skills/course-redesign-research/SKILL.md

---
name: course-redesign-research
description: Conduct verification-first educational and disciplinary research for an approved course-redesign focus, with source, quotation, date, rights, and uncertainty controls. Use for fact-checking, literature review, evidence synthesis, source verification, citations, or Scite/browser research inside a course-redesign run.
---

# Course Redesign Research

## Lecturer Decision Dialogue Contract

The orchestrator is the sole lecturer-facing interface; specialist roles are
evidence lenses and return questions through it. Ask one unresolved
consequential question at a time. Before using a native choice card, follow the
live host tool contract. Use a card only when it can present the complete,
mutually exclusive option set and a custom-answer path without omission. Never
prune, hide or combine valid choices merely to fit a card. If a native card is
unavailable or unsupported, its capacity is unknown, or the complete set
exceeds that capacity, ask the same single question in ordinary chat with every
valid numbered option plus `Other - type your answer`, then wait. Every valid
option remains visible. For very
long decisions, use adaptive dependency-based clusters only when choices share
evidence or constrain one another: keep every valid option visible, explain the
grouping and let the lecturer split, merge, reorder or rename it. For example,
outcomes, assessment evidence, permitted AI use and learning activities belong
together when mutually dependent; student-experience, accessibility and
active-learning perspectives may be clustered when participation design
jointly affects usability, inclusion, workload and engagement.

Preserve a custom answer exactly, confirm its canonical interpretation, reflect
the consequence, and maintain a decision ledger in the chat and current state.
Show an editable recap at each cluster or gate end. A skipped or blank response
leaves a required question unresolved. The safest truthful, evidence-aligned,
reversible option may be marked `Recommended`, but never preselected; factual
declarations must say "select only if true," and uncertainty fails closed. At
major pedagogical gates, ask for the lecturer's criteria and preliminary view
before recommending when practical. Exact authority gates and approval tokens
remain separate and unchanged; a dialogue choice never substitutes for them.

Research only an approved focus and only within the current Gate-0A eligibility
fingerprint and source-access policy. If either lineage value is missing,
changed or expired, stop before accessing course sources or sending a query.

## Evidence protocol

For each consequential claim record:

- atomic claim;
- source and stable URL/DOI when available;
- source class and authority;
- publication/update date and currentness risk;
- exact supporting location;
- whether the source verifies quotation, date, authorship, interpretation, practice, or rights;
- confidence, limitation, contradiction, and transfer boundary; and
- audience/security classification.

Prefer primary and authoritative sources: original texts/editions, official institutional guidance, legislation/policy, standards, and peer-reviewed research. Use reputable expert commentary for interpretation and implementation. Treat search snippets, vendor claims, blogs, and social media as leads unless the claim is appropriately limited.

## Tools and egress

- Public/open browser research may be used only if the run policy permits it.
- Scite or another connector is optional; availability is not authorisation.
- Never upload protected files, answer keys, assessment prompts, student data, or copyrighted extracts to an external tool unless exact egress is approved.
- If a connector fails, record the exact failure and continue with approved alternatives; do not pretend it worked.

## Text and fact verification

- Name the controlling edition or official record.
- Preserve source text; do not silently modernise spelling or punctuation.
- Distinguish composed/written, first published/performed, and edition used.
- Mark omissions and continued extracts explicitly.
- Verify quotations line by line.
- Never invent a citation, DOI, URL, timestamp, licence, rights holder, or publication fact.
- Keep factual accuracy, citation completeness, and redistribution rights as separate judgements.

## Synthesis

Connect evidence to the exact supplied educational context, course level, discipline, outcomes, assessment construct, workload, accessibility, and local constraints. Treat school, vocational, professional and higher-education contexts as equally valid; label evidence from another context, discipline or learner group as indirect. Report disagreements and open controls instead of forcing consensus.

Finish with a source ledger, claim table, decision implications, limitations, and exact items requiring lecturer judgement or specialist reconciliation.

Keep the integrated dossier and handoff in the task/chat until Gate 2B. Write
them only after the lecturer approves their exact, dated targets under
`03_Research/YYYY-MM-DD_<run-id>/`. That approval does not authorise course-
material production or any target under `04_Working_Copies/` or `05_Approved/`.