UMD’s Catalog Recovery Project How One Campus Worked to Improve Its Transfer Credit Services Sarah Hatfield Curriculum & Transfer Specialist (218)

Over the last year, UMD has worked to retroactively create five years of course catalogs. The aim of this project is to create a snapshot in time of UMD curriculum, so as to be able to preserve academic information and assist students transferring to and from the university. UMD will discuss how we worked to accurately and efficiently create these past catalogs within a limited timeframe, and how we worked to create up-to-date transfer evaluation decisions based on this information.

Aim of this Presentation To share: How UMD developed a method for searching for and evaluating five years worth of course changes and discerning their impact on transfer credit services How we were able to retroactively create course descriptions and build our past catalogs How UMD was able to update our DARS TA Tables in instances where transfer courses needed re-evaluation How we worked together as a team to improve our transfer credit services, and what we learned along the way

Let’s Start at the Beginning…

What Did This Mean for Students? Students Transferring From UMD Courses created after 2009 catalog snapshot are not in TES The only source of available course descriptions is the current UMD website UMD website Course descriptions may have changed over time

What did this mean for students transferring to UMD?

Transfer Evaluation Process Flow (Ideal)

Transfer Course Evaluation Process Flow (Actual)

Because UMD Catalog is Not in TES…

UMD Course Not in TES Complications Faculty must write in equivalency manually Chance that faculty may think they can’t match the transfer course to a current UMD class since it’s not in TES Evaluation task cannot be “closed” in TES since course cannot be selected Leads to paper process that involves tracking Courses may not be get re-reviewed when curriculum changes at UMD or sending institution

February 2014 UMD began work on the Catalog Recovery Project - a project which would retroactively create the below UMD catalogs: * Final Goal:

Where Do We Begin? How do we know what courses were added each of these years? How do we know which courses were removed and which changed? Do we put everything in the description – i.e. pre-requisites, semesters offered? How much time will that take? Do we re-create an entire catalog from scratch? Where is the coffee!?!?

Targeted Approach Recreate these past catalogs, using the and as a starting- point/”shell”. Include information vital to the history of the course and transfer credit: Subject Number Title Description Credit Hours Grading Method Liberal Education Program Requirements Repeatability Pre-requisites Terms offered “Duplicate credit” statement

Start Date: February 2014 Projected Completion Date: September 2014

Catalog Step 1: Query A query was run to look for any courses in the electronic catalog that had an effective date that fell between 9/7/2010 and 9/5/2011. This would “signal” that a course change occurred sometime in Fall 2010, Spring 2011, or Summer 2011.

Spreadsheet Components: Course ID Effective Date Status Subject Units Long Title Description

Step 2: Analysis Each entry on the spreadsheet was analyzed – we compared the Electronic Course Catalog entry on the sheet with the previous Electronic entry to determine what change occurred between 2009 and 2010.

Step 3: Input the Change on the Spreadsheet

What if there’s no change? Verify that the physical catalog description in the old catalog (now saved as the Draft) is the same as what is displayed in the Electronic catalog for Note that there was no change and mark “PDF” status as complete.

Step 4: Update Catalog Description Ex. HIST1100 changed to AAAS ) Remove HIST1100 from catalog Put on deleted courses document 2) Add AAAS 1100 /ADD/ above description 3) Mark “PDF Status” as Complete

Unexpected Discoveries: Courses Missing from catalog (included mid-year additions) Errors in Catalog Tricky Cases

Documented errors found in catalog. Since this course was inactivated Fall 2009, we knew to end- date any equivalencies to it.

Tricky Cases What do we do if a course was de-activated mid year? Solution: Be mindful of the date the course became inactivate. If it became inactive mid-year or over the summer, do not remove it from the catalog. It must be taken out of the * * catalog.

Tricky Cases What do we do if a course (CHEM1111) was de-activated mid- year and a new course (CHEM1112) was created in its place? Solution: Add both courses to the catalog since they could have both been offered that year.

Tricky Cases What if we encounter a situation in which a course description or credit value changed mid-year or late summer? Solution: After consulting with CollegeSource, we determined that mid- year or summer changes needed to be reflected in the next catalog. The only exceptions were mid-year or summer additions of courses, or course number changes.

Once the catalog was complete, we sent it off to CollegeSource and began work on the catalog.

Difference in Process Catalog Created by myself & Catalog Created with the assistance of two non-OTR staff Saved catalog as “ Draft”. Split PDF of catalog into three Word documents. Created instruction sheet & crashed Google Spreadsheet converted Spreadsheet to Google Doc.

As Project Manager, I acted to: Help create the catalog Problem-solve Proof the catalog for accuracy & consistency

Difference in Process Catalog Created with the assistance of two non-OTR staff Saved catalog as “ Draft”. Split PDF of catalog into three Word documents. Created instruction sheet & converted Spreadsheet to Google Doc.

Why Go Backwards? In Fall 2012, UMD established new Liberal Education Program requirements. These requirement headings were present in the catalog that was already created.

Once the UMD catalog appeared in TES, we put a “closed” sign on TES and prepped our catalog for use. Updated User-Added Courses (New Departments) Double-Checked Display of Courses

Updating Equivalencies

Course matches were sent to faculty for re-review in TES in instances where: UMD CourseSending Institution Course Inactivated Changed Description Changed Credit Value Changed Course Title* Changed SubjectChanged Subject*

Updating Equivalencies Equivalencies were updated by the OTR (no review necessary) in instances of: Course number change Title change at sending institution

End-Result (Spreadsheet)

Goals of Catalog Recovery Create a snapshot of the history of courses offered at UMD. Enable students and Transfer Specialists to have information students need to transfer to/from UMD. No longer have courses equivalent to classes that do not exist at UMD. Get the catalog data in TES that is needed for faculty to make up-to-date transfer evaluation decisions.

Completion Dates CatalogProjected Completion Date Actual Date Completed Projected Date for Catalog in TES Actual Date Catalog In TES Projected Date of Equivalency Update Completion Actual Date of Equivalency Update Completion March 2014March 18 th, 2014 April 2014April 14 th, 2014 May 2014July 3 rd, April 18 th, 2014 April 23 rd, 2014 May 19 th, 2014 May 29 th, 2014 June 2014August 10 th, 2014* April 21 st, 2014 July 14 th, 2014 May 26 th, 2014 August 6 th, 2014 July 2014September 5 th, 2014* N/A July 2014August August 2014September 2014 Ongoing

What Did We Learn? While our course catalogs have been “recovered”, it took great time and effort to create them and some compromises had to be made. Not having this data available in real-time hindered the transfer credit evaluation process and has created a historical record that will have some inaccuracies.

What Did We Learn? The ability to access course catalogs in TES greatly aids in transfer credit evaluation. Not having these available slowed down the transfer credit process for all parties involved.

What Did We Learn? We couldn’t have done this project without the combined effort of many people and departments at UMD.

Looking Forward The UMD catalog is set to appear in TES any day now… probably today, just because I’m not in the office

Questions? Sarah Hatfield (218)