User-Added Transfer Courses

One of the newest features in TES is the User-Added Transfer Course feature. With this feature, you can add institutions, catalogs (data sets), departments, and/or courses to your TES data set that don’t actually exist in TES currently. For example, if you see a course on a student's transcript that you can't find in an official catalog for the institution, you can add it! If you want to define equivalencies to an institution that doesn't appear in TES, you can do that, too!

Please note: CollegeSource will not validate any of these submissions against actual catalogs collected by CollegeSource and added to TES. If you choose to add an institution, data set, department, or course that already exists in TES and/or may be added to TES at some future date, we will not validate or consolidate your user-added submissions with the official resources. You will need to define future equivalencies to the official data yourself.

Consider the following three scenarios:

SCENARIO: You have a student transfer come in that you would like to evaluate, but when you go in to TES you don't see any entry for the institution. Maybe they have not authorized us to load their catalog (we still load catalogs by permission-only), or maybe they aren't regionally accredited (yet). Maybe it is an International School that we do not have a catalog for. You search NCES.ED.GOV and you determine that you would still like to evaluate the credit (even though they might not be regionally accredited).
SOLUTION: You can add the institution, catalogs, departments, and courses to TES using the User-Added Transfer Courses feature.
Note: If you do not see a catalog in TES, we would like you to let us know, as well. We may be able to get one and add it to TES. If WE add it to TES, it will be available for everyone. If YOU add it to TES, it will only be available to staff on your campus.
SCENARIO: A feeder institution has data sets in TES, but you still don't find a particular course that appears on a transcript.
SOLUTION: You can add an institution (for example, XYZ University - Non-catalog courses), and then add data sets, departments, and courses, which you can then define equivalencies for.
SCENARIO: You are looking for a way to organize and manage your Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) process. This new feature is a FANTASTIC way to organize that!
SOLUTION: Add entities (institutions), data sets to organize it by periods (academic years) if that makes sense to you, departments if there are multiple departments that assess prior learning, and courses to identify the particular topic(s). You can then leverage the Evaluation Tracker Workflow to track the evaluation process. The Evaluation Tracker allows you to attach as many files as you like as long as they are in .pdf format and less than 4Mb each. What a great way to track it through the process and then document the final assessment!

Adding a User-Added Transfer Institution

To add a User-Added Transfer Institution, select User-Added Courses from the Match menu.

Select the Transfer Data radio button.

Click the Submit button.
To add a User-Added Transfer Institution, click the +Add Institution button.

Add the details for the Institution to the ADD INSTITUTION pop-up.

Click the Create button.

Add as many institutions as you want.
Best Practice - When determining your naming convention for User-Added Transfer Institutions you should add a designation that clearly indicates that it has been added by you (particularly if you are adding it to address SCENARIO 2, above). For example - add the initials UA to the institution name, or the designation "non-catalog courses" to differentiate the user-added data sets from official data sets that may already exist or may be added in the future.

Adding a User-Added Transfer Data Set

To add courses to a User-Added Transfer Institution, you must first add catalog editions, what we call Data Sets, in TES. Add these data sets to the institution within the Transfer Data segment of the User-Added Courses feature.

Select User-Added Courses from the Match menu.
Check the Transfer Data radio button and click the Submit button.
Click the arrow next to the institution name.
Click the +Add Data Set button.

Name the "edition" and establish the Low and High years for the data set.

Add as many data sets as you want.
Best Practice - When naming your User-Added Transfer Data Sets, the simpler, the better. If they are undergraduate courses, that's a simple name. If they are Prior Learning Assessment entries, that's another good name.

Adding a User-Added Transfer Department

To add courses to a User-Added Transfer Institution, you must first add catalog editions, what we call Data Sets, in TES. Then you must add Departments because every User-Added Course must be tied to a department. Add the User-Added Transfer Departments at the data set level in TES.

Select User-Added Courses from the Match menu.
Check the Transfer Data radio button and click the Submit button.
Click the arrow next to the institution name.
Click the arrow next to the data set.

Click the +Add Dept button.

Add a Department name and a department Abbreviation (Department Code).

Click the Create button.

The User-Added Department will be listed in the Department dropdown.
Add as many departments as you need.

Adding a User-Added Transfer Course

To add courses to a User-Added Transfer Institution, you must first add catalog editions, what we call Data Sets, in TES. Then you must add Departments because every User-Added Course must be tied to a department. You may then add User-Added Transfer Courses to the department.

Select User-Added Courses from the Match menu.
Check the Transfer Data radio button and click the Submit button.
Click the arrow next to the institution name.
Click the arrow next to the data set.
Click the +Add Course button.

Select the department(s) to add the course to.

Click the Next button.

Add the course details.
Click the Create button.

Click the Done button.

Add as many courses as you want.

Creating an Equivalency or an Evaluation task for a User-Added Transfer Course

Once you have added User-Added Transfer Courses, you can create Evaluation Tasks for them to have them evaluated and/or define Equivalencies to them. Simply use the Course Finder to locate the User-Added Transfer Institution, and then proceed the same way you would with an official catalog course.

Open the Course Finder from the Search menu.
Enter the User-Added Transfer Institution name (or a portion of it) in the search box.

Click the Search button.

Select your User-Added Transfer Institution from the list (by clicking the arrow next to it).
Please note: The User-Added Transfer Institutions you have added will not be visible to any other TES-client institution. All of the staff at your institution will be able to see it, but no other institution will see it.

Select the data set.

Select the (User-Added Transfer ) Department.
Check the box next to the (User-Added Transfer) Course.
Click the View button.

The (User-Added Transfer) Course details will display.
- Use the puzzle-piece icon to create an equivalency.
- Use the footprints icon to create an evaluation task.

The User-Added Transfer Courses feature can help you define equivalencies to courses that do not appear in existing catalogs, to courses that appear in catalogs not contained in TES, to courses that are from institutions that are not currently in TES, and even to workplace entities to help organize Prior Learning Assessment evaluations.

Let us know what you think about this new feature!