1. Utilizing the P’s and Q’s (Policy, Process and Quality) of Prior Learning Assessment (PLA): Lessons Learned and New Approaches to Help Improve Your Transfer Center
Presented by:
Amy Martin, Director of Academic Evaluation
Christie Grote, Director of Academic Process
Liz Bernal, Supervisor of Prior Learning Assessment
David Saenz, Supervisor of Prior Learning Assessment

2. Learning Objectives
Articulate the AIU model for a centralized transfer center to compare and contrast it with the model currently in use at your school.
Learn how to incorporate employee recruiting and training, management of unique student populations, prior learning assessment advising, faculty involvement, as well has integrated use of technology into your transfer center for maximum results.
Plan tangible takeaways for how
your campus can start or improve a
transfer center that includes prior
learning assessment advising.

3. Getting to know you…
To help us get started, let us briefly define a transfer center as some place on your campus where students can go to get information on how/where incoming credits may be applied… And let us put incoming credits into 2 categories: college transfer credit, and everything else (military credit, exams, portfolio, etc). To get to know one another a little better so that we can get the most out of our time together today…
By show of hands, how many of you currently have a transfer center?
Keep your hand up if you currently accept some form Prior Learning other than college transfer credit?
Now, keep your hand up if you actively advise on PLA…
…Those of you who still have your hands up probably have a similar model to AIU…

4. Prior Learning Assessment
College Transfer Credit
Military Credit
Standardized Exams
Advanced Placement
College Level Examination Program
DANTES Subject Standardized Tests
Challenge Exams
Experiential Learning Portfolio
Professional Training Certification Credit
At AIU, we define PLA broadly and any of the methods listed. In addition to the methods listed you may be familiar with, we also offer free Challenge Exams for our 100 level English, Algebra, and Computer courses that students can elect to take in order to test out of those classes. We have our policies for each clearly documented in our catalog and student handbooks. Additionally, we have internal procedure manuals, and a PLA Manual that is used by staff and faculty at each campus. The review of official documents is centralized at our Main Campus…

5. Transfer Center: A Centralized Model
Leadership Team
Centralized Services
Campus Registrars
University Registrar
PLA Evaluators
Document Coordinators
…Where we have a centralized model for our Registrar’s Department. We have campuses in Atlanta, Houston, South Florida, London, and Online, but the review of documents occurs in our University Registrar Department, which resides at our Main Campus. We consult with experts on the faculty at all of the campuses.
Our UR Department consists of our {CLICK} Leadership team, {CLICK} Campus Registrars, {CLICK} Centralized Services (administrative tasks for the campuses),{CLICK} Degree Progress (graduation audits), {CLICK} Document Coordinators (who proactively request and retrieve transcripts), and last but not least, {CLICK} our PLA Evaluators who perform a mix of proactive outreach (phone, interactive presentations, Open House, New Student Orientation), and response to inquiries (phone, , live chat). Our PLA Evaluators work closely with our faculty to help facilitate the process of reviewing PLA related documents. One thing to note for our Online campus, is that upon enrollment, our students’ schedules are track enrolled, so that all graduation requirements are scheduled, and a pathway to graduation is clearly laid out. Of course, as transcripts arrive, and if TC is approved, our PLA team will work to condense these schedules.
When we are recruiting for our Evaluator teams, we are looking for specific skill sets, that Liz will review next…
Degree Progress

6. Recruiting and Training
Targeting specific skillsets
Behavior based interviewing
Selecting the right candidate
Technology Skills
Learning on the Fly
Thank you Amy, at AIU we target very specific skillsets when hiring and to do this we go through the process of behavior based interviewing, asking about specific times they have encountered situations, their thought process and ultimately what what the outcome and would they do it differently next time. This way we are able to see if they can see a problem or issue and breakdown what, why and how they complete tasks. From there we can select the right candidate using the following areas {CLICK}
Technology Skills – tech is critical for our main campus as most of our communication is through and phone as well as online instruction
Learning on the fly – as with most industries we are always in a state of change to ensure that we are following policies and procedures and AIU is always striving to continuously improve and adapt to our regulatory environment. This is why our staff need to learn on the fly
{CLICK}
Problem solving
Written Communication
Act with Honor and Character – Acting with honor and character is important to gauge how someone deals with tough ethical decisions and we strive to ensure that our staff once hired go through additional training for Ethics and are able to make the tough decisions when someone requests to break or “bend” a documented policy.
Finally Priority Setting – since we are in a fast pace environment like any other Registrar office our staff need to set priorities and help our students in a timely manner
Dealing with Ambiguity – is also critical as sometimes our students have attended multiple schools in the past or completed training from various institutions and our staff need to be able to handle any type of situation that comes to them on a daily basis.
…Once we have selected the right candidate we want to make sure they are trained and ready to help our students…{CLICK}
Problem Solving
Written Communication
Act with Honor and Character
Priority Setting
Dealing with Ambiguity

7. Training Basics Initial training – 2 week classroom training
Shadowing & practical application
Mentoring program
Auditing process
We start with initial training and that is completed over a 2 week span that includes classroom and module training.
We also use practical examples and shadowing to help new hires get a feel for the day in and day out activities of their new job. We want to make sure that we are givng them the hands on experience that they need to do the practical application and can start seeing what their responsibilities will be and how they impact the student.
While the new hire is in training we introduce them to their mentor, this is a veteran staff member that exemplifies the behaviors that we look for in the behavior based interviewing and are top performers of their respective responsibilities and duties. From there the mentor will help the new staff member navigate the first 90 days and beyond with auditing and being the point of contact for all questions.
When we talk about auditing we audit all new staff at 100% to ensure quality. We complete the 100% auditing for a 30/60/90 timeframe and the new hire will need to meet specific benchmarks for their responsibilities. Once the 90 day timeframe is complete we need then have continuous auditing for the team to ensure that we continue to mark any trends and errors that come from the staff member. We are always looking to improve and ensure that quality is in our process and that staff are following policy in their daily work.
After we have our staff complete intial training we then move them through specific training for our unique students…{CLICK}

8. Management of Unique Student Populations
Military
Active, Veteran and Dependents
Re-entry
Withdrawn
Branch
Remote Support
After initial training our staff will then go through more training to help manage our unique student populations that include our military (active, veteran and dependents) population that may have military training and/or coursework. Many are also overseas and need special accommodations in being contacted as they might be 8 or 10 hours ahead.
Our re-entry population that have withdrawn and are now returning. We need to make sure that we are bringing the student back under the current policy and ensuring that students understand what their requirements are now that they are returning to their program.
Finally our branch students are supported remotely and we need to be able to be timely and understand that requests from branch staff may have the student in front of them asking them a questions and need an answer to their inquiry, right away. It is our branch staff to ensure that they are responding timely and handling all situations accurately so that information can be disseminated to the student.
We are always looking to improve and ensure that quality is in our process and that staff are following policy in their daily work, no matter what unique population we are working with...I have talked a lot on how PLA works with students and our training, we also work extensively with our faculty (namely our our program chairs and university program deans) to help support our process as well and David will talk more about that now…{CLICK}

9. Subject Matter Expertise
Faculty Involvement
Subject Matter Expertise
Actions sought
Business
Healthcare
Information Technology
Visual Communications
Criminal Justice
Course Mappings
Experiential Learning Portfolios
Professional Training Certification Credit
2nd tier review takes place by our Program Chairs and University Deans to ensure that learning outcomes, TCO’s, and mastery is met as well. These reviews are then placed within our mapping database which we will discuss shortly.

10. Technology
Workflow
Reports
Data captured
Course Mapping Database

15. This allows the URD leadership team to allocate resources efficiently and effectively on a daily basis
example if a PLAE is out of the office
ensure proper allocation of records to counter act large influxes of records

18. Important note that our course mapping database is managed by a dedicated team of Evaluators and is constantly reviewed for appropriate updates. Mass updates are made during the publishing of the course catalog.

19. Analysis and Action Self-assessment? Are there gaps? Action plan!
Now that we’ve explored some of the various facets of a transfer center, let’s move onto the portion of our workshop that focuses on:
-analysis and assessment
-and action!

20. Self Analysis
In the beginning there were about (%) of you who said you had a transfer center…
-In the next segment, we are going to provide you a tool to assist with self-analysis
-Please open your workbook to the “Current State Analysis”
When answering the following questions, please consider your current state of your transfer center.
-in the middle column, please rate your current level of effectiveness for your institute
with the corresponding items listed.
-in the far right, rate the level of importance
*please use the scale of 1-10, 1 being not effective at all/not important and 10 being extremely effective/extremely important
We will give you a few minutes to complete this

21. Self-Analysis cont. Instructions:
Mark any “current state” if 6 or below
Mark any “importance” if: 6 or higher
Circle any with both of the above listed marked
This can be your priority list when completing the “Action Plan” section of your workbook.

22. This is a screen shot example of a self-analysis
This is a screen shot example of a self-analysis. The red font items are <6 effective and >6 importance and will comprise this person’s action plan in the next section.

23. Close the Gap: Action Plan
Using your Action Plan sheet:
Identified Gap Area: with <6/>6 from previous review
Priority to Close Gap: H/M/L
Current State: definition of
Target Future State: proposal for
Benefits: of the future state
Timeline: for implementation
Action Items: “to do” list
-In the next portion we are going to focus on the objective that allows you to leave today’s session with something actionable.
We are going to give you about minutes to complete the action plan. The action plan directions are on this slide, and we will also be walking around to assist you with any questions.
If you are here with others from your campus, please feel free to work together. Is there anyone who is here by themselves who wishes to work with other solo members or join a group, could you please raise your hand?
We will allow for 5-10 minutes at the end for wrap up and questions.

24. Wrap-Up/Closing Activity close Questions? Objectives Survey time!
Analyze your institutions transfer center
Learn about various points of a transfer center
Create takeaway for your institution
Survey time!
Call when time is up
-What did you learn from your discussion with your group?
-Who would like to share something from their action plan?
-Would anyone like to share how their perspective was changed today?
-What will you do differently as a result of today’s discussion?
-Who is not going to do anything different, please tell us more…
Before we close, we had time for a few questions, I’d like to invite you to ask any questions that you have at this time.
Thank you all for your valuable feedback and time.
-So let’s review our main objectives
One of our most important purpose of today’s segment was to not waste your time and allow you to walkaway with something tangible.
Let’s take a simple assessment…did we accomplish our objective?
We would like to invite you to tell us more about how we did by completing our survey.

25. Contact Information
Christie Grote, Director of Academic Process Amy Martin, Director of Academic Evaluation Liz Bernal, Supervisor of Prior Learning Assessment David Saenz, Supervisor of Prior Learning Assessment