Course equivalency is the term used in

higher education Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...

describing how a course offered by one

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

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relates to a course offered by another. If a course at one institution is viewed as equal or more challenging in subject and course material than a course offered at another institution, the first course can be noted as an equivalent course of the second one. A course equivalency can be unilateral, meaning it is deemed equivalent by the institution where a petitioner hopes to get credit for a course taken elsewhere. Or, it could be bilateral, meaning both institutions acknowledge their acceptance of each other's course as equivalent. The methods and measures used to determine course equivalency vary by institution, state, region and country.

Background

College transfer often requires the determination and evaluation of prior course learning. Receiving institutions usually maintain course equivalency tables listing how courses equate by sender institution. Unless the receiving institution maintains an online public reference to the course equivalency tables, students have difficulty ascertaining transferability of their credit experiences. As a result, student transitions from sender to receiver can be very problematic. This has led a number of states to initiate legislate reforms, regulations and mandates to augment the tracking of course equivalencies. A variety of statistics, studies, and initiatives have been documented (see References). The most common course attributes evaluated to determine course equivalency are description, academic credits, accreditation, type of instructor, method of instruction, level of instruction,

learning outcomes Although the noun forms of the three words ''aim'', ''objective'' and ''goal'' are often used synonymously, professionals in organised education define the educational ''aims'' and ''objectives'' more narrowly and consider them to be distinct from ...

, grade scale and grade earned, pre-requisites, co-requisites and

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. This is not an exclusive list of course attributes. Generally, faculty perform the determination of course equivalencies. Course equivalency decisions can often be appealed by presenting evidence to an academic department.

References

{{reflist Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). (2000). A Statement to the Community: Transfer and the Public Interest. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20121030030718/http://www.chea.org/pdf/transfer_state_02.pdf. National Center for Education Statistics. (2005) The Road Less Traveled? Students Who Enroll in Multiple Institutions. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005157.pdf.

External links

Transferology Course Equivalency Lookup
Didactics Academic transfer

Background

See also

References

External links