ASSIST Transfer Channel |
 In This Issue
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2nd edition 2.10.05
Welcome to the ASSIST Transfer Channel, the official newsletter of the ASSIST Coordination Site. In this edition you'll hear from the ASSIST Director, learn about exploring majors in ASSIST, find out what's under the hood that keeps ASSIST moving, listen in on feedback from our users, and hear from UC Santa Barbara articulation officer Christian Villaseñor. Each article has a link to a printer friendly version at the end. Please print and distribute the ASSIST Transfer Channel according to your needs. We welcome your feedback and encourage your ideas about
articles you think will be useful to ASSIST users. 
Letter from the DirectorWelcome to the second edition of the ASSIST Transfer Channel, a semi-annual newsletter for counselors, advisors, faculty, evaluators, articulation officers, and everyone else who is interested in the latest information about ASSIST. We’re e-mailing this edition via the new ASSIST-Channel-L@uci.edu e-mail listserv and we would appreciate your forwarding it on to any others at your campus who you think might be interested. If anyone would like to have future editions of the ASSIST Transfer Channel automatically delivered to their e-mail address, please check out the Subscribing section of this edition for instructions. This edition includes another special section for students titled “A Student Guide to Exploring Majors” that explains this new feature in ASSIST. Feel free to print copies and hand them out in transfer centers and other key places on campus. A record number of people have been using ASSIST. During the 2004 calendar year over 660,000 people used ASSIST to request over 5.8 million articulation reports and our server computers handled 84 million site hits during 4 million site visits. November and May are typically the busiest months each year and we expect the overall numbers to continue climbing throughout 2005. Even though our usage numbers look high and are increasing every year, there are still far too many students who don’t know about ASSIST. We rely on college and university counselors, advisors, faculty, students, and others to spread the word. We encourage every college and university to include references to ASSIST in their campus web sites, catalogs, schedules of classes, and other resources that transfer students often use. To help out, we have a page on the ASSIST Information Center that includes some standard language about ASSIST along with a number of graphic images your campus may want to consider using. Feel free to contact Doug Koeppen in our office if there’s anything else that we might be able to provide to help add more references to ASSIST throughout your campus. Lastly, I want to mention some upcoming activities we are planning that will help us better understand how we can continue improving ASSIST. This spring, we will be designing focus groups to be conducted in the fall term with students (and possibly with counselors and advisors). During these focus groups, we hope to gain detailed feedback about how students find ASSIST, how they use it to meet their needs, and what other information or features they might find useful. We also hope to test some alternative layouts for the web site. While I can’t promise that we’ll be able to make immediate improvements, the ASSIST Board of Directors wants to collect this information to help us focus on our most important users - students. I’m sure there will be a written report that details our findings; I’ll make sure to mention it in this newsletter once it is available. Thanks for your continued support of ASSIST and please feel free to contact any of us at (949) 824-4385 if you have comments or questions. You can tune into the next edition of the ASSIST Transfer Channel in Fall 2005 - until then … Eric Taggart
Letter from the Director - Printer friendly version A Student Guide to Exploring MajorsWhat is Exploring Majors?In 2004, ASSIST activated a new component of its software called Exploring Majors that allows you to browse information about majors available at University of California campuses. In March, 2005, this component will be expanded to include majors offered at California State University campuses. The addition of this new data makes Exploring Majors a very powerful transfer tool. ASSIST has always provided information on how community college courses transfer to UC and CSU campuses. Exploring Majors adds new context to the articulation information in ASSIST by helping you learn which campuses offer specific majors, what the requirements for majors are, and how community college coursework will be used in the major you’ve selected. When you select a major, detailed information about that major is displayed. These detailed pages have two main components. The first provides descriptions of each major, links to campus web sites where you can find the coursework requirements for the major, and GE coursework recommendations. The second component is where you select community colleges you might want to attend to view the transferable course information showing how coursework taken at those colleges will apply when transferred. This information includes all of the data which has always been available in ASSIST:
Exploring Majors is quite easy to use -- instructions and narrative information are available on screen, so click around to see what information awaits you. The Exploring Majors PathsExploring Majors provides four paths leading to majors and articulation information at UC and CSU campuses. Each path is explained below as well as the reasons you might select one or another to begin your search. I. MajorsThis path is for those who are unsure of which major to choose, which institution to attend, or which majors are offered at certain campuses. The Majors path gives you three ways to learn about the majors offered at University of California and California State University campuses.
II. UC and CSU CampusesIf you know which UC or CSU campus you are interested in attending, the University of California Campuses or California State University Campuses path is a good place to start. Each path shows a map of California with the names of the UC and CSU campuses. Clicking on any campus name displays a complete list of majors offered at that campus. The lists are organized by the academic units that offer the major. III. Community College CampusesIf you know the community college you plan to attend, but not the UC or CSU to which you plan to transfer, the Community College Campuses path might be the best place to start. The most powerful feature in this path is a matrix provided when you select one or more community colleges after choosing a discipline. ASSIST displays a matrix of all UC and CSU campuses offering majors within your chosen discipline. The matrix allows you to easily compare the requirements, campus-to-campus, and to see major articulation with your college. You can also select any major name listed to see the full details about that specific university major. IV. Course ArticulationThe course articulation path takes you directly to the transfer course lists and campus specific articulation found in ASSIST. This path is most useful for students who have explored the majors they are interested in and want to see how their community college coursework will transfer to the university and major of their choice. Why Explore Majors?Exploring majors in ASSIST provides several paths to help you learn about majors, identify specific majors based on your interests, and compare community colleges to see how courses will transfer to a university for specific majors. With the addition of California State University majors information, Exploring majors in ASSIST expands the power and usefulness of ASSIST giving you complete information about transferring from a California Community College to a university. Begin exploring majors now by clicking Exploring Majors.
A Student Guide to Exploring Majors in ASSIST - Printer friendly version ASSIST: What's Under the Hood?On the surface, ASSIST is just one more source of information for those navigating the world-wide-web in search of buried treasure. ASSIST definitely delivers the goods. In fact, ASSIST was visited over 4 million times in 2004 by 661,668 unique visitors. That’s because with just three clicks of the mouse visitors can find out which courses from California community colleges will be accepted for credit and what kind of credit will be given when transferred to a California university. It seems so easy, but how is it possible to display information about so many courses between so many schools? As usual, it’s done with lots of hard work by dedicated people at each of the schools. In this case, those people are using three online software systems to maintain quality information for ASSIST users: the Curriculum Update System, OSCAR, and the ASSIST Articulation Data Entry System. Read on to find out how these systems under the hood make this transfer planning tool so flexible, useful, and powerful. Curriculum Update SystemThe Curriculum Update System is an online curriculum entry system. It contains all of the community college transferable courses and every university course that is articulated. It is the foundation of all articulation agreements and course lists in ASSIST. The Curriculum Update System is the resource of information from which transfer information gets displayed in ASSIST. The Curriculum Update System is designed to be used by campuses because they are the most familiar with their courses and curriculum and so are best qualified to enter and update that information. Since curriculum information for a campus is entered by the campus itself, ASSIST users have the assurance that the information in ASSIST is accurate. In addition, campuses update this information four times each year using the Curriculum Update System so the transfer information in ASSIST is up to date. Now that you know how the courses get entered, you might be wondering about who decides which courses are going to be accepted for credit and the type of credit the courses will receive when transferred? One part of the answer is that the university system offices and articulation officers review and approve courses for transfer credit with the help of OSCAR. Online Services for Curriculum and Articulation Review – OSCAROSCAR is an online curriculum and articulation review system developed to help campuses submit, review, and approve courses to be included in UC TCA, IGETC, CSU GE, and CSU AI course lists. Only those courses entered in the Curriculum Update System are available to be selected in OSCAR so that there is a source of accurate, dependable information to draw from. The way it works is that community college articulation officers use OSCAR to enter courses they are proposing for transfer credit. OSCAR allows users to enter course outlines describing the courses in detail, including textual descriptions for review by the UC and CSU system offices. The approved transfer information ultimately gets displayed in the various transfer-related reports available in ASSIST. But the question remains as to how all of this information gets displayed in ASSIST when a user wants to see transfer information for a specific department or major at a particular campus. There is another system developed and maintained by the ASSIST Coordination Site known as the ASSIST Articulation Data Entry System. ASSIST Articulation Data Entry SystemThe ASSIST Articulation Data Entry System is where university articulation officers create articulation agreements between schools by matching up individual courses from their university with comparable courses from the community colleges. The ASSIST Articulation Data Entry system provides the versatility that is needed to enter articulation according to each university’s preferences. And since the schools are entering the articulation information themselves, users have the assurance that transfer information is presented as the campus intends. In addition, the courses that were entered in the Curriculum Update System are used in the Data Entry System assuring that only valid courses are entered. What’s under the ASSIST hood?At a glance, ASSIST is a simple, easy-to-use web site that provides an abundance of transfer information with just a few clicks of a mouse. Under the hood, however, there are several systems and processes that contribute to the success of this helpful and powerful tool. The Curriculum Update System, OSCAR, and the ASSIST Articulation Data Entry System all contribute to the success of ASSIST and the ability to provide complete, accurate, and up-to-date transfer information for anyone planning an academic career at California’s community colleges and universities. Behind these systems are the people at the community colleges and universities who maintain accurate information in ASSIST as well as the staff at the ASSIST Coordination Site who maintain these systems and make sure the data is presented as intended to ASSIST users.
ASSIST: What's Under the Hood? - Printer friendly version We Get FeedbackWith the literally thousands of times a day ASSIST is used, there are bound to be questions. ASSIST enables users to submit questions or comments to the ASSIST Coordination Site. Users can click on either Courses Didn't Transfer? or General Comments and use a simple form to send their question. There are two links because we were requested to provide a specific place where student could report times when they were unfairly denied transfer credit. In practice, users send the same kinds of questions with both forms. We occasionally hear from a counselor or other staff or faculty member, but the vast majority of the feedback we receive comes from students. When the user provides us with an e-mail address we reply to questions as promptly as possible; usually the same day. Some questions are too specific for us to answer; they concern a student's specific academic record. Others are far too broad; looking for general academic advice or career guidance. We forward those questions to our contacts at the universities and colleges. We recognize that we are not academic advisors, and make a point of encouraging every student to see their community college counselor or an academic advisor at the university. All of our university contacts (the ASSIST Managers) are very good about replying to students' questions. We've all heard anecdotal complaints that the universities are not responsive to students, but that has not been our experience. In most cases the student has misunderstood the requirements, and in cases where there's a different issue, every effort has been made to help the student. We keep track of all of the cases where a student reports that they did not receive credit properly, and report those cases to the ASSIST Board of Directors. We ask the universities to keep us up-to-date about those situations, and in every case where the student has correctly fulfilled the requirements, the university has been able to accommodate the student. Few of the comments or questions we receive are about how to use ASSIST. Most students are trying to understand the information they've found, and need some clarification or explanation about the information in the reports. Some students ask about information for private colleges and universities. Some are interested in transfer to USC, for example, but more commonly the questions concern the transferability of courses from institutions like National University, University of Phoenix, or Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. We also get many questions from students from out-of-state. In all of these cases we direct the student to an advisor at the university campus they plan to attend. Recently, we've received a lot of questions related to UC Pathways, UC's online admissions application. On the application, students are asked to report the courses they've taken at community colleges. The application checks those courses against data in the ASSIST database. If the student entered a course with a small inaccuracy (BIO 101 instead of BIOL 101, for example), it didn't show as UC transferable on the application. While ASSIST doesn't really provide technical support for Pathways, we have been able to help a number of students who were having this problem. In this example: I have taken [HP 9] at foothill college, which is a UC transferable course, yet, the uc pathways website doesnt show that the course is UC transferable. The naming convention at Foothill College is H P, with a space. When the student entered the course with the space, it was shown as transferable. (Note: I've kept the original spelling, punctuation and grammar in all of the examples.) Many questions indicate that the user is missing some important basic knowledge about transfer in general. One common area of confusion is the difference between the terms transferable and articulated, and the difference between admissions criteria and lower division major preparation. Here are three typical examples: I am currently enrolled in Business 20 Introduction to
Business and Business 21 Marketing at San Joaquin Delta College. I am
planning to transfer to San Jose State University but it didn't show
that it was needed. Are these classes transferable or should I drop
them? the transfer requirement for Anthropology is a 103 Anthro
class, my college does not provide an Anthro 103 introduction to Prehistory,
but it does provide an Anthro 141 Introduction to Archaeology. Will
Anthro 141 Transfer? Hello, I took a course at Los Angeles Pierce College entitled Programming Logic; Cos 507. It is UC and CSU transferable, however it does not seem to exist when I see what classes transfer over to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Does that mean it won't transfer over? We reply to questions like this with some basic explanation, and we suggest that the student talk to their counselor at their community college, and to an advisor at the university. If appropriate, we forward the question to our contacts at the university and/or college. We also get questions about basic admissibility. Since there are a variety of campus-specific issues related to impacted majors and competitive admission, we always refer those questions directly to the university. We also direct the student to the appropriate system-wide admissions web site. Here's an example: What is the average GPA that students usually transfer with to a CSU? In other words, what is my GPA suppose to be to consider good standing? There's one type of question that we've given its own category: "Exactly." With all of the work to provide a variety of educational experiences that meet the needs of California's diverse population there are still a lot of students that want to know 'exactly' what they should take. For example: What classes exactly will I have to take at Santa Barbara CC to transfer to UCSB? Thank you for your time. Of course, some of the questions are a little less precise: what is exactly civil engineering about and how much is the annual pay? How long does it take to finish up a bachelors, and a masters? And some, well, we can't quite figure out: I want an award and I need to get in contact with the dean of students at the university. And, for one last example, we do get some very nice comments: I love this site so much. I am in the process of applying to several universities in California, and if it weren't for Assist, I would have been much more confused than I already am. This is an awesome site that has, time and again, answered questions no one else could. So, whoever's responsible for this work of genius, keep it up! We Get Feedback - Printer friendly version On CampusWith this article, the ASSIST Transfer Channel introduces a new feature which looks at transfer programs and practices at colleges and universities throughout the state. Each issue of the ASSIST Transfer Channel will focus on a different college or university. Christian Villaseñor is the articulation officer at UCSB, he is also a UC representative on the ASSIST Board of Directors, the Assistant Director of Admissions, and oversees Transfer Services at UCSB.
Greetings from UC Santa Barbara! It is an exciting time on the UCSB campus. Over a dozen construction projects are nearly completed or underway at the UCSB campus. This includes new buildings for Marine Sciences, Life Sciences Technology, the California NanoSystems Institute, Engineering Sciences, and Intercollegiate Athletics, as well as two new parking structures and expansion of our Recreation Center, just to name a few! Also, this year two of our faculty members were awarded Nobel Prizes: Finn E. Kydland in Economics and David J. Gross in Physics. In all, five faculty members at UCSB have been awarded Nobel Prizes since 1998. Remarkable faculty and many brand new facilities, not to mention its extraordinary location on the California coast, are just some of reasons why students are applying to UCSB in record numbers. For fall 2005, UCSB received about 46,000 applications for admission, its largest pool ever. Of these applications, approximately 8,500 came from transfer students. UCSB gives priority for transfer admission to California community college students. In fact, UCSB guarantees admission to junior-level California community college applicants who meet the criteria of its Transfer Admission Agreement. ASSIST provides the perfect venue for any student or counselor to learn about UCSB’s Transfer Admission Agreement (TAA) as well as the transfer courses needed to ensure a successful transition to the campus. A visit to the ASSIST web site allows students to find course equivalency information about any of the majors offered by UCSB’s College of Letters and Science and College of Engineering. Students applying to UCSB’s College of Creative Studies must complete a supplemental application and upon admission create their own individualized graduation requirements in consultation with faculty advisors. TAA and major preparation information for the College of Engineering and the College of Letters and Science is located under the drop down menu of “By Major” agreements between UCSB and the California community colleges. UCSB also maintains course-to-course and campus specific general education articulation agreements on ASSIST. Our hope is that by providing students with the information they need to be guaranteed admission as juniors and well prepared in the majors they pursue, they will experience a seamless transfer process and graduate in a timely and efficient manner.
Christian Villaseñor - Printer friendly version Subscribing to the ASSIST Transfer ChannelSubscribing to the ASSIST Transfer Channel is easy. Click this link and fill in your e-mail address and a password. That's all there is to it. Look for next edition of the ASSIST Transfer Channel in September, 2005. |
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