The workplace need for transferable skills is of paramount importance and is highlighted by many studies and reports. The incorporation of skills such as communication skills, teamworking, leadership and critical thinking while enriching curriculum, poses multiple concerns in designing teaching and learning activities as well as assessment tasks. The open distance mode of delivery and larger class sizes make the challenges even harder.

The external bachelor's degree program in Information Technology (BIT) conducted by the University of Moratuwa in the open distance mode has taken many steps in incorporating soft skills development and assessment into the curriculum and this paper aims at sharing the adopted good practices with recommendations for other educators.

The learning environment for BIT consists of Moodle based learning management system, online conferencing tools such as Zoom, Big Blue Button and Jitsi, and in house developed management information system. The curriculum has modules such as Communication Skills Development, Technical Writing and ICT Project which gives a special emphasis to soft skills development while attempts are made to incorporate enriching of skills across all modules. The program also consisted of a volunteer module titled industry mentoring program (IMP) which was aimed at enhancing employability of the graduates. IMP program incorporated many tools for successful delivery and the 2024 curriculum revision has included it in the curriculum making it a compulsory graduation requirement. This inclusion necessitated a structured delivery mechanism with constructively aligned teaching/learning activities and assessment tasks. The lessons learned from delivering IMP and other modules using tools has helped in developing a framework for this module.

BIT degree program activities are pseudo synchronous (meaning that students are free to do a week’s activity anytime during the week), but the IMP program which brings in multiple industry experts has lectures/workshops which are synchronized. Students also have the facility of watching the recorded sessions, however if they do not participate in the live session the opportunity to participate in the Moodle based assessment tasks will be missed. The constructive alignment of assessment tasks with ILOs requires careful planning giving attention to the fact that the course is conducted in open distance mode and the AI based generative tools available for students to assist in such tasks. The assessment criteria carefully integrate the large language models in a meaningful manner together with other AI assisted tools in platforms such as Zoom and Moodle. Understanding the value of real time feedback, assessments include mechanisms for providing feedback and student encouragement mechanisms such as achievement badges are incorporated. The online delivery helps finding resource persons from among the industry experts both locally and internationally.

This paper aims to share the practices incorporated in inculcating the skills required by the world of work in information technology and to seek expert participation in further enhancements.

Keywords: ICT Skill Development, Assessment of Student Learning, Learning Management System, Work Employability, Online Assessment, Large classes.