Procedure for Initial and Systematic Updating UALR Banner Equivalency Tables June 13, 2013

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1 Procedure for Initial and Systematic Updating UALR Banner Equivalency Tables June 13, 2013 Introduction UALR will soon begin a systematic and ongoing update of the Banner Course Equivalency tables. The Office of Records and Registration will lead this effort, and with your assistance, transfer students and advisors will begin to benefit from this process. Students will be able to see how their transfer credit will apply toward their degree program much sooner than in the past. Having course equivalencies updated in Banner will also reduce the number of Individual Degree Adjustments (IDA s) required in Degree Audit. Beginning soon and continuing into 2013 forward, your department will receive requests to review transfer courses for specific in state transfer schools to establish course equivalencies. The volume of these requests will be frequent and heavy in the beginning, but will become lighter over time as the BANNER articulation tables are brought up to date. Overview of Requested Articulation Review You will need to determine in which one of the following three ways each course will apply toward your degree programs: Equivalent to a UALR course Establishing a UALR equivalency for a transfer course means that the transfer course will meet any and all requirements that the UALR equivalent to which it will be articulated does, whether for the major, minor and/or graduation requirements (e.g. the total 45 hour upper level requirement.) Shell Course Articulation Establishing an articulation to a UALR shell course for a transfer course means that while the transfer course is not directly equivalent to a UALR course, your department still wishes it to satisfy a major, minor or graduation requirements (e.g. the total 45 hour upper level requirement.) See further explanation below. No Equivalency Course will be articulated to Lower or Upper level general elective only as a TRAN 1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000 (course will only count towards hours required for graduation and not satisfy any specific degree program requirement.) Deny Equivalency If your department receives a request to review a technical course and you do not wish the course to be posted to the UALR transcript, select deny. This course will not be posted to the UALR transcript.

2 Articulation System Details Equivalent to a UALR course option: While transfer course equivalency to UALR courses has been an articulation option in the past, there are some nuances that you need to keep in mind as you choose the equivalency option. 1. Enter a UALR course equivalent only if the transfer course will serve ALL the purposes that the UALR equivalent does. Entering a UALR equivalent means that the transfer course will count toward the same major, minor, and graduation requirements (e.g., the total 45 hour upper level requirement) as the UALR equivalent. This means the following in particular: If the transfer course is upper level, do NOT enter a UALR lower level course as an equivalent, even if the intention is only to recognize that the course satisfies content requirements met by a UALR lower level course. If you do so, Degree Audit will read the content requirement as having been met, but it will also fail to credit the upper level hours toward the 45 hour upper level graduation requirement. Instead, if you want to allow an upper level transfer course to meet the content requirement of a lower level course, you will need to submit an IDA. In other words, in order for Records to articulate a 3000 level transfer course to a 2000 level UALR course, you will need to submit an IDA. If the transfer course is lower level (1000 or 2000 level), do NOT enter a UALR upperlevel equivalency (3000 or 4000 level). NOTE: Articulating a 1000 level transfer course to a 2000 level UALR course or 3000 level transfer course to a 4000 level UALR course, does not pose a problem for Degree Audit. 2. Do NOT articulate more than one course from the same transfer institution to the same equivalent UALR course. If you do so, credit will be awarded for only one of the courses. Shell Course Articulation The shell course system has been established for the purpose of articulating transfer courses that are not considered exact course equivalents but which can be used to satisfy UALR degree requirements. The shell course system functions in the same way that the TRAN 1000, 2000, designations work for general electives. However, the shell courses are identified using the appropriate major/minor area subject codes, which will allow Banner Degree Audit to pull them into the appropriate major or minor areas.

3 The following are examples of how transferred MATH courses will display as shell courses: Major/Minor Courses MATH 1000 MATH 2000 MATH 3000 MATH 4000 Math lower level elective (Freshman level) Math lower level elective (Sophomore level) Math upper level elective (Junior level) Math upper level elective (Senior level) An example of how a shell course can be used in the major is as follows: National Park Community College offers CRJU 2291, Terrorism, a course that does not have a UALR equivalency, but may be used to satisfy a CRJU program requirement via the shell course system. Once this course has been evaluated and identified as a shell course by the academic department (as CRJU 2000, in this case) and entered into the Banner Articulation Tables by Records, Degree Audit will automatically allow the course to be used in the Criminal Justice elective area with no Individual Degree Adjustment (IDA) required. Once a shell course articulation is established, every transfer student entering UALR with the same course will receive the equivalent shell course. If academic departments wish to use an articulated shell course to satisfy a specific degree program requirement (e.g. utilizing CRJU 2000 to satisfy the CRJU 2300 requirement, rather than counting it only toward major or minor elective area requirements, an IDA for specific course substitutions will be needed. Special Instructions for Articulations of Lecture/Laboratory Courses You cannot couple two or more transfer courses as the equivalent of one UALR course. For departments reviewing lecture and laboratory course components, the recommendation is that you articulate the lecture course and the laboratory course components, respectively, to separate UALR equivalents and/or shell courses. For example, if the transfer courses are BIOL 4123 (a 3 hour Food Microbiology lecture course) and BIOL 4121L (a 1 hour accompanying Food Microbiology Lab), articulate the lecture course to BIOL 4000 (3 hours) and the lab course to BIOL 4000 (1 hour), instead of articulating BIOL 4123 and BIOL 4121L to the single shell course BIOL 4000 (4hours.) Doing so eliminates a common problem currently seen in transfer articulation where a 3 hour science course is articulated to a four hour equivalent with the student then missing a crucial onehour lab at the point of graduation checkout. It is still possible to couple more than two or more transfer courses to fulfill a requirement normally met by one UALR course, but this requires a twostep process: request a shell equivalency articulation of the courses to a one hour and three hour equivalent and then submit an IDA in order for this combination shell articulation to be applied in Degree Audit to satisfy a specific major or minor requirement (e.g. for BIOL 4000 (3 hours) plus BIOL 4000 (1 hour) in the previous example to satisfy the requirement for BIOL 4399).

4 Consideration of Technical Courses for Articulation to a Major or Minor Requirement Some UALR degree programs, such as Computer Sciences, include some technical components. In the instance that your department offers such a degree and typically accepts transferred technical courses as satisfying a degree requirement, you will need to review these courses and course descriptions from other transfer institutions. If you do not receive course descriptions for technical courses when you are contacted by the Office of Records and Registration to evaluate other courses from a specific transfer institution, please let Records know that you need to review technical course from that transfer school. Based on your evaluation of these courses, acceptable technical courses can be articulated as departmental shell courses. Required Action from Academic Departments In March 2013, your department was contacted to identify a transfer course reviewer/evaluator. Soon your department s reviewer/evaluator will receive an e mail from [email protected] (College Source TES) sent on the behalf of a Records and Registration staff member (Sharon Johnson, Magen Meyer, Regina Carter, etc.). The will ask your reviewer/evaluator to log in to TES College Source to review lists of courses and catalog descriptions from transfer institutions, beginning with UALR s top feeder schools, in order to evaluate and establish a transfer course s UALR articulation. When your department receives the TES , the reviewer/evaluator will be asked to evaluate each course that is listed and compare it to courses offered by your department. After the appropriate information is submitted via TES, Records and Registration will update the Banner Equivalency Tables, and changes will also display in the Transfer Equivalency guide As a result, the course information you provide will be in effect for all transfer students who enter UALR during the semesters. These tables will be maintained by Records and Registration. Log In and Instructions for TES 1. Log into TES, using your Username and Password. 2. Select the Track tab. Then, select the My Evaluations option. You should be able to see the school and courses that need to be evaluated. 3. Click on the box to the left of the school name and course to bring up specific information about that course, i.e., course description, credit hours, catalog year, etc. 4. Evaluate each course listed on the ed TES request and compare to courses offered by your department.

5 Details for Course Evaluations Using the Select Action pull down menu at the top area of the screen, select the appropriate option based on your evaluation. Approve For a UALR course equivalent; enter the UALR course number in the note text box provided. If you would like to pull up a list of UALR courses along side the transfer course description listed in the Open Evaluation Task, select the Select/Equivalent Course option in the Select Action pull down menu at the top of the screen, which will enable you to select a UALR dataset and then refine it to a departmental prefix in a pull down menu on the right of your TES screen. You will then be able to view UALR courses and designate one as equivalent for the transfer course. Enter a UALR course equivalent only if the transfer course will serve ALL the purposes that the UALR equivalent does. Entering a UALR equivalent means that the transfer course will meet any and all requirements whether for the major, minor and graduation requirements (e.g. the total 45 hour upper level requirement) as does the UALR equivalent to which it will be articulated. Approve For a Shell Course Articulation, after selecting Approve in the Select Action pull down menu at the top of the screen, enter Shell Course Articulation in the Note text box provided, if this course is not equivalent to a UALR course, but can nevertheless be used to satisfy a major or minor requirement. (See previous Guide to Using the Shell Course Articulation Option for more details regarding this option.) Deny If you wish there to be No Equivalency to a UALR course or shell course, enter No Equivalency in the note text box provided. With no articulation specified, the course will transfer only according to pre established UALR policy. 5. Select submit to forward your evaluation to the Office of Records and Registration. Point of Information about Core Courses (New Shell Course System) The Office of Transfer Student Services is responsible for establishing the CORE equivalents for transfer courses based upon previous agreements from UALR s academic colleges and as delegated by the Faculty Senate. In an effort to reduce the large volume of IDA s required for general education core courses, you will soon begin noticing a change in core course articulation in Degree Audit and on student transcripts, which will utilize a CORE prefix shell course system. Using CORE as the subject clearly identifies the transfer course as a core course and prevents spillage into major areas. For example, if a student transfers in a science course that meets educational goals for a UALR science core course, but which has no UALR course equivalency (e.g. PHYS 1401 from Pulaski Technical College), then the credit would be articulated in our system as CORE SCIN. Degree Audit will be adjusted to recognize the CORE SCIN credit as satisfying a UALR core science area.

6 Core Courses 3/27/13 version 1 HIST 1311 HIST 1312 SPCH 1300 Fine Arts History/Gov Humanities Math Rhetoric Science Social Sciences CORE HIS1 CORE HIS2 CORE SPCH CORE FINA CORE HIGV CORE HUMA CORE MATH CORE RHT1, CORE RHT2 CORE SCIN CORE SOCS