Category Mappings
This article overviews the Category Mappings page within the Transferology® Lab. Within this page, Transfer Specialists and Program Administrators can categorize the ACourses, IFlags, AltCourses, and TES® Course Tags used in institution transfer rules to help students identify courses that can be transferred back to fulfill requirements at the school they currently attend. Institutions supplying rules from uAchieve® and PeopleSoft® can also use Category Mappings to adjust the scoring of rules carrying ACourses (and in the case of uAchieve, IFlags).
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To navigate to Category Mappings:
- Go to the Rule Management menu.
- Select Category Mappings
Two tabs are available on the page. The first is Requirement Categories, which displays by default. The name of the second tab will depend on the source of the institution's transfer rules.
If equivalencies are supplied from uAchieve® or PeopleSoft®, the second tab will be called ACourses/IFlags.
If equivalencies are supplied from TES® or flat file import, the second tab will be called AltCourses.
Requirement Categories
Within Requirement Categories, institutions can classify the ACourses, IFlags, AltCourses, and Course Tags used in transfer rules into categories.
Transferology® treats Course Tags attached to the home course within an equivalency in TES® as Alternate Courses (or AltCourses). As a result, Course Tags will appear within the AltCourse list and will not be referred to by name within the interface. When manually adding a Course Tag to a Requirement Category, for example, the user will be prompted to select the AltCourse to add to the category.
Within the Find a Replacement Course path in Transferology®, students can use these Requirement Category names to locate courses to take at other schools that would transfer back as fulfilling requirements at their current institution. Since Requirement Categories contain ACourses, IFlags, AltCourses, and Course Tags (see below), students would not be searching for equivalents to specific courses at their institution but rather courses that would fulfill more general requirements like liberal education/gen ed categories, subject-level electives, etc.
ACourses/IFlags
Institutions whose source of equivalencies is uAchieve® or PeopleSoft® use Category Mappings to categorize the ACourses within transfer rules. uAchieve institutions can also classify IFlags within this area.
Within uAchieve, ACourses (or "alternate courses") are a type of alternate identity given to home/Target courses. They provide an additional value that can be used when matching on a degree audit. In transfer evaluation, ACourses can be used to indicate that a course can transfer as the Target course, or it can be used to fulfill other requirements (depending on the student's major, etc.). An example of this would be an Intro to Statistics course evaluated as transferring as STAT101 Intro to Statistics (Target course) but alternatively could fulfill the requirements of ECON105 Economics Statistics (ACourse1).
ACourses can be either actual courses/curriculum at the Target institution or pseudos. Pseudos are a type of "placeholder" code that can signify that a course transfers as an elective, as meeting a liberal education/gen ed requirement, etc. An example of a pseudo would be "NSLAB"; an institution may use this code to indicate that a course can transfer or process on an audit as meeting the laboratory portion of the Natural Science liberal education requirement.
When PeopleSoft transfer rules are pulled into Transferology®, the Target Course Attributes are classified as ACourses, taking on the same meaning and functionality within transfer rules.
IFlags (also called "IFlgs" or "institutional flags") are one-to-three character values within uAchieve that an institution chooses to represent course characteristics. Just like ACourses, IFlags can be used to match coursework on a degree audit. Additionally, they can prevent coursework from fulfilling a requirement. Within a transfer articulation rule, an institution might use the IFlag "HUM" to indicate that a course can be transferred or be processed on an audit as meeting the Humanities liberal education requirement.
Within Category Mappings, uAchieve and PeopleSoft institutions can also influence the Match scoring values of transfer rules using ACourses (and in the case of uAchieve, IFlags) by adjusting their status values.
Alt Courses (including Course Tags)
Institutions whose source of equivalencies is TES® or a flat file import use Category Mappings to categorize the AltCourses used within transfer rules.
AltCourses (also known as "alternate courses") express that a course transfers as something other than a course within the institution's curriculum, such as an elective or liberal education/gen ed requirement. Within TES, these are known as User Added Courses, and are the courses that can be categorized in this area of the Lab.
As noted above, Transferology® treats Course Tags attached to the home course within an equivalency in TES® as Alternate Courses (or AltCourses). As a result, Course Tags will appear within the AltCourse list and can be assigned to Requirement Categories as well.
Institutions typically use Course Tags in TES to communicate that courses at the college or university meet core or general education requirements shared by a state or system. Where present, these tags help communicate to the institution evaluating the course that if that institution is also part of the same state or system, the transfer course should fulfill the same requirements at that school upon transfer.
AltCourses (and Course Tags) can be assigned to Categories using either the Requirement Categories or AltCourses tabs:
