General discussion and feedback
Hello all--I admire the goals and governing principles of this document concerning credit transfer and articulation. I think they are not only appropriate but also ones that we can all aspire to. I particularly like the focus on learner-centeredness and the emphasis on institutional autonomy. I think both are the cornerstones of our future success, and of our ability to craft a transfer and articulation policy. However, I have two concerns beyond those raised by Mika (and I strongly second her concern about the distinction between proctored and automated assessments, considering the widespread availability of online proctoring):
1. In the US, we are simply not permitted to accept in transfer a transcripted credit from a non-US institution. All such transcripts (even from Canada now!) must be evaluated by an organization such as World Education Systems equipped to handle such evaluations, whether in English or not. Thus, we would not request articulation from another institution; instead, we would evaluate the course content ourselves to determine whether it aligns with our own course or program requirements. We could, of course, accept in transfer such OERu courses that are completed at one of the US partner institutions. But this is something we would already do.
2. The idea of notional learning hours is one that we in the US are moving away from, and a number fo institutions are already doing so via a competency-based approach. All of OERu's US partners are working on this. In this system, the basis for credentialing a student is the actual mastery of the learning outcomes identified in the course or program, and not the number fo hours it took for someone to complete the course. Such a measure, as far as we are concerned, tells you essentially nothing about a student's knowledge. To introduce this notion into the governing document here would be a step backward for us. The idea of RPL or PLA, for example, is antithetical to this measure of student learning.
I am confident that these concerns are easily addressed during our meeting tomorrow. Marc
Thanks Marc,
Exactly the kind of feedback and input we need. I'm not an expert in the US systems for accreditation and value your feedback to design an operational set of guidelines that will work across our six geographic regions and +20 countries.
- The OERu proposed articulation process will need to cater for US-based institutions where an OERu course is evaluated against the outcomes of your own course / programme requirements. If I understand this correctly, US partners will only be able to transfer credit if the assessment was conducted by a US partner institution? If so, not a problem - we would just advertise to learners that they could only apply the credit for credentials at US-based receiving institutions if the assessment was conducted by a US OERu partner institution. This of course would generate a unique opportunity for US partners to design assessment only services for OERu courses which map to local courses. Should be easy enough to adapt the guidelines to meeting this requirement.
- Indeed, many countries and national qualification frameworks are moving towards a competency-based approach. However, this is not true of all national qualification systems in the network. I envisage a system which can accommodate the needs of all our respective accreditation jurisdictions. The OERu network could agree that all partners are required to specify competencies / learning outcomes in the course design documentation for individual courses. The competencies / graduate profile for agreed credentials /programmes like the BGS should be developed and mapped to the COL Transnational Qualification's Framework which provides a mapping system for translating between systems based on notional learning hours and those which use competencies. So I think we have a pragmatic solution to address these differences - for example systems which don't require competencies, would be able to map to the notional learning hour "equivalent" for the programme. The reality is that we have international differences in the "course size" in terms of the "number" / "depth" of competencies included in the standard national "course size" and we need a common framework / language to interpret these differences. Again, I think the international qualifications framework developed by COL is a wheel we don't need to reinvent.
Yep - our meeting will provide a pathway for solutions.
HI, Mark -- Would you be able to use a PLA process to evaluate OERu learning, without going through one of the Foreign Qualifications evaluation bodies?
Oh, yes, of course. But this is exactly the problem--we would have to evaluate the learning itself in all cases, rather than the source of the learning. In this sense, we are not accepting the credit in transfer, as much as our institution would like to do.
