While one state's lawmakers are calling for more transparency and accountability in the transfer of a student's course credits among institutions, a consortium of institutions in another state is doing just that -- according to the first two articles excerpted below. The credit-transfer issue could be significantly addressed by redesigning "common courses" and adopting a "common" final exam for each such course. A consortium of institutions could identify the 20 or 30 highest-enrollment courses offered in common and redesign those courses in common around a set of shared learning objectives to be tested as a substantive common subset of their respective final exams -- all the better if the final exam is shared in common and administered and graded by a neutral party, such as one of the national testing organizations. High-enrollment introductory common courses, after all, are the crux of the credit-transfer issue, and the score on a common final exam would provide a convenient measure for assuring the validity of a student's learning in a common course and providing a transferability protocol for the student's course credit among participating institutions.
Even more would be accomplished, for the strategy would also provide the means to benchmark and account for learning among peer institutions in the consortium. Wouldn't this voluntary strategy for transferring credit and benchmarking and accounting for learning be preferable to any legislative attempt to impose "standardized" exams and to benchmark learning without regard for differing institutional missions and student-body profiles? Indeed, NASULGC and its member institutions are thinking generally, thought not specifically, along these lines as a means to avoid some of the regulatory ideas under discussion within the Commission on the Future of Higher Education -- see the last excerpt below.
Lawmakers want smoother transfers of college credits
Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau, March 26, 2006
Dan Kunze is a community college honors student on full scholarship. He has studied hard, written countless research papers and learned to think analytically, but West Chester University, the state university in his area, wouldn't accept all of his credits. State lawmakers want to make it easier for students like Mr. Kunze, 20, of Montgomery County, to transfer to State System of High Education universities. They're considering legislation requiring community colleges and state universities to streamline course content and ensure that credits for core subjects earned at one school are transferable to any of the others. Private and state-related universities eventually may be asked to participate, too. Read more ...
UCF, community colleges unveil access plans
Orlando Business Journal, April 4, 2006
The University of Central Florida and four regional community colleges unveiled plans Tuesday to expand students' access to higher education. Through a consortium formed between UCF and Valencia, Seminole, Brevard and Lake-Sumter community colleges, students who graduate from the two-year colleges will be guaranteed admission to UCF. The consortium, which was formed to address the region's population boom and an increase in the demand for higher education, also wants to strengthen partnerships in academic programs, advising and financial aid. If the consortium achieves its goals, 4,000 graduates a year from the four community colleges could receive bachelor's degrees from UCF by the year 2015. UCF awarded 2,290 bachelor's degrees last year to students who graduated from the four community colleges. UCF now offers more than 35 programs at its regional campuses, and that number could double in the next 10 years if proposed joint-use facilities are built at Seminole and Valencia community colleges. Since the schools' board of trustees signed off on the concept of the consortium, UCF President John Hitt, BCC President Thomas Gamble, LSC President Charles Mojock, SCC President Ann McGee and VCC President Sanford Shugart have worked out many of the details of how it will operate. Read more ...
To Avoid Federal Mandate, Colleges Should Devise Own Gauges of Student Learning, Land-Grant Group Says
Jeffery Selingo, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 7, 2006
In an attempt to head off a government-mandated system to measure student learning, the two higher-education associations representing the nation's public colleges are calling on their members to develop their own voluntary approach that would allow the public to compare similar institutions. That recommendation was the main thrust of a paper released on Thursday by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, which represents more than 200 public research institutions. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which represents more than 400 state colleges, plans to issue its own paper next week proposing that states and their colleges, working with regional accreditors, come up with a "consensus model for assessing the value added from undergraduate student learning." The paper from the land-grant association says that any voluntary system for measuring student learning should include ways to gauge important skills, to assess student engagement, and to make comparisons of institutions possible. While the paper does not endorse any specific tests, it mentions assessments that already exist, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA, and the National Survey of Student Engagement, or NSSE. "We need to consider a voluntary system that takes into consideration the types and missions of our university system," Peter McPherson, president of the land-grant association, said in an interview. "If it's something that adds value and doesn't just respond to political pressure, it can, in fact, be something that schools will want to participate in." Chronicle subscribers can read more ...
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