module as precedent for contact hours, that is the reason, and it is a data-entry artefact rather than a design decision.
Only Full Time workload blocks are populated house-wide. Leaving Part Time out of AKARI was deliberate, not an omission. Your descriptor carries both models in the Word version.
Breda has QIE looking at layout and word count per section. Three template styles are already in the folder. Wait for her answer before touching format on any document, including your own.
Tone
Every finding in this pack lands better as a catch than as a criticism, and better as an offer than as a catch. “Worth catching now”, “probably carried over”, “happy to supply the wording”. You are the person who read all seven descriptors properly; that is authority enough without any edge on it.
One thing to hold: you have the most complete picture in the room, including the DBS precedent, the QQI capstone definition and the comparator scan. Use it to make the meeting shorter, not to make it yours.
The five-minute recall list
- Ninety credits. Seven taught at ten, one award stage at twenty. Three routes, one slot.
- Mine: ten credits, Term 1, core, one hundred per cent CA, thirty at week six and seventy at week twelve, direction log on both.
- PLO3 on the Hub still says the old thing.
- Dissertation says Mandatory, Simulation says option. Dissertation is 400 hours where it should be 500.
- Two modules use invigilated exams; three descriptors have no AI in them at all.
Primary documents read in full for this pack
All seven pulled fresh from SharePoint on 20 August 2026 at 16:45 IST and extracted to text, including table content:
AI for Leaders - Module Descriptor - 17Aug2026.docx(Hub copy, 18 Aug 05:52)Dissertation_Module_Descriptor_Completed.docx(18 Aug 19:33)Module Descriptor Strategic Planning and Management.docx(18 Aug 19:31)Module Descriptor M&L in Professional Practice.docx(18 Aug 19:33)Business Analytics ... Draft 2.docx(18 Aug 10:53)ESG, Ethics & Responsible Global Business.docx(19 Aug 13:04)MBA_Integrated_Business_Simulation_Capstone_Draft_v0.3.docx(20 Aug 10:33)PLO MBA.xlsx(live copy, modified 15 Jul 07:55): both sheetsMBA Programme Learning Outcomes - proposed refinement (tracked changes).docx(local, 16 Jun)
Extracted text is staged at aug-2026-akari/prep-21aug/extracted/; the .docx files are mirrored under MBA-Revalidation-Hub-MIRROR/General/Working Documents/Document 2 Book Of Modules and Others/Draft Modules/.
Mail read in full
- Breda McTaggart, 20 Aug 09:38 and 09:40 (the agenda question and the layout note)
- Breda McTaggart, 20 Aug 09:17 (entry requirement, standalone award)
- Breda McTaggart, 14 Jul 14:31 (“I will add in what you have suggested for 3”) and the 13 Jul structure table beneath it
- Nicole Gross, 20 Aug 09:34 (waiting on shared-module approval)
- William Hogan, 20 Aug 11:06 (the pivot to the integrated capstone)
Calendar
Meeting details taken from the Outlook invite itself, not from memory: subject, times, Teams location, organiser and the eight-person attendee list. Pulled with the new nci_cal.py tool built in this session.
Claim counts
The AI-mention counts per descriptor are literal matches for AI, artificial intelligence and generative over the extracted text, then inspected by eye to confirm what each hit actually was. The Business Analytics single hit was checked in context and is a reading-list description of MIT Sloan Management Review, not module content.
What was NOT checked, and you should not claim
- Who owns which descriptor. Only ESG names a coordinator (Nicole Gross) and author (Ursula Finlay). Attributions of the other five to people in the room are inference, and are labelled as such throughout. unverified
- Whether NCI holds delegated authority. Two research passes failed; QQI's page 404s. unverified
- Whether Breda's promised module handbook (“By 1pm I will have imported everything into a module handbook”, 20 Aug 09:38) has been uploaded. It was not in the Document 2 folder at 16:45. It may be circulated before the meeting.
- The three missing descriptors (Research Methods, Entrepreneurial Dynamics, Applied Research Project). Nothing in this pack asserts what they contain.
- QQI quotations in section 07 come from a prior research pass in this project, not from a fresh retrieval today. They were verified then against the source PDFs, with the provenance caveat noted. If one is going to be quoted verbatim in a validation document, pull it again first.
How to refresh this
cd /Users/victordelrosal/Dropbox/Dropbox24/NCI-Main_Misc # calendar /usr/bin/python3 nci-calendar/bin/nci_cal.py --ingest /usr/bin/python3 nci-calendar/bin/nci_cal.py --on 2026-08-21 # SharePoint /usr/bin/python3 nci-files/bin/nci_files.py --ls "/sites/MBARevalidationHub/Shared Documents/General/Working Documents/Document 2 Book Of Modules and Others/Draft Modules" # mail /usr/bin/python3 email/bin/nci_mail.py --from Breda.McTaggart@ncirl.ie --top 10