Create a Source Department Alias within Check Transfer Rules

Check Transfer Rules provides institutions a means to review the alignment of department names used in transfer rules with those in the Source School's TES® catalogs.  When a Match percentage is less than 100%, this means that an institution's rules contain departments that are not found within the Source School's catalog. The referenced article explains that there are various reasons this could occur. 

Read below to see how to use Source Department Aliases to map the department used in the rules to the one within TES to achieve Match results.

To create a Source Department Alias within Transferology® Lab: 

1. Select Rule Management.
2. Select Check Transfer Rules.
3. Select Revalidate.
   • This ensures current information is reflected on the page.
     • Wait for the notification that the validation is complete before proceeding. 
4. Select the Source School.
   • Filter by school name if desired. 
5. The Misses tab will note all departments used in transfer rules that do not exist in the institution's catalog. 
   • Within the Status Filter drop-down, select Not Reviewed to display only those departments which have not been manually reviewed.     
     • The assumption is that any department that has been marked reviewed no longer needs analysis, either because it already has a Source Department Alias or for another reason determined by the/a Transfer Specialist.
       
   • Review the department data and determine whether a Source Department Alias is the appropriate next step. 
     • If it is not, to the left of the Department (from your rule), under Status, the Transfer Specialist can select Mark Reviewed. The Status will change to Reviewed. This will communicate to other/future Transfer Specialists at the institution that no further review of this department is needed.
     • If a Source Department Alias is appropriate, proceed to Step 6.
   • Departments (from your rule) may appear on the Misses tab when uAchieve institutions' Source School Department/Course Begin/End are not aligned with course formatting in TES. Institutions may need to check these fields within the Source School Institutional Reference (IREF) Table. See uAchieve Transfer Articulation Best Practices Guide, Section 2-3 Identifying Courses, for more information.
   • According to best practice, the Department Begin/End positioning should account for the longest department length at the Source School.  
     • If the Source college's courses vary between two-and-four character departments, the Department Begin should be 1 and the Department End should be 4. 
       • When encoding Source rules into the Transfer Articulation (TA) Table, any two-character departments would need two spaces between the end of the department and the beginning of the course number/code. Example: PE_ _1000.
         • The department should be filled out (even if it means blank spaces) so that the course number begins in the same position within each rule.
6. Select Edit Source Departments. 
7. Select the edit icon next to the right of the Department (from your rule). 
8. The Source Department Alias pop-up will appear. Select an Alias from the pull-down menu.
   
   • A list of departments within the Source School's TES catalog will appear. 
     • In the example above, the rule department WRITING will be mapped to the TES catalog department L13 WRITING.
9. Select Save.
   • A notification will confirm the Department Alias has been saved. 
10. Select the Aliases tab to verify the mapping.
11. Select the Misses tab.
12. To the left of the Department (from your rule), under Status, select Mark Reviewed.
    • A green pop-up notification will indicate that the department saved as reviewed. The Status will change to Reviewed. Marking the department as reviewed will communicate to other/future Transfer Specialists at the institution that no further review is needed.

The Source Alias Department will apply upon the next Transferology rule upload. When students or fellow Transferology Lab users search for Matches to the course(s) noted on the Miss tab, that rule(s) will now appear in the search results. However, to see a change in the Match % on the Check Transfer Rules page, rules must be revalidated.