Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

12 – Articulation and Transfer of Online Courses
Even within an integrated post-secondary environment
characterized by open and transparent articulation
relationship, faculty frequently raise the question of
whether mode of delivery can affect, or should affect, the
articulation of a course. For example, in British Columbia,
faculty members from each institution in the BC
Transfer System meet every year in discipline-based
groups, known as Articulation Committees. These committees
operate under the aegis of the British Columbia
Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT). Meeting
minutes collected by BCCAT reveal that the articulation
of online courses is often debated (BCCAT 2005).
Issues and concerns are varied:
• Many groups are enthusiastic about converting their
curriculum to online delivery formats, and see this
mode of delivery as attractive to potential students
• Concerns are raised about quality control, and about
assessment methods used in online courses and how
student evaluation is safeguarded and authenticated
• Some faculty worry about the use of online delivery
for students who need intrinsic motivation, structure
and an encouraging classroom atmosphere, especially
academically fragile students in developmental programs
• Faculty query how lab, field work, practica, and other
non-classroom experiences can best be organized in
online courses.
Where such discussions become problematic is where,
in the absence of reliable information and processes for
assessing equivalence, faculty and administrators with
concerns about online learning deny transfer credit to
students who have successfully completed online courses.
In some cases, the accreditation of the institution
delivering the online courses is cited as the reason for
denying transfer credit. In this scenario, the courses are
often not assessed. Rather, credit is denied on the basis
of where the course was taken, regardless of its quality or
content. Carnevale (2002) outlines the “rude surprise”
awaiting students who try to transfer such courses.
Concerns will always exist about the quality of some
deliverers of courses and programs, including online
courses. However, for legitimate institutions and their
students, it is vital that evaluators can rely on excellent
information about the online courses and can call on
sound principles and processes to evaluate them for
transfer credit. In this transaction, both deliverer and
evaluators have parts to play. The ultimate beneficiaries
of a sound articulation process, however, are the students,
who can be assured that their learning will be
appropriately recognized. All articulation should, after
all, support the fundamental principles of equity on
which an articulation environment is built: that students
should not have to repeat content which they have already
mastered, nor be denied credit because of technicalities.
Nor should they be credited with learning they
have not acquired, especially if that learning is fundamental
to their advancement to further study, or a required
element of their program (Finlay 2005, p. 7).
Many jurisdictions and organizations publish “best
practice” statements for online education. For a good
example see the Commission on Institutions of Higher
Education (CIHE, no date) Best Practices for Electronically
Offered Degree and Certificate Programs. Others
provide sets of guidelines exhorting their members to be
fair and reasonable. However, most of these documents
provide little guidance as to what “fair and reasonable”
actually looks like in practice. Few resources exist that
will assist practitioners at sending institutions to ensure
the successful articulation of their online courses, and
give the assessors at receiving institutions the tools they
need to make confident decisions. This chapter aims to
fill that gap.
The principles of articulation
When considering how to articulate a course for transfer
credit, evaluators are faced with numerous decisions.
Fortunately, they can turn to a number of principles to
guide them as they try to ensure that courses are articulated
fairly and consistently. These can be divided into
foundational principles, operating principles, and provisional
principles.
FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
Foundational principles are those which lie at the core of
decisions about all articulation of courses and programs.
• Equivalence: Equivalent means “equal in value”. 16 A
course submitted for articulation will likely never be
identical to the corresponding course at the receiving
institution. The assessment of equivalence involves
identifying the degree to which it matches in content
or outcomes. Discipline and program contexts will
dictate the relative importance of the similarity.
• In lieu: The act of awarding transfer credit implies
the acceptance of a course in place of a course or program
requirement offered at the receiving institution.
The course to be transferred does not have to be
16
Oxford Dictionary.
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