Get Started with Transferology: Considerations for uAchieve Schools

This article provides resources to support the additional steps that uAchieve® institutions must undergo in onboarding to Transferology®.

Getting Started with Transferology

Institutions that have just subscribed to Transferology® will follow the steps outlined in Get Started with Transferology: An Onboarding Guide to implement the software.

Colleges and universities supplying equivalencies from uAchieve® will undergo onboarding in two phases.

• Phase I is outlined in the Process Overview section of the onboarding guide and includes general setup, reviewing, and going live with equivalencies.
• Phase II is outlined in the uAchieve Institutions section of the onboarding guide and includes creating and importing Programs, creating Questions and Answers for use with degree programs, and testing and going live with degree audits.

Additional Steps for uAchieve Schools

Phase I

Define Year Term Conversions

As part of the onboarding process, institutions supplying transfer articulation rules from uAchieve® must provide CollegeSource with a month-by-month mapping of the Year/Terms used in transfer encoding. See Initial Setup of Year Term Conversions (uAchieve) for an overview of year terms, how they are used in Transferology® and Transferology® Lab, and instructions for supplying information to CollegeSource in the format required.

Review Unknown Source Schools

Some schools may use non-standard institution codes for transfer institutions (or source schools). When non-standard codes are used, source school aliases must be created to link the Source ID in the Institutional Reference (IREF) Table in the institution's encoding to one that Transferology can identify. Codes that are unrecognized by Transferology will appear on the Unknown Schools tab of Manage Source Schools.

Schools have two options for resolving unknown source schools:

1. Create a spreadsheet that specifies the SOURCE_ID, INAME, state, standard institution code type, and standard institution value for any institution on the Unknown Schools tab.
   1. Send the spreadsheet to TFOSupport@collegesource.com. From the spreadsheet, CollegeSource will create the aliases in Transferology.

2. Create source school aliases through Transferology Lab.

As noted above, codes that are unrecognized by Transferology will appear on the Unknown Schools tab of Manage Source Schools.

To access Manage Source Schools:

1. Log into Transferology Lab.
2. Go to the Rule Management menu.
3. Select Manage Source Schools.

The Unknown Schools tab will load by default. Clear the filter to view all schools on this tab, or use the filter to view entries by state. Use the filter box to search by school name or IDQ/ID. From here, institutions can manually source school aliases using the following documentation:

• Manage Source Schools
• Unknown Schools (provides instructions for linking)
• Linked Schools

As a resource, the Transferology Institution Codes spreadsheet identifies 5,400+ standard US institution codes used by Transferology.

Considerations When Getting Started

Institutions with many unknown source schools will need to establish a plan for creating source school aliases. CollegeSource recommends that schools follow the sequence below to create aliases for the unknown Source Schools gradually:

1. Start with the schools where the institution receives the greatest number of transfer students.
2. Proceed to create aliases for schools within x miles/hours of the institution.
3. Next, create aliases for schools within the state.
4. Create aliases for the remaining source schools.

Not all unknown source schools need to have aliases or be marked as hidden for the institution to go live with Transferology. Unknown schools are not shown in Transferology. It is up to each institution to determine when the school feels that enough source schools have been mapped to go live with equivalencies. Some schools concentrate on, as noted above, first ensuring that top partner institutions and those in a close radius have aliases. After going live, those institutions - as resources permit - will create aliases for the remainder of the schools.

Equivalencies to Standardized Exams and Military Credits

Transferology uses the following state codes as special values to identify standardized exams and military credits:

Institutions that wish to display standardized exams or military credits evaluations in Transferology should reference the following documentation:

• Exam Courses in Transferology
• Military Encoding
  • CollegeSource recommends institutions supplying rules from uAchieve® encode military credit evaluations using separate Source IDs corresponding to each branch of service. It is recognized, however, that not all institutions may be able to do this, and thus, multiple options are provided in the document.
    • See Separate Military Tables for more information about the recommended option.

Review Crosswalk Mappings

Institutions should review Crosswalk Mappings to verify if Transferology® has identified any standardized exams or military credits that need mapping. Institutions using course, exam, and occupation codes different than those utilized by Transferology to display these will need to create crosswalks to enable Matches to appear.

See the following documentation for further information:

• Display Standardized Exams Using Crosswalk Mappings
• Display Military Courses and Occupations Using Crosswalk Mappings

Test Equivalencies

See Test Equivalencies for Display in Transferology for an overview of the steps that institutions can take to verify equivalency results before going live. uAchieve-specific steps/tasks are noted where applicable.

Contact CollegeSource

Email TFOSupport@collegesource.com when ready to go live with equivalencies in Transferology®.

Phase II

Phase II of onboarding for uAchieve® schools will focus on creating and importing Programs, creating Questions and Answers for use with degree programs, testing, and going live with degree audits.

Create and Import Degree Programs

All institutions are encouraged to display degree programs in Transferology. Institutions that use uAchieve Degree Audit & Transfer Articulation to supply equivalencies to Transferology have the added benefit of providing students with degree audits that students can use to see in real-time how courses would apply to a program. The first step for uAchieve institutions involves creating or importing Programs into the Transferology® Lab via the Manage Programs page. While Programs can be added manually, most institutions utilize a flat file import.

For technical details on managing programs, see Manage Programs: Program Fields.

Degree Audit Considerations

Some schools may encounter unanticipated issues when setting up degree audits in Transferology. This is primarily due to the degree audit request being initiated within Transferology and not at the institution. Below are some examples:

• Institutions may need to change customizations to the degree audit program/process to produce a degree audit for an anonymous (i.e., not enrolled) Transferology student.
• Equivalencies may not appear on the Transferology audit if course codes are formatted differently than those within Transferology or not aligned with the institution's Department Begin, Department End, Course Begin, and Course End field spacing in the Institutional Reference (IREF) Table.
• Some additional encoding changes may be required or chosen to display or remove requirements on the Transferology audit. This can involve the use of marker requirements, pseudo courses, or condition codes.
• Degree audit report changes may be required since the Transferology student is not enrolled at the institution.
• Any COM used to run an audit in Transferology has restricted WIFDPROG setting options (see more details here).
• Institutions may opt to use a system condition code to turn on a special requirement to display only when audits are initiated from Transferology.
  • For example, some schools will display a special text requirement at the top of audits with a message for prospective students that should not display to enrolled students running audits at the institution.

Please review the information and recommendations in uAchieve Settings for Transferology Schools.

Questions

Schools can ask prospective students questions about the student's academic history when initiating a degree audit. Answers to these questions are pre-populated by the institution and connected to pseudo courses or marker requirements that can change what is displayed on the audit in return.

Institutions are not required to utilize the Questions functionality to provide degree audits to Transferology® .

Questions and Answers are managed on the Questions page of the Transferology Lab. See the Questions and Answers Import Record Format page for technical details on managing questions.

Test Degree Audits for Transferology Students

Contact CollegeSource