Sample Process – Custom Form to Request an Evaluation Task
Does your institution require students to fill out a form to have transfer credit evaluated? Wouldn't it be nice if the student could create an Evaluation Task to kick off the Evaluation Workflow for you? Well, both are possible when utilizing the TES Web Service API Package.
Getting Started:
The Evaluation Tracker Workflow can be incredibly important for getting courses evaluated across many campuses. Most of the time, a staff member creates these requests and routes them out to faculty evaluators. These requests can come at the time of admission, when students are looking for replacement courses, or even from potential transfer students. While Transferology can help get potential students' credits into the evaluation workflow (Find a Replacement Course), creating a self-service portal for students to request an evaluation task is an option with TES's API's.
*CollegeSource would prefer this portal to be located behind a secure log-in at your institution.
Picking an Institution:
When designing your form you may want to consider what institutions you have available for students to utilize in requests. You can limit the number of institutions you display just to institutions you accept transfer credit from or open it up to all institutions. Once you have picked your list of institutions you will to include one of the three methods of obtaining an InstitutionID.
InstitutionID by OPEID
Using the GetInstitutionByOPEIDCode call provides your access key ID (AccessKeyID) and the OPEID code (InstitutionOPEID) of the institution you are looking up.
InstitutionID by CEEB
Using the GetInstitutionByCEEBCode call provides your access key ID (AccessKeyID) and the CEEB code (CEEBCode) of the institution you are looking up.
InstitutionID by Location
Using the GetInstitutionByInstitutionNameCityStateAbbr call provide your access key ID (AccessKeyID), Institution Name (InstitutionName), Institution's City (InstitutionCity), Institution's State Abbreviation (InstitutionStateAbbr) and the Institution's Country (InstitutionCountry).
Picking a Course:
Once a student has picked an institution, the next step should be entering in the information regarding the course they want to have evaluated. To look these courses up in TES, you will want the student to report the Course Code (Prefix and number), Month and Year taken since you already have the InstitutionID.
Using the GetCourseByInstitutionIDCourseCodeMonthYear call provide your access key ID (AccessKeyID), Institution ID (InstitutionID), Course Code (CourseCode), Month (1-12) and Year (4-digits).
Results
If the search is successful in finding that specific course it will return the unique CourseID, CourseCode and Course Title (CourseTitle). In some case multiple results maybe returned. This is do to the date range associated with the catalog at the institution, where the date you are searching overlaps 2 catalog date ranges.
If the search is unsuccessful, an error of "No Course Found" will be returned.
Check For for an existing Evaluation Task and/or Equivalency
To prevent duplicates always check for an existing Evaluation Task and/or Equivalency. Using the following calls you can help prevent any data issues an also provide any answers to students that already exists.
Checking for duplicate evaluation task.
Using the GetEvaluationTask web service call, users can see if a course from another institution has already been or is currently in the evaluation workflow. Users will need to provide an AccessKeyID, SendInstitutionID and at least 1 SendCourseCode (code not the CourseID) to check and see if this course is currently in the workflow. The call will then search for an exact match based on the SendInstitutionID and the SendCourseCode.
If the course is found in an existing evaluation task, a EvaluationID will be returned in the output from the call.
The method are available through the https://bws.collegesource.com/ web service.
If an EvaluationID is returned then you can let the student know the course is currently under way. You could also provide more details if you were to look at the Evaluation Task Details, but you might not want to show that to a student.
Checking for a Duplicate Equivalency
Using the GetEquivalency web call users can provide the following information to check for an exact mathcing equivalency:
AccessKeyID, SendInstitutionID, SendCourseCode1, SendCourseCode2*, SendCourseCode3*, SendCourseCode4*, SendCourseCode5*, SendCourseCode6*,
SendCourseCode7*, SendCourseCode8*, SendCourseCode9*, SendCourseCode10*, ReceiveCourseCode1, ReceiveCourseCode2*, ReceiveCourseCode3*,
ReceiveCourseCode4*, ReceiveCourseCode5*, ReceiveCourseCode6*, ReceiveCourseCode7*, ReceiveCourseCode8*, ReceiveCourseCode9*, ReceiveCourseCode10*.
*indicates a value that may be left null.
If an existing equivalency exists, then an EquivalencyID will be returned.
If an EquivalencyID is returned you can display the equivalency information to the student.
To get the details of an existing equivalency you can use the GetEquivalencyDetailByEquivalencyID and provide the following to view the details: AccessKeyID and EquivalencyID.
If found, the call will return the following information:
EffectiveDateBegin, EffectiveDateEnd, CreateUser, CreateDateTime, HideFlag, PublicNote, PrivateNote, SendInstitution (Name), SendInstitutionCity, SendInstitutionState, SendCourseCode1, SendCourseCode2*, SendCourseCode3*, SendCourseCode4*, SendCourseCode5*, SendCourseCode6*, SendCourseCode7*, SendCourseCode8*, SendCourseCode9*, SendCourseCode10*, ReceiveInstitution (Name), ReceiveInstitutionCity, ReceiveInstitutionState,ReceiveCourseCode1, ReceiveCourseCode2*, ReceiveCourseCode3*,
ReceiveCourseCode4*, ReceiveCourseCode5*, ReceiveCourseCode6*, ReceiveCourseCode7*, ReceiveCourseCode8*, ReceiveCourseCode9*, ReceiveCourseCode10*.
*indicates a value that may be left null.
Create Evaluation Task
If no duplicates are found then it is time to create a task. You will want to pick a user or service account to assign tasks that will be submitted by students. This is because the Evaluation Workflow will always route the task back to the creator of the task. Unless you want to add a drop-down menu of assignees to this form, it may be best to have the initial assignee and creator be the same person. One thing you can also do is use the comment field as a place where the student can provide contact information. That way you can reach back out to the student once the evaluation is complete.
To set an evaluation tasks users will need to provide the following information; AccessKeyID, CreateUserID, AssignedUserID, Comment*, SendInstitutionID, SendCourseID1, SendCourseID2*, SendCourseID3*, SendCourseID4*, SendCourseID5*, SendCourseID6*, SendCourseID7*, SendCourseID8*, SendCourseID9*, and SendCourseID10*.
*indicates a value that may be left null.
If the task is successfully created an EvalautionID will be returned.