how does this course transfer? - amazon web … does this course transfer? aacrao 2012 session 058...
TRANSCRIPT
How Does This
Course Transfer? AACRAO 2012
Session 058
Wednesday, 8-9am
Dawn Light
Alexis Ribeiro
Sue Eveland
Today’s Transfer Topics
Introductions
Decisions about course transferability
Processing transfer courses
Challenges with transfer credit
Policies about course transfer and
Articulation Agreements
Automation
Useful tools for students and advisors
Background: SOC & The DNS
• The SOC Consortium: 2000+ institutions who agree to flexibility in transfer for military students
• The SOC Degree Network System: a participatory articulation system providing colleges, courses, and transfer credit based on a selection and peer review process
• The program started in 1981 and includes: > 159 colleges
> 460+ Course Categories
> 8600+ course articulations
> 500+ Associate degrees; 460+ Bachelor’s degrees
> More than 857,000 Student Agreements to date
University of The Pacific Small private institution
Total enrollment 7,000 – approx 4,000 undergraduates
Main campus in Stockton, California
SIS-Banner, Degree Audit-CAPP, Scheduling-Ad Astra
Alexis Ribeiro – Assistant Registrar/Transfer Articulation Specialist
University of Oregon
4-Year public, Research 1, AAU
24,447 students; 20,631 undergrads
30 staff/10 students
Banner, u.achieve, 25Live, Singularity,
EDI, AVOW, TES
• Content - Is the overall content comparable?
• Outcomes - Are the learning outcomes the same?
• Level - How can differences in level be resolved when content is comparable?
• Credits - Are policies flexible regarding credit conversions? How are credit deficits/surpluses handled?
Best Practices in Articulation
Deciding Factors For Course Transferability
• Regional Accreditation • Compare course descriptions
• units, level, pre-reqs, looking for 60% comparable content
• Course will transfer 1 of 4 ways
• Non Transferable • General Elective • Pacific course credit and/or GE • Tran Pend, requires syllabus
• Pacific aligns with California Community College course transferability to the University of California system
Which Courses Will Transfer?
Courses must be from a regionally
accredited Institution
Courses must be college level (not
remedial)
Courses may transfer but may not be
applicable to the degree the student
chooses to earn
SOC DNS Course Categories • The Course Category is the foundation of two-way
guaranteed course transferability among Core DNS members
• Codes are developed to identify comparable courses in a given subject area
• Deciphering the Code: EC201A > Two-letter prefix indicates subject area
(EC = Economics)
> Three-digit number identifies the specific category topic (201 = Principles of Macroeconomics)
> Appended single letter indicates degree-related category > A - Associate Degree
> B - Bachelor’s Degree
Category Development Process
100% approved : Course is entered into T-Tables Or: not 100% approved : New course not added to Category Code or rejecting college’s course removed from Category Code
Categories
developed by SOC
DNS staff and
subject-matter
experts
New courses
“tentatively”
assigned Category
Codes based on
content
Courses are sent out
for peer review;
resulting in either of
the following:
Processes of Course Transfer
• Once admission file is complete Admission-Processor performs data entry of applicants transcripts using Banner • If all courses are articulated in database file is
ready for review and sent to Admission-Counselor
• If there are courses that are not articulated copy of transcript is sent to Registrar-Articulation Specialist for review
• Database consists of 80K+ course to course
articulations for CA, out of state and international institutions as well as testing programs i.e. AP & IB
Process for Course Transfer
Transfer work processed for applicants for admission (prior to offer) and for “in-schools”
UO maintains complete course-for-course artics for all Oregon 4-year public (7), private (17), and community college (17) courses.
UO has about 500K course pairs stored in Banner
UO Course Transfer, cont. New courses at lower division level are
processed in the RO, using TES for information; gen ed satisfying also determined in RO
Upper division determined in RO if possible (good match of course descriptions) OR artic’d as a generic upper division elective pair.
Students with generic upper division courses can petition the department for a equivalency (for just that student or for all students)
• Content - Topic percentage matches; vague course catalog descriptions
• Outcomes - e.g., English composition--type of text read, as opposed to writing skills
• Level - Upper vs. Lower; unconventional numbering systems
• Credits - Exact match requirements; quarter vs. semester
• Process - Faculty vs. Registrar/evaluation team; academic petition requirements
• Accreditation - Regional versus national; specialized
• Other - Proprietary vs. “traditional” institutions; academic discipline variations
Pitfalls in Articulation
Challenges to the System
• Balancing institutional autonomy with flexibility required for military populations
• Poor course catalog descriptions; excessive requests for syllabi
• Late responses to course circulations • Updating new or changed courses
• Degrees falling below DNS transferability standard result in
removal
Challenges of Course Transfer
• Prior to 2006 articulation did not exist on campus
• Building from the ground up was a challenge
• Gaining trust and cooperation of faculty was our
biggest hurdle
• Private Institution: faculty perceptions of validity of
courses from other institutions
• Not many problems building AP articulation, IB was
more of a challenge and CLEP continues to be an issue
• In the first 2 years all courses went through faculty
review, this caused a VERY slow turnaround time and
created problems for Admissions.
• After trust was gained Articulation Specialist is able to make decisions with little to no faculty input. This allows for a quicker and smoother Admission process
Challenges
Keeping up with all changes in Oregon
Schools (OrACRAO created an excel
template to record and share changes)
International Schools – harder to find
course information; different numbering
systems
Lower-Division/Upper-Division mis-matches
and managing student expectations
• Major/major-related degree requirements for degrees in GT networks must attain 40% transferability
• For general education elective requirements, (e.g., “Humanities Electives”) SOC DNS institutions accept each other’s courses in transfer within designated course area families ( Arts and Humanities, Communications, Mathematics, Sciences, and Social Science)
• 4-year institutions accept approved DNS associate degree programs in related networks as 45% of credits required for Bachelor’s degrees
Articulation Agreements & Policies
Articulation Agreements
• University of The Pacific does not have signed articulation agreements • All articulations are unilateral
• Currently articulation is course to course, eventually
we will create major to major articulations with our top feeder schools
Articulation Agreements
UO’s definition of an “articulation
agreement” is that we will process a
course-for-course crosswalk for every
course in the other school’s curriculum
(sometimes just done for one college at
another university).
UO has no major-to-major articulations
and no signed agreements
Transfer Credit Automation
• Currently Admission processing and articulation are a data entry manual process
• Document Imaging will go live for the Fall 2012 semester
• CollegeSource TES is used by Registrar & Admission staff.
• CollegeSource.org is open to anyone using a campus computer.
Transfer Credit Automation We strive for a 3-5 day turnaround on all
incoming transfer articulations
EDI for college transcripts
Loads into Banner
Matching to Banner record
Creates image in Singularity
Indexes the image to the record
Fires off workflows
Loads course data into Banner
Transfer Credit Automation AP Upload for awarding credit for scores Loads scores into test score tables
Job runs to create transfer equivs based on scores
We process about 18,000 transcripts and scores each year; 49% are EDI or AP
We notify students by email when equivs and degree audit are ready to view in DuckWeb
Transfer Tools
• Courses listed by College
• Courses listed by Code
See Chapter 8 of the DNS-2
or DNS-4 Handbook or visit: http://www.soc.aascu.org/dnstools/GrntdTransfCrs
Useful Tools for Student Transfer
• Database in Banner consists of courses articulated Fall 2006 and forward
• ROAR (Roam Online Articulation Reports) was created in Jan 2008. An interactive website used by entire Pacific campus as well as prospective students and CC advisors. • ROAR is a live feed from Banner
• List serve for CA Articulation Officers sends out
annual curricular updates • Articulations already in place are kept up to date
using this tool
• Articulation Evaluations are available to view through student portal once applicant has confirmed
• CAPP Degree Audit available through InsidePacific
Useful Tools for Students
UO’s Transfer Course Equivalency site:
http://registrar.uoregon.edu/current_students/transfer-articulation
ATLAS
Anyone can use ATLAS (current students,
prospective students, advisers, parents)
Upload or type in courses and grades
(completed or planned)
Run “what if” degree audits to see how
credits will count toward chosen major
• Dawn Light
Degree Network Project Director
Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges [email protected]
• www.soc.aascu.org
Contact SOC
Alexis Ribeiro, Assistant Registrar [email protected] ROAR: www.go.pacific.edu/roar
Sue Eveland, University Registrar
registrar.uoregon.edu/current_students/
transfer-articulation