Instructions to Faculty Reviewers for Using Course-Matrix Spreadsheets

Each Faculty Learning Outcomes Council (FLOC) will be working with one or more Course-Matrix Spreadsheets for that council’s discipline(s). The spreadsheet consists of worksheets (tabs) from left to right—from a raw list of courses in the discipline arranged by institution on the left, to a proposed matrix on the right of equivalent and unique courses offered throughout the state. Between these two “bookend” worksheets are a series of worksheets showing the courses sorted in different ways: by original course number; by rubric / prefix (where a discipline involves more than one prefix); by new number; etc. A hyperlink to an Articulation Document is at the top of the 'Mapped Array' worksheet. The first page of the workbook is a listing of members of the council. Please make sure your information is accurate and send corrections to Sarah Elkins (selkins@montana.edu).

The proposed matrix is just that—a possible array of equivalent and unique courses, and the main task of the FLOC is to review, test, and correct that array so that it accurately reflects the state of the curriculum across the state within that discipline. It is this matrix (array) that will be used by students, advisors, parents, legislators and regents to know which courses transfer as equivalents and which don’t.

In this course-equivalency phase of the Transferability Initiative, no implication is intended, nor should be inferred, about whether a course without an equivalent at a given campus might be accepted in transfer as something other than an elective—it DOES guarantee, based on faculty-led decisions, that equivalent courses at different campuses will be treated as if they had been taken at the receiving institution.

Rules of thumb regarding the MUS Course-Equivalency taxonomy and alignment:
· Course equivalencies are determined based on the similarity of intended student learning outcomes; “significantly similar” courses are assumed to share a core of between 70%-80% learning outcomes; 20%-30% variations among versions of equivalent courses are expected on different campuses, just as that degree of variation is often found among different sections of a course on a single campus.
· Equivalent courses may be offered by different departments, under different titles. That is, “Course Prefix” and “Academic Discipline” associated with groupings of courses under a given heading do not equate to departmental designations or affiliations. Cross-listing of courses under different relevant prefixes is encouraged.
· Similar-seeming courses may not be deemed equivalent if they are offered for more than one level difference, i.e., a 100-level course cannot be equated with a 300-level course, or a 200-level with a 400-level. Courses with equivalent learning outcomes that are offered at some campuses at the 200-level and at others at the 300-level should be dealt with as equivalent courses—with the provision that students transferring the lower-division equivalent course will still need to fulfill an upper-division requirement at the receiving campus.
· Similar-seeming courses may not be deemed equivalent if they are offered for more than one-credit difference, i.e., a 1-credit course at one campus may not be deemed equivalent to a 3-credit course at another campus. To the extent possible, credits assigned to classes should be communicated in student learning outcomes as stated.

Review Process
To determine whether the list of courses in the discipline for your campus is correct, go to the first tab/worksheet and check to see that all courses shown are currently being offered, and that no courses offered are missing. Consider whether potentially equivalent courses in your discipline might appear somewhere else on your campus under a different prefix, perhaps offered by one or more different departments.
To determine the accuracy of a specific course equivalency shown in the working matrix, consult the worksheet showing courses sorted by new number to see what other course titles are being suggested as equivalents to yours. Also consult the MUS course articulation agreement workpage to check the proposed equivalency against existing transfer agreements. The URL for this workpage is http://msudw.msu.montana.edu:9020/wfed/ ... fer.p_test.
To enhance the development of student learning outcomes statements for equivalent courses[*], course syllabi for all equivalent courses need to be collected from all campuses, in both paper and electronic form. Learning outcomes statements from these syllabi can then be correlated to help identify “transferably equivalent” courses.
No part of this transferability initiative is intended to compel any campus to change its courses in the name of transferability. That choice lies entirely with individual campuses. This initiative will help campuses make informed choices about how their courses align with similar courses on other campuses—but the choice of changing its courses remains with the individual campus.
Comprehensive labeling recommendations (especially numbers & prefixes) will be primarily made by the Transfer and Articulation Coordinating Council (TACC), though Faculty Learning Outcomes Councils (FLOCs) have primary responsibility for course titles and are encouraged to suggest numbering schemes and prefixes appropriate to a given discipline. Any issues that arise before the TACC that involve significant academic policy decisions will require participation by campus academic leadership.
Long-term maintenance of the system’s coordinated curriculum should not restrict the ability of individual campuses to grow and innovate their own curricula. Existing campus-level curriculum-management processes will need only to add an MUS review step into their normal cycle to ensure that changes don’t generate curricular misalignments among different campuses.

Service to students is at the heart of the transferability initiative, and in the course of implementing this systemwide approach to improve service, several principles will apply:
a. “Do no harm”—during the process of change, as courses are being realigned and relabeled, transferring students should be given the benefit of the doubt regarding crediting prior learning in courses being transferred.
b. The shift to a systemwide approach to transfer of credits requires that student counselors and advisors become familiar with the MUS Transfer webpage, and that individual campuses create hotlinks to that webpage.
c. Students should not be required to re-take courses in which they have already demonstrated substantial competency, or in other words, to pay twice for the same service.
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[*] Eventually all courses, including unique ones, will need such outcomes statements to be associated with them—but for now the urgent need is associated only with equivalent courses.

The two DCC (Dawson) economics courses (EC 262 Principles of Micro & EC 263 Principles of Macro) on the matrix are correct.

From FVCC's standpoint the way ALL of our courses are numbered, titled, and slotted into the matrix is fine.

I like the (Not the Movie) comment............. :D:D gifted......