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Articulation

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5. Assessing Transfer and Articulation Requests

With few exceptions, articulation requests are assessed by faculty in the academic department most closely aligned with the course content. The assessor must have knowledge of

  • discipline content
  • comparative educational systems
  • institution policies
  • processes for resolving issues.

The assessor should have access, for advice and guidance, to

  • an experienced department head, or academic dean
  • Institutional Contact Person (ICP)1
  • administrative staff member who handles transfer credit matters.

It is important that the assessor regularly attends provincial discipline articulation meetings. This fosters better understanding of the nature of other institutions and their courses and establishes collegial contacts, vital to the articulation process.

It is not as clear whether course-by-course or student-specific transfer credit assessments need to be conducted always by faculty. As will be shown later, the volume can be high and the documentation varied. A large volume of assessments must sometimes be completed urgently, often in the summer months when faculty assessors are less available. Admissions staff members could make many of these decisions.

  It is important that the assessor regularly attends articulation meetings.

e.g. A student is admitted who has successfully completed a second year European history course at an accredited US university. The course covers the period 1789 - 1845. By agreement with the institution's history department, admission staff are pre-authorized to award transfer credit as 'HIST 2nd year' (unassigned) with a preclusion on further credit for 'HIST 333, The French Revolution and First Republic'.

If there is any trade-off between the exactness of an assessment and the timeliness of that assessment, the interest of the student needs to be considered. A reasonable, balanced process might permit the award of unassigned credit by non-experts in a discipline and restrict course specific transfer credit, or the assessment of unusual courses, to instructors in that discipline.

In some departments within some institutions, staff rather than faculty make the majority of both student-specific transfer credit assessments, and also deal with requests for articulation. Hence, the role of the assessor appears to depend more on institutional culture, collective agreements and history rather than on strictly academic principles. Regardless of who is responsible for articulating courses or for granting transfer credit, she or he must have a thorough understanding of the relevant curriculum.

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5.1 Transfer Credit Beyond the Curricular Range

An institution must establish policy on whether and what type of transfer credit should be granted if the content of the course deals with disciplines that are not offered by that institution.

e.g. Institution A is asked to articulate Institution B's course on Maritime Law, but offers nothing related to it.

Best practice, as described in the How to Articulate Handbook indicates the need to establish whether the nature of the course merits institutional credit, where the criteria might include the general level and nature of the course and some form of academic endorsement that the credit is appropriate. This might best be done under the authority of an academic dean or perhaps the ICP. If administrative staff makes the determination (which will likely be generalized or unassigned credit or 'No Credit') clear criteria should be approved by the institution to provide a firm basis for these decisions.

e.g. (hypothetical) Articulation requests shall be determined by the Chair of the academic department most closely associated with the course material, but no department shall determine credit on behalf of another department without prior agreement. Where no unit has clear jurisdiction, the determination shall be made by the dean of the faculty.

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BEST PRACTICES - RECEIVING INSTITUTION

    • establishes clear responsibilities for transfer articulation;
    • involves instructional staff (faculty);
    • ensures that faculty attend articulation committee meetings;
    • has a process for assessing non-equivalent curriculum.

1. Each institution in the BC Transfer System is required to identify an Institutional Contact Person who has authority to handle transfer credit matters. In many cases, the institution's Registrar is the designate.

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