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The Transfer
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   Transfer Times, Dateline: October 1996

THE TRANSFER TIMES
October 1996 Volume 3, Number 1

In this issue:

Transfer Credit Limit Warning Report
Email Requests ... Requested
Fall 1996 Transfer Statistics
Spring Cleaning in the Fall
Entry of Multiple Course Equivalencies
Fundamental Studies Reports
Mark Your Calendar
New TCEQ Users?

TRANSFER CREDIT LIMIT WARNING REPORT

In cooperation with the College of Behavioral and Social Science (BSOS), the Transfer Credit Center has developed a report designed to identify transfer students with potential problems. Advisors can then review students' course work to avoid last minute graduation crises.

The report lists students who have exceeded the acceptable number of transfer credits (a total of 90 credits, no more than 60 from a community college). In addition, it identifies students whose transfer record shows more than 16 credits per semester. This feature provides a mechanism to ensure against duplicate entry of transfer credit.

In the future, the report will call attention to duplicate course equivalencies. For example, it will identify a student whose record shows PSYC 100 equivalencies from multiple schools or from multiple attempts within an institution.

To date, we have distributed this report to BSOS for review. If your college advising office would like to participate, please contact us and we would be happy to generate a report for you.

EMAIL REQUESTS ... REQUESTED

The quickest and most efficient way to update a student's transfer record or to request equivalencies for transfer courses is to contact us via email. Many advisors and course evaluators currently send us email requests. We are grateful for the valuable information provided by these contacts. However, it would make our job easier and allow us to respond faster if the requests were standardized in the following manner:

Send email to either Mary Bell (mbell@deans.umd.edu) or Theresa DiPaolo (tdipaolo@deans.umd.edu). Include the student's name and social security number (without hyphens) in the subject line (e.g., Subject: John Doe 123456789). In the message, list the nature of the problem and/or the request. We will acknowledge receipt of the message and forward a response as soon as possible for your records. It is best to send a separate request for each student as we can better track requests by viewing the subject line for each email.

Thank you for your continued cooperation in our effort to assist transfer students and ease their transition to College Park.

FALL 1996 TRANSFER STATISTICS

We have reached a new milestone at the Transfer Credit Center ... over 91,000 lines of data (courses evaluated) are included in our equivalency database! This is a significant increase over the 21,000 lines of data present in the database just three years ago.

Transfer students admitted for the fall 1996 term brought in over 78,000 transfer courses. We estimate over 95% of these credits from U.S. institutions have received equivalencies. We are still working to improve that percentage and are making a special effort to request syllabi for unevaluated courses which might fulfill Fundamental Studies requirements.

SPRING CLEANING IN THE FALL

During the month of October, the Transfer Credit Center will be catching up on some long overdue projects. One major project is "cleaning up" our equivalency tables. We will be adding and correcting course titles and setting institutions' term types (semester or quarter).

In addition, we are conducting a cross-reference check between our database (TCEQ) and Maryland community college catalogs. In this way, we hope to ensure that all courses from MDCC's are listed in our table. Conversely, we are putting terminal dates on courses no longer taught at the community colleges to prevent future miscommunication about a course's transferability.

We now have a mechanism to set term type start and end dates for institutions that have changed from quarter to semester credit hours (or vice versa). Only the current term type will appear in our database. Please be patient as we work through any "bugs" in the new system. If you notice anything that appears unusual or any errors, please bring them to our attention. We will work to resolve any problems that may arise.

ENTRY OF MULTIPLE COURSE EQUIVALENCIES

We have been working on the entry of course equivalencies in TCEQ for which there is a one-to-many or a many-to-one relationship between the course(s) at the sending institution and the equivalent course(s) at College Park. Unfortunately, a computer program to handle these special cases automatically is more complex than anticipated and is still in the development phase.

Currently, such courses are entered in TCEQ with footnotes. The course appears in red on the screen (indicating a special note is included). For specific instructions on accessing these footnotes, please refer to our publication, A Guide to the Transfer Credit Equivalency (TCEQ) and the Transfer Credit (TC) Screens in the Student Information System (SIS).

Science lab courses are entered a little differently. If two courses at another school (typically a lecture and a separate lab) transfer to College Park as one course, e.g., CHEM 103, the lecture course is entered with the appropriate general education codes, e.g., DB/PS (USP Distributive Studies Area B: Natural Science and Math/Core Physical Science). The lab is entered as the equivalent course, e.g, CHEM 103, with a notation that the lab does not transfer without the lecture course. For a specific example, see CHE121 and CHE122 at Catonsville Community College in TCEQ (institution code 524110).

Finally, you may have noticed that for courses with two equivalencies, the second equivalency appears neither on the TC screen nor in Advise. Academic Data Systems (ADS) is aware of the problem. At present, the best way to verify transfer equivalencies is an on-line zebra sheet. Advising offices should be able to print on-line zebras. If you encounter any problems, call the Transfer Credit Center.

FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES REPORTS

The Transfer Credit Center is looking at ways to assist students who have English and math fundamental studies blocks. We are currently checking for blocks due to unresolved evaluation of transfer credit. We will try to speed the evaluation of such courses in addition to the removal of these blocks prior to early registration.

Any suggestions regarding how we can work together to resolve these issues more efficiently are welcome. Just call the Transfer Credit Center.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The Transfer Credit Center will hold a special session for advisors to discuss transfer student issues and the new Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) regulations. The event will take place Monday, November 4, 1996 in 0123 Hornbake from noon to 1:00 p.m. This will be a brown-bag lunch; beverages will be provided. Please join us.

TCEQ USERS?

The start of a new term brings not only new students, but new employees as well. If your office hired a new advisor, administrative assistant, or graduate assistant who will be working with transfer students, let us know. We'd like to meet them! It helps to put a face behind the voice on the phone or the email address.

If there are new staff members who would like to learn more about the Transfer Credit Center or others who would just like to see our operations, let us know and we will schedule a visit.

Back to The Transfer Times Index

Transfer Credit Center
Mitchell Building, University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Theresa DiPaolo phone: (301) 314-8413; fax: (301) 314-9693; email: tdipaolo@deans.umd.edu
Mary Bell phone: (301) 314-8256; fax: (301) 314-9568; email: mbell@deans.umd.edu
Lyn Gadue phone: (301) 314-8260; fax: (301) 314-9568; email: lgadue@deans.umd.edu

 
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Last Modified Thu Jan 11, 2001 16:01:00