2020-21 BSc Actuarial Science Programme Design Document

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1	Programme Information & PLOs
2	This document forms part of the Programme Design Document and is for use in the roll-out of the York Pedagogy to design and capture new programme statement of purpose (for applicants to the programme), programme learning outcomes, programme map and enhancement plan. Please provide information required on all three tabs of this document.
3	Title of the new programme – including any year abroad/ in industry variants
4	BSc (Hons) Actuarial Science, BSc (Hons) Actuarial Science (with a year in industry), BSc (Hons) Actuarial Science (with a Year Abroad)
5	Level of qualification
6	Please select:				Level 6
7	Please indicate if the programme is offered with any year abroad / in industry variants																				Year in Industry Please select Y/N								Yes
8																					Year Abroad Please select Y/N								No
9	Department(s): Where more than one department is involved, indicate the lead department
10	Lead Department		TYMS
11	Other contributing Departments:		Mathematics
12	Programme leadership and programme team
13	Please name the programme leader and any key members of staff responsible for designing, maintaining and overseeing the programme.
14	Programme Leader: Alexander McNeil (TYMS). Original design for accreditation: Tomasz Zastawniak (Maths) and Philip Linsley (TYMS). Programme team: Alexander McNeil, Philip Linsley, Agostino Nobile (Maths), Jacco Thijssen (TYMS, Christian Litterer (Maths).
15	Particular information that the UTC working group should be aware of when considering the programme documentation (e.g. challenges faced, status of the implementation of the pedagogy, need to incorporate PSRB or employer expectations)
16	Programme is in its first year which raises challenges for exact specification of later stages. The Actuarial Profession is changing its syllabus in 2019 and all university programmes will have to be re-accredited. The 2016, 2017 and 2018 student intakes can follow the programme as currently conceived; the 2019 intake will have to follow a new re-accredited programme that responds to changes in the syllabus. The Statement of Purpose and PLOs in this document are being applied to the 2016-17 cohort.
17	Who has been involved in producing the programme map and enhancement plan? (please include confirmation of the extent to which colleagues from the programme team /BoS have been involved; wheather student views have yet been incorporated, and also any external input, such as employer liaison board)
18	The PLOs have been approved by members of TYMS - Phil Garnett (new CBoS), Richard Common (former (CBoS), Jacco Thijssen, Sinead McCotter - and members of the Department of Mathematics - Ian McIntosh(CBoS), Tomasz Zastawniak, Agostino Nobile. They have also been seen and approved by Stephen Wheldon, the Accreditation and Verification Manager at the IFoA, and the Profession's appointed external examiners - Malcolm Brown (Kent) and John Millett (Kent). The programme map has been shared and refined with lecturers involved in Stage 1 and Stage 2. The 8 students in the first intake to the programme have been consulted and their feedback will be taken into account as they move through the programme so that they become partners in the process of developing the York Pedagogy approach for Actuarial Science.
19	Purpose and learning outcomes of the programme
20	Statement of purpose for applicants to the programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
21	The BSc degree in Actuarial Science from York will develop your mathematical, statistical, financial and business skills to a level that will give you an excellent platform to qualify as a professional actuary and to apply your knowledge more widely to the solution of financial problems relating to risk and uncertainty. The programme is accredited by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and can lead to exemptions from the Core Technical professional examinations (CT1-CT8). In the course of the degree, your mathematical skills (calculus, algebra, probability and statistics) will be developed to a high level of sophistication, and your mathematical and statistical reasoning will be sharpened. In parallel, you will learn in depth about the business context of actuarial work through the study of economics, finance and accounting. By the end, you will be a multi-faceted and highly employable graduate with the ability to formulate, implement, analyse and criticise complex actuarial and financial models, to deploy them in the real world and to communicate their results to stakeholders. Throughout the programme you will be guided by dedicated staff, many of whom are leading international researchers in their fields. The unique balance of the programme, combining the strengths of both The York Management School and the Department of Mathematics, together with York's reputation as a top university, make the BSc degree in Actuarial Science an oustanding choice. While most graduates will go on to become actuaries, the skills acquired will also be readily applicable to many other careers that call for an advanced mathematics degree and problem-solving ability.
22	Programme Learning Outcomes Please provide six to eight statements of what a graduate of the programme can be expected to do. Taken together, these outcomes should capture the distinctive features of the programme. They should also be outcomes for which progressive achievement through the course of the programme can be articulated, and which will therefore be reflected in the design of the whole programme.
23	PLO	On successful completion of the programme, graduates will be able to:
24	1	Formulate mathematical models to describe actuarial and financial risks, apply these models to problems in the real world and reflect critically on model assumptions and limitations.
25	2	Deploy the methods of logical reasoning and the techniques of mathematical problem solving to analyse the properties and consequences of models.
26	3	Apply economic, financial and accounting knowledge in an actuarial context to develop modelling solutions that are informed by financial theory and reflect business realities.
27	4	Use the techniques of mathematical statistics to draw inferences from the application of actuarial models to data and quantify the uncertainty in these inferences.
28	5	Apply advanced data-analytical, computational and programming skills to the implementation of actuarial and financial models.
29	6	Communicate the results and insights of actuarial analyses to stakeholders with differing levels of quantitative expertise.
30	7	Operate in the professional arena by maintaining awareness of key ethical and legal issues, continuing to deepen and expand their knowledge and recognising how actuarial practice impacts on stakeholders and society.
31	8
32	Programme Learning Outcome for year in industry (where applicable) For programmes which lead to the title ‘with a Year in Industry’ – typically involving an additional year – please provide either a) amended versions of some (at least one, but not necessarily all) of the standard PLOs listed above, showing how these are changed and enhanced by the additional year in industry b) an additional PLO, if and only if it is not possible to capture a key ability developed by the year in industry by alteration of the standard PLOs.
33	7b: Recognise and take account of commercial factors which impinge on the work of actuaries and operate in the professional arena by maintaining awareness of key ethical and legal issues, continuing to deepen and expand their knowledge and recognising how actuarial practice impacts on stakeholders and society.
34	Programme Learning Outcome for year abroad programmes (where applicable) For programmes which lead to the title ‘with a Year Abroad’ – typically involving an additional year – please provide either a) amended versions of some (at least one, but not necessarily all) of the standard PLOs listed above, showing how these are changed and enhanced by the additional year abroad or b) an additional PLO, if and only if it is not possible to capture a key ability developed by the year abroad by alteration of the standard PLOs.
35	Use intercultural understanding/awareness to adapt to culturally different management situations, to deal with people of other cultures, and to adjust and apply actuarial science theory and concepts to solve real-world actuarial science problems in different cultural contexts.
36	Explanation of the choice of Programme Learning Outcomes Please explain your rationale for choosing these PLOs in a statement that can be used for students (such as in a student handbook). Please include brief reference to:
37	i) Why the PLOs are considered ambitious or stretching?
38	The PLOSs are ambitious because they attempt to address the whole actuarial process. The ideal actuary or risk manager can take a model through a process that involves many steps involving conception, analysis, calibration, implementation, criticism, refinement, presentation to peers, management and clients until it is fit to be used as the basis for decision making in a commercial context. Through each stage the level of challenge is raised, as more depth or complexity is encountered; this is natural in a subject with an applied mathematical core where each stage builds naturally on the attainments of the previous one, as foundational ideas are developed into fully fledged theories or methodologies.
39	ii) The ways in which these outcomes are distinctive or particularly advantageous to the student:
40	The distinctiveness of the learning outcomes is that they correspond to the distinctive skill set of the actuary. The combination of high-level mathematical and stochastic modelling skills with in-depth financial, economic and accounting knowledge forms the foundation for an actuarial career or, more generally, any career that relates to the quantitative understanding of financial risk and uncertainty. The outcomes are also distinctive in comparison with other UK actuarial programmes; the joint delivery of the York programme by TYMS and Mathematics offers a uniquely balanced approach to covering quantitative and non-quantitative aspects of the actuarial skill set.
41	iii) How the programme learning outcomes develop students’ digital literacy and will make appropriate use of technology-enhanced learning (such as lecture recordings, online resources, simulations, online assessment, ‘flipped classrooms’ etc)?
42	The communication elements require students to master digital literacy for visual presentations and for producing coursework. In addition, all students will learn some programming, and a number of modules include the opportunity to use mathematics and statistics software (particularly R).
43	iv) How the PLOs support and enhance the students’ employability (for example, opportunities for students to apply their learning in a real world setting)? The programme's employablity objectives should be informed by the University's Employability Strategy:
44	http://www.york.ac.uk/about/departments/support-and-admin/careers/staff/
45	The PLOs, which have been seen and approved by our contact at the IFoA, are very much in line with the attributes of a model professional actuary. A graduate of the programme who rises fully to the challenge of the PLOS will have skills and knowledge - and valuable exemptions - that can fast track their career in a prestigious profession with excellent progression prospects; graduates who decide not to become actuaries will have transferable skills that are desired by many employers in the financial industry and beyond. The four-year programme with a year in industry offers the opportunity to apply learning in a real-world setting.
46	vi) How will students who need additional support for academic and transferable skills be identified and supported by the Department?
47	Via the disability/student support services procedures and statements of needs, with the oversight of the Disability Coordinators in the two departments (TYMS and Maths) and each student's academic supervisor.
48	vii) How is teaching informed and led by research in the department/ centre/ University?
49	The vast majority of teaching staff are active in research, and through lectures, tutorials and seminars communicate the influence foundational ideas have on making progress in research. Students also explicitly connect with research in management and finance through some of the final-year modules delivered by TYMS which are available to them.
50	Stage-level progression Please complete the table below, to summarise students’ progressive development towards the achievement of PLOs, in terms of the characteristics that you expect students to demonstrate at the end of each year. This summary may be particularly helpful to students and the programme team where there is a high proportion of option modules. Note: it is not expected that a position statement is written for each PLO, but this can be done if preferred (please add information in the 'individual statement' boxes). For a statement that applies across all PLOs in the stage fill in the 'Global statement' box.
51	Stage 0 (if your programme has a Foundation year, use the toggles to the left to show the hidden rows)
55	Stage 1
56	On progression from the first year (Stage 1), students will be able to:											Global statement
57	PLO 1		PLO 2			PLO 3					PLO 4					PLO 5					PLO 6					PLO 7					PLO 8
58	apply standard models and methods learnt in modules in unfamiliar situations and state underlying assumptions		use fundamental mathematical methods from the areas of differential calculus, linear algebra, probability and mathematical statistics to solve problems			explain macroeconomic theories, fundamental accounting principles and intepret financial statements of companies					use basic statistical inference procedures including parameter estimation, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing					confidently use the statistical package R for elementary data analysis; understand the data sources for macroeconomics and the preparation of financial statments					communicate elementary mathematical, statistical, accounting and economic ideas clearly and concisely					describe the stakeholders involved in financial organisations and the business and economic environment in which they operate
59	Stage 2
60	On progression from the second year (Stage 2), students will be able to:											Global statement
61	PLO 1		PLO 2			PLO 3					PLO 4					PLO 5					PLO 6					PLO 7					PLO 8
62	formulate actuarial models to describe key concepts like interest rates, mortality, state transitions and claims processes and describe assumptions and limitations		argue deductively with mathematical rigour and apply more advanced mathematical methods to analyse model properties and solve problems			apply more advanced financial concepts, including ideas from corporate finance and portfolio selection, and more advanced accounting techniques					work confidently with a wider range of statistical inference procedures understand and be able to explain when it is appropriate to use particular methods or models covered in the syllabus					apply more complex models and statistical procedures to realistic datasets using R and write programs to process data or extend the scope of modelling					explain clearly the concepts underlying key actuarial and financial models and present the results and conclusions of analyses that use these models					discuss open-ended issues arising in the commercial context which may include (depending on choice of options) exercise of judgement in accounting, the measurement of performance, the implementation of strategy and the role of ethics
63
64	(For Integrated Masters) On progression from the third year (Stage 3), students will be able to:											Global statement
65	PLO 1		PLO 2			PLO 3					PLO 4					PLO 5					PLO 6					PLO 7					PLO 8
66	Individual statements
67	Programme Structure
68	Module Structure and Summative Assessment Map Please complete the summary table below which shows the module structure and the pattern of summative assessment through the programme. ‘Option module’ can be used in place of a specific named option. If the programme requires students to select option modules from specific lists these lists should be provided in the next section. From the drop-down select 'S' to indicate the start of the module, 'A' to indicate the timing of each distinct summative assessment point (eg. essay submission/ exam), and 'E' to indicate the end of the module (if the end of the module coincides with the summative assessment select 'EA') . It is not expected that each summative task will be listed where an overall module might be assessed cumulatively (for example weekly problem sheets). If summative assessment by exams will be scheduled in the summer Common Assessment period (weeks 5-7) a single ‘A’ can be used within the shaded cells as it is understood that you will not know in which week of the CAP the examination will take place.
69	Stage 0 (if you have modules for Stage 0, use the toggles to the left to show the hidden rows)
83	Stage 1
84	Credits	Module				Autumn Term										Spring Term										Summer Term
85		Code		Title		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
86	20	MAT00007C		Mathematics for the Sciences 1		S									E	A
87	20	MAT00004C		Introduction to probability and Statistics		S									EA	A
88	10	MAN00012C		Financial Accounting			S								E	A
89	20	MAT00008C		Mathematics for the Sciences 2													S											E		A
90	20	MAN00016C		Business Economics													S								E					A
91	20	MAN00017C		Finance and Financial Analysis													S								E		A			A
92	10	MAN00013C		Management Accounting													S								E					A
93	Stage 2
94	Credits	Module				Autumn Term										Spring Term										Summer Term
95		Code		Title		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
96	40	MAT00035I		Probability and Statistics		S										A													E	A
97	10	MAT00020I		Introduction to Actuarial Science		S									EA	A
98	20	MAN00002I		Corporate Finance			S								E	A
99	10	MAT00021I		Portfolio and Investment Theory 1													S								E					A
100	20	MAN00018I		Actuarial Modelling													S										A	E		A
101	20	MAN00029I		Stategy, Management and Organisational Change			S																		E					A
102	Stage 3
103	Credits	Module				Autumn Term										Spring Term										Summer Term
104		Code		Title		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
105	10	MAT00015H		Mathematical Finance 1		S									E	A
106	10	MAT00017H		Generalised Linear Models		S									E	A
107	10	MAT00030H		Stochastic Processes		S									E	A
108	20	MAT00059H		Mathematical Finance for Actuarial Science													S								E					A
109	10	MAT00045H		Time Series													S								E					A
110	10	MAN00027H		Decision Theory			S								E	A
111	10	MAN00049H		Further Statistics for Actuarial Science			S								EA	A
112	10	MAN00051H		Contingencies I			S								E	A
113	10	MAN00052H		Contingencies II													S								E		A			A
114	20	see below		Option modules List A
115	120	MAN00014I		Year Abroad
116	120	MAN00010I		Year in Industry