Focused Report

Comprehensive Standard 3.4.4

The institution has a defined and published policy for evaluating, awarding, and accepting credit for transfer, experiential learning, advanced placement, and professional certificates that is consistent with its mission and ensures that course work and learning outcomes are at the collegiate level and comparable to the institution's own degree programs. The institution assumes responsibility for the academic quality of any course work or credit recorded on the institution's transcript. (Acceptance of academic credit)

Off-Site Committee Finding

Albany State University (ASU) has clearly defined policies for awarding transfer and advanced placement credit. These policies are published in the university catalogue and on the website. The University does not award credit for experiential learning at this time. The University's policy includes a statement that the institution may refuse credit if it determines that transfer course content is not equivalent to course content at ASU. However, the Committee did not find documentation of the mechanism for ensuring academic quality of credit. ASU did not provide a description or documentation of how transfer policies were developed and of how the institution continues to monitor that coursework and learning outcomes are at the collegiate level and are comparable to its own degree programs. An exception to this was found in the Memorandum of Understanding with Albany Tech College , which documented an institution-specific mechanism for ensuring academic quality of credit through annual review of faculty credentials and course syllabi. Materials describing the development of transfer policies and the mechanism for their regular review would be helpful for the On-Site Committee in ascertaining compliance.

Albany State University 's Response

All transfer policies are developed and reviewed based on University System of Georgia policies. Albany State University follows transfer policies established by the University System of Georgia regarding core curriculum courses from other System schools [1] based on a common core curriculum. Albany State University transfer credit acceptance from Georgia technical schools is also governed by System policy [2] . All core curriculum transfer credits are reviewed based on the University's standard transfer procedure [3] . Additionally, transfer credit policies and academic quality of student coursework are reviewed every three years when the undergraduate and graduate catalogs are updated.

Supporting Documentation

[1] Core Curriculum transfer policy

[2] Acceptance of Core Coursework and Placement Test Scores from DTAE Colleges policy

[3] Albany State University Transfer Evaluation Procedure