Canon Medical & OPTIMA SLICC Project

The Student-led Individually Created Course (SLICC) is a reflective learning and assessment framework using an e-portfolio and providing academic credit for experiential learning. In this case study we outline our experience of co-designing a new SLICC course, in close collaboration with an industry partner, and a cohort of PhD students. The PhD students were from the EPSRC and MRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Optical Medical Imaging (OPTIMA) which aims to train interdisciplinary researchers in optical technologies to address key clinical questions. Our work shows that the SLICC format can be flexible and agile, providing a fully online mode of learning with external partners adapted to different Masters’ level courses and with integrated study curricula for CDTs and other cohort-based PhD programmes to look at evaluating work placements, capstone projects and students’ consultancy projects with respect to researcher development.