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The Transfer Credit Center |
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| Transfer Times, Dateline: June 1998 |
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June 1998 Volume 4, Number 1 In this issue:
Approved Changes in Math Pre-requisites Because our MATH001 and 002 courses have been upgraded in accordance with MHEC standards, students may be able to move more quickly through first-year mathematics courses. The prerequisite structure will be as follows:
•To enroll in MATH002, a student must pass MATH001.*
REMINDERS: Advisors who have questions regarding the pre-requisite structure, please call Fawzi Emad at X54362. Effective SP98, introductory Economics courses have been restructured on campus. As many of you know, the course formerly known as ECON203, Principles of Microeconomics, has been renumbered to ECON200. Both ECON200 and 201 were increased from 3 to 4 credits, although Principles of Macroeconomics, ECON201, retained the same course ID. In an effort to accommodate this sweeping change, we will perform a global update to our transfer database (TCEQ). Our programming solution is to identify each equivalency of ECON203 and replace it with ECON200. This change is not term-dependent; all students who transferred a course equivalent to Principles of Microeconomics before SP98 will have ECON203 on their records. The Electronic Degree Audit will be programmed to accept ECON200 or ECON203 for CORE and College/major audits. Student Electronic Degree Auditor Released on the Web We are pleased to announce the release of the Electronic Degree Audit (in pilot form) for students. The interactive web site (https://www.sis.umd.edu/degaudit/), accessible from the Testudo homepage (http://www.testudo.umd.edu), allows students in a limited number of majors to perform unofficial CORE and major audits. Additional majors and Colleges will be added to the system as we continue to incorporate suggestions and enhancements from the pilot users. If you have questions or problems, or would like a live demonstration of the system, send email to auditfolks@deans.umd.edu. Also, alert us to priority release for certain majors in your College. Your involvement and input are important to the audit system's development. We welcome your comments and suggestions. As mentioned in our last issue, two footnotes recently were added to the TCEQ database. The footnotes, intended to identify transfer courses that fall under special categories, appear under the "FN 1" column in TCEQ. The first footnote, MH, "Gen Ed under MHEC only," applies to courses that may be considered CORE for transfer students as defined under Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) policy. If a course at the sending institution satisfies a general education requirement, the receiving institution must apply that course towards its general education program. These exceptions are made when the student initially transfers to our campus. At present, students of record on our campus cannot take these courses off-campus for CORE credit. The second footnote, PF, "Portfolio review," generally applies to composition courses that must be evaluated on an individual basis by the Freshman Writing Office (FWO). Normally, these courses are transferrable at the baccalaureate level for students, and will transfer as electives without review. Students needing to meet the CORE writing requirement should contact the FWO, located in 2115 Susquehanna Hall to inquire about portfolio review. There are several reasons certain courses must be evaluated individually. Sometimes the course descriptions are vague in detailing the exact depth and breadth of the course content. More often, the course varies in assignments and goals across sections, with some based solely upon literature or other special topics. Sometimes significant skills are taught in each half of a two-semester course; if the student has taken only one half, s/he may or may not have been exposed to critical competencies in academic writing that we require of our students across the curriculum. The FWO will review materials (typically writing samples and a syllabus) to be sure incoming students are acquainted with the research skills and theories of argument that are developed in our ENGL101 courses. For those of you who find yourselves using ARTSYS from time to time, you should know that we expect to remove all USP general education codes (DA, DC, etc.) from ARTSYS articulation tables and from the Recommended Transfer Programs (RTPs) that exist in ARTSYS. Over the next year we will be contacting departments and colleges to review and revise (if requirements have changed) RTPs for their majors. These RTPs are the best way we have to ensure that students at Maryland community colleges arrive on our campus prepared to do upper-level work in our majors. If you are interested in recruiting strong students with solid academic foundations, please cooperate with this Transfer Credit Center initiative. TCC has recently received several inquiries about red course Ids appearing on TC (Transfer Courses) and TCEQ screens. A red course ID indicates that additional infromation is on a detailed (generally expanded) screen for you to access. A red course ID in TC means the course has two equivalencies, often a lab/lecture, sometimes two distinct courses. Because of space limitations, we can only provide the first of the two equivalencies. To see the second, move the cursor to the course in question and press F5>>>>>. Look in the lower left-hand corner of the expanded screen for the two equivalencies. Press F5>>>>>again to return to the first screen. A red course ID in TCEQ means that there is a text note for the transfer course. A text note provides special information about the course, something that TCC has not otherwise coded or footnoted numerically. One example: MAT112 from PGCC transfers here as an FM course; the note states that a student transferring this course may not receive credit for MATH110 or MATH111 at this campus. Until more satisfactory technical and display arrangements can be programmed, we use these notes to give advisors special, additional information. The red course ID makes the note hard to overlook. Welcome Additions to the SIS Family Recent enhancements to certain SIS screens should improve access to information for both advisors and students. Programming improvements affect the TC (Transfer Courses) and SRECORD (Student Record) screens. The TC screen now displays whether a course has been declared non-applicable to a student's degree program. Notice the AP (applicable) column to the right of the AC (acceptable) column. A "N" in the AP column indicates a transfer course that has been accepted, but for some reason (repeated at another institution, over 60 credits from a community college, etc.) will not apply towards the degree. The SRECORD screen now includes the General Education Codes of most transferred course (and campus courses as well). It carries the Acceptable/Applicable designations from TC as well as noting elective courses. The screen totals both acceptable and applicable credits. It may be possible, in the future, to have an expansion screen noting actual course articulations, titles here and at the sending institutions, course notes, etc. Please tell us if you think these enhancements are worth the investment in programming. We would appreciate your feedback on these additions as they move into production, especially if you notice any errors on screen.
Mitchell Building, University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742
Theresa DiPaolo phone: (301) 314-8413; fax: (301) 314-9693; email: tdipaolo@deans.umd.edu |
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Copyright © 2008 The Universities of Maryland, College Park, MD, U.S.A. Last Modified Thu Jan 11, 2001 16:01:02 |