In this Section

• 12. Volume of Articulation Requests
• 12.1 Evaluating a Large Stock of Existing Courses
• Best Practices

12. Volume of Articulation Requests

One of the many benefits of BCCAT's TCES is the facility to report on the volume and timeliness of processing requests. Over a one year period, from April 2006 to March 2007, receiving institutions each received on average 814 articulation requests, of which 18% were for a re-articulation of a previous evaluation. Some institutions received far fewer than the average - for instance ECU received only 68. This is likely a result of their request to be excluded from the default "all institutions" distribution setting that is often chosen by sending institutions. Given their specialized curriculum, this decision appears to make sense and avoids dealing with requests that will likely be largely irrelevant (e.g. Chemistry courses).

The following institutions each submitted at least 500 requests in the same period:

As expected, the size of the institution has a significant effect on the volume of requests sent. If a sending institution chooses to become a receiving institution, it could expect between 50 to 100 requests per month or 600 to 1200 requests each year.

The following factors are likely to influence the volume of requests:

• Breadth of curriculum. A broad curriculum at the receiving institution, including fine arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities is likely to foster more requests than a narrower curriculum
• Range and nature of programs offered
• Receiver's proximity to major sending institutions
• Receiving institution is included in "all institutions" default TCES selection, available to sending institutions (under review)
• Sending institutions electing to send requests to the new receiving institution: they might see no need to send these requests if there is no history of students flowing between the two institutions.

Therefore, to some extent the number of requests that will be received is under the control of the receiving institution. Regardless of the annual volume of requests received, a large institution with a diverse applicant pool will process many more (student-specific) transfer credit evaluations than are represented in the data collected by BCCAT. For example, although in one year SFU received 1100 articulation requests via TCES, an estimated 5000 further requests were forwarded to academic departments for evaluation on behalf of individual students.

A study on articulation costs (Jarvis 2004) refers to these as 'non-articulated transfers' and reports that one institution "estimated the cost...to be three and a half times that of transferring an articulated course". The study does not suggest why the cost would be greater but each non-articulated transfer is generally more difficult to evaluate than an articulation request because:

• institutions are more diverse
• no standardization of course outlines
• different pedagogies
• translations from various languages
• communication with the course owner/author or her/his institution is more difficult.

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12.1 Evaluating a Large Stock of Existing Courses

If a sending institution were to become a receiving institution, there might be an immediate need to assess some or all of the large stock of existing courses. The upper limit of this would probably be the current active articulations maintained by the current receiving institutions:

Receiving institution	Articulation agreements active in Fall 2007
UVIC	7835
SFU	7497
UBC	6029
UNBC	5217
UBCO	3387

Currently, a typical receiving institution has about 7000 separate active course articulations. It would be very demanding on time and resources for a new receiving institution to make up such a large deficit of transfer articulation evaluations.

When the university colleges transitioned from sending institutions to being both sending and receiving institutions they were faced with evaluating a large volume of lower level courses offered by other sending institutions. Some still in the system recall how this was done. Many course articulations followed the standard procedure but the university colleges often had one or more degree programs offered in affiliation with a university. The transfer guide of that university was used as the basis for a triangulation process. For example, many of the Arts degree programs at UFV began under the oversight of SFU. Hence, it was natural to use that university's transfer guide to determine transfer credit from CAM to UFV via known courses at SFU. Issues concerning the consistency of standards were more easily addressed starting from the articulations already set by the overseeing university.

A triangulation process could still of the most expedient way to populate large numbers of transfer articulation agreements.

Degree programs offered by community colleges today are not usually overseen by another institution. Nonetheless, a triangulation process could still offer the most expedient way to populate large numbers of transfer articulation agreements, particularly if done in consultation with the sending institutions.

It is probably not necessary to articulate all 7000 courses. A new receiving institution should establish priorities based on:

• size of the sending institution;
• existing (or anticipated) student flows;
• whether there is a close match of curriculum;
• nature of the credentials offered by the receiving institution.

Current student flows might be misleading because greater volumes of transfer students are likely to be attracted once their transfer credit is guaranteed and published.

e.g. If a new receiving institution offers a bachelor's degree program in Art Therapy, it could make sense to start with large local sending institutions that offer Fine Art, Studio Art, Psychology and any other disciplines that fit the lower levels of this degree program.

As students enter the receiving institution with unarticulated courses, they would receive specific assessments of transfer credit at the time of admission. These individual assessments could be escalated to articulation requests if the courses were from a BC sending institution and had been taken recently. The ICP would be advised of the need to articulate the course by admission staff and could use TCES to initiate a request. In this fashion, articulation agreements can be built over time. It does not appear to be mandatory that a new receiving institution should try to fill all of the vacant spaces in the provincial transfer matrix. Instead they should indicate, in general terms, that transfer credit will be available at the time of admission and give prospective students some general reassurance as to the criteria that will be employed.

Using the TCES, an evaluation category of 'under review' or 'to be evaluated' could replace all of the current blank entries for a new receiving institution. This would be less discouraging to a prospective transfer student than a completely blank entry. The new receiving institution could undertake to place high priority on such evaluations as soon as they are needed on a case-by-case basis and, using TCES, could respond to such case-by-case requests and frequently update the status of articulation requests. It is understood that BCCAT staff are very willing to assist with such efficiency enhancements.

Articulation agreements can be built over time.

If a new receiving institution is able to pick and choose which transfer articulation requests to evaluate, it follows that existing receiving institutions should have the same choice. Indeed, some institutions, notably ECU, already select which requests to evaluate. Perhaps there is a lingering assumption among the original group of receiving institutions that each is obliged to respond to every request from any sending institution. This assumption might still be valid but requires review in the light of the system's overall evolution.

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BEST PRACTICES - RECEIVING INSTITUTION prioritizes the stock of existing courses at sending institutions; uses efficient triangulation process wherever possible to establish articulation agreements; determines a strategy to best meet the receiving institution's needs

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