ABSTRACT
Implementing a key skills module in a large multi-campus institution involves at least two main considerations: that it happens and how it happens. The first is relatively simple: a central executive decision, explored by a task group and approved by an academic board, decrees that it shall happen. The second, how it happens, is more complex and problematic. It requires careful handling. However well intentioned, such a decision may be perceived as a threat to the coherence of subject areas and to academic control of learning contexts. Its imposition can be experienced as loss — of ownership, of choice, and, in cases where effective modules have already been developed and are seen to work well, of a sense of local inventiveness not being valued.
