Course Atlas (education)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A course atlas is a computer database created to address the need to find and compare college and university curriculum offered by many academic institutions across a region, country or around the world. Academic courses listed in the course atlas reflect the availability of what an institution offers. The course atlas allows prospective students to search a database to find courses they may enroll in across institutions, satisfying their academic degree and program requirements. The course atlas also enables institutions to denote course articulation agreement and policy between a source institution and a receiving institution whereby others can determine the transferability of a prior completed course and the applicabiity targeting a determined major or program of study within an academic degree.
[edit] Background
According to NCES (National Center of Education Statistics) in 2005, 2.5 million students trasfered 6 million courses from one college or university to another. Academic transfer has been on the rise for many reasons. Community colleges offer their students transferability to other undergraduate programs, often developing articulation agreements helping students move their academic credentials. Surprisingly, nearly 60% of college graduates in the United States completing their undergraduate degree attend two or more institutions prior to graduation. In pursuit of serving transfer students, some U.S. states, consortiums and agencies have supported the development of a national course atlas to address student mobility issues. Prospective students need information about the likely ability to transfer courses from one institution to another before enrolling, paying for and completing a course. Often, students learn that courses don't transfer, contributing to loss of credits and expanded length of time to complete a degree. A course atlas also supports curriculum mapping by establishing a basis to align like courses offered by two or more institutions.
