1. Transcript Credit Evaluation at Lightning Speed!
Portland Community College
Kristin Benson, Mark Goldhammer and Rebecca Mathern

2. Details about PCC Banner school
Communication policy requires use of PCC by students
About 100 programs (3 transfer degrees)
Students take many pre-requisite courses at PCC
Graduate approximately 4000 students a year

3. Details about Student records
9 evaluation staff who process:
Graduation application evaluations
Transfer credit evaluations (upon student request)
Other duties such as duplicate elimination, veterans evaluations, 2nd year financial aid evaluations, etc.

4. Pre-2008 Transfer credit Standards
Evaluation performed for pre-req courses only and upon the request of an advisor
Evaluation performed at graduation application
Only articulation of courses necessary for graduation

5. Post-2008 Transfer Credit standards
Evaluate upon request
Evaluate all LDC coursework
CTE coursework evaluated upon request of the department/student at graduation time

6. Managerial Perspective of Paper process
Difficulty tracking volume and age of the requests
Self-selected production
Evaluators determined how many and which evaluations to conduct
Pressure of from other areas of the institution to speed up process, provide info about status, turnaround time, etc.
Added workload on advising (overrides, preparing students to apply for graduation, etc).

7. Staff perspective of Paper process
Overflowing basket of upfront requests
Multiple requests for same student/transfer school
Multiple inquiries/questions about status of evaluation
8-12 weeks average response time on requests

8. “Process” Perspective of paper standard
Evaluation requests w/ no transcripts on file
Time-consuming process
Each request had to be checked weekly to see if transcript had arrived
Physically match up incoming transcripts with an unmanageable stack of paper
Ongoing question- Do we evaluate half-complete requests (e.g. one transcript on file but not all)?
Near impossible, to track who has incomplete evaluations on their desk

9. OLD PROCESS

10. Online process- Management perspective
Need for a streamlined process to make staff time more efficient
Need to make request process more student friendly
Need for use of data in productivity reports and annual reporting for staffing/planning needs
Need to be able to better inform college of status

11. New Process

12. Online process- staff perspective
Requests can be made only after transcript(s) received
Only allows one request per transcript (request is available if updated transcript is received)
Work assigned rather than self-selected
Greatly reduced stress w/ smoother process, timely turnaround.

13. Online process perspective
Run daily report which displays requests in receipt order
Requests are distributed daily (and as equitable as possible) by coordinator
Evaluations are often performed same day as requested by student
Generally, 1-2 week delay during quarterly degree/cert awarding
Technical Notes

14. Where we were and where we’re going
It’s History- thank goodness!
All done at the time of degree/certificate conferral
Current Practice
Upfront option (in addition to transferring credit at conferral) at request/approval of student
Weekly to students with recently received transcripts encouraging them to make evaluation request/approval
Evaluations of the Future
Institutional awarding: need transfer credit data to make reports accurate
Goal: Evaluations done automatically upon receipt of transcript for enrolled students

15. Questions and Comments
Contact us for further information:
Rebecca Mathern
Kristin Benson
Mark Goldhammer