• About BCCAT: Fulfilling Our Mandate
• Collaborating with BC Post-Secondary Partners
  • BC Post-Secondary Partners
  • Degree Quality Assessment Board
  • BCcampus
  • Business Process Review
  • Student Transitions Project
• Understanding Student Mobility
• Facilitating Admissions, Transfer, and Articulation
• Supporting Students' Education Planning
• Advancing Inter-Provincial Mobility
• Appendices

• Annual Review 2010-11 PDF

Annual Review Home

 

BC Post-Secondary Partners

BCCAT takes a collaborative approach with its system partners in order to foster an accessible and responsive transfer system. Council members and staff regularly interact both formally and informally with a wide range of institutions, organizations, committees, and individuals who serve the BC post-secondary system.  Through meaningful consultation with system partners, BCCAT builds respectful relationships informed by understanding and trust. These relationships facilitate the cooperation and support necessary to sustain BC Transfer System initiatives in the best interests of BC’s students.

1. BC post-secondary institutions and system support

BCCAT is active in developing and implementing policies, guidelines, and procedures designed to facilitate transfer agreements among post-secondary institutions and promote efficiencies in student mobility across the BC post-secondary system. BCCAT staff members achieve this through consulting with key post-secondary organizations, undertaking joint projects, providing advice and support, conducting research, and offering mediation services. The following are a few examples of staff work with post-secondary institutions and agencies this year.

Through meaningful consultation with system partners, BCCAT builds respectful relationships informed by understanding and trust.

a) Consultation with Key Post-Secondary Organizations

BCCAT Council and staff members liaise with numerous system committees and organizations on an ongoing basis in order to engage in dialogue about emerging challenges and opportunities and to seek feedback on the Council's work.

• Throughout the year BCCAT met periodically with the three public sector institutional organizations in BC - the BC Colleges, the BC Association of Institutes and Universities, and the Research Universities Council of BC - and several of their affiliated committees to discuss the alignment of BCCAT's work with their institutions.
• Dr. Robert Fleming, the new Executive Director, is a member of the Senior Academic Administrators Forum of BC (SAAF) and attends the quarterly meetings of vice-presidents academic of BC public colleges, institutes, and universities.
• The Associate Director, Admissions and Research, met regularly with the BC Registrars' Association to discuss and gain feedback on BCCAT's evolving student mobility research agenda.
• The Executive Director met regularly with Ministry representatives, including directors, assistant deputy ministers, and deputy ministers, to maintain effective communication and foster alignment of priorities where appropriate.
• The Associate Director, Transfer and Articulation, attended regular meetings of the deans of Business and Arts and Science programs, as well as Trades administrators to discuss articulation and transfer issues.

b) Joint Projects

BCCAT works with faculty and administrators on joint projects related to research on student mobility, creating efficiencies in student transfer and providing effective tools for student planning.

• BCCAT staff met with senior executives at BCIT regarding efforts to link BCIT's internal transfer tables to BCCAT's transfer guide and to strengthen the institute's presence within the BC Transfer System.
• BCCAT contracted with a number of articulation committees to prepare transfer grids or negotiate Flexible Pre-Major agreements to further enable student transfer across their disciplines.
• Staff members worked with representatives of the Industry Training Authority (ITA) to facilitate the inclusion of programs by private trades training providers in Education Planner.
• The Transfer and Technology Manager worked together with BC's four research universities on a pilot project enabling those institutions to be listed as both "senders" and "receivers" in the BC Transfer Guide.

c) Advice and Support BCCAT staff provide advice and support to education partners and stakeholders on a variety of issues related to student mobility and system articulation. Through meaningful consultation with system partners, BCCAT builds respectful relationships informed by understanding and trust.	These relationships facilitate the cooperation and support necessary to sustain transfer system initiatives in the best interests of BC’s students.
The Executive Director met with senior administrators at a number of BC post-secondary institutions to discuss transfer and articulation priorities and issues. The Transfer and Technology Manager gave a a number of presentations at conferences and education fairs on the use of BCCAT resources.

d) Research

BCCAT works with institutional researchers and program staff to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on student admissions and transfer that provides the basis for evidence-based decision-making in colleges, institutes, and universities.

• BCCAT contracted with UBC's office of Planning and Institutional Research to conduct research on the number of credits earned at graduation by transfer students and direct entry students at the four BC research universities.
• The Associate Director, Admissions and Research, consulted with the Central Data Warehouse Data Definitions and Standards Committee to request input / assistance on collecting information on transfer to institutions other than research intensive universities.
• BCCAT and STP staff presented research results on the mobility of transfer students to the Deans of Arts and Science and a specialized sub-report on Selkirk College to a joint meeting of the Selkirk College Education Council and Board of Governors.
• BCCAT and STP staff attended a meeting of the Research Universities' Council of BC (RUCBC) Institutional Research directors to present the most recent STP mobility data and to discuss research university participation in a proposed survey of all movers in the post-secondary system.

e) Mediation

BCCAT staff use various means of communicating with institutional staff to resolve transfer issues and ensure efficient articulation of courses and programs.

• The Associate Director, Transfer and Articulation, met with the Nursing Education Council of BC to resolve nursing articulation issues.
• The Executive Director corresponded with the President of Northern Lights College regarding the College's decision to limit faculty travel for articulation committees (due to budget constraints), in response to concerns raised by other institutions.

In addition to these supporting activities, BCCAT also provides meeting room facilities for a wide variety of groups and organizations in the post-secondary and K-12 sectors of the public education system. This represents a considerable convenience to our colleagues and provides system-wide cost savings.