Capture Transfer Students Faster with Hyland's Transfer Credit Evaluation Solution
You know what college students love? Besides sleeping in ‘til early afternoon and all the revelry that takes place before that, of course. They love transferring to a new school without repeating Statistics or Intro to American Literature – or any other class for that matter.
Having to retake a class is a situation transfer students face every day. But there's a way to help ensure applicants avoid that scenario. It's Hyland Software's OnBase solution for Transfer Credit Evaluation (TCE).
After all, efficient transfer of credits allows the student to save money (she doesn't have to pay for that class again) and time (graduation comes on time and when expected; there's no extra semester to catch up on electives that should have transferred in the first place).
That works out pretty well for the school, too, because fast credit evaluations boost enrollment and makes for a content student body. And, with TCE, your staff will thank you, too, because you've made their job easier by removing the burden of manual processing and review.
What is Automated Transcript Capture and TCE?
If you've never been introduced to automated transcript capture and TCE technology, get ready to be amazed, especially if your institution is manually processing transcript data and taking weeks – or even months – to determine transfer credit equivalency decisions. According to Tom von Gunden, industry marketing manager for Higher Education at Hyland, it's one of those technologies that makes you wonder how you ever lived without it.
"Transcript capture automatically pulls demographic, term, course and grade data from electronic or scanned paper transcripts into OnBase," explains von Gunden."No one has to manually type this information into the systems they use to manage student data."
This front-end capture has been enhanced through a partnership with Parchment, Inc., whose Docufide® Receiver platform now provides electronic receipt of education records right into OnBase, eliminating the need to scan paper transcripts and shaving even more time off of the process.
Once in OnBase, the solution searches for existing course equivalencies (courses that have already been accepted by the institutions) in internal or external sources of course-matching information, like CollegeSource. Just think how long it takes your best staffer to do the same manually.
"If a match or equivalency is found, the transcript capture solution can automatically update the student information system (SIS), if that's what you need and want," says von Gunden."If no match is found, the solution routes the course to designated faculty for further review and potential acceptance."
Credit evaluation in seconds? Yep. Organized routing to faculty for review? Check.
Fast and efficient – and cost effective
"Our solution efficiently handles the high volumes of transfer transcripts you're likely receiving," says von Gunden."It reduces – if not eliminates – manual data entry of transcript information, allowing you to handle higher volumes without increasing staff or further burdening existing staff."
This increased efficiency also leads to faster turnaround of transfer credit decisions.
"The ability to communicate these decisions quickly and accurately increases your school's chance of attracting students who may be looking at more than one school," says von Gunden."It also helps keep current students on track toward graduation."
And we all know that the bottom line – funding – is often impacted by retention and graduation rates. So there's a strong financial argument for transcript capture, as well.
Institutions that implement OnBase TCE often record solid return on investment numbers within weeks. But they discover business process benefits almost immediately.
"It typically takes as little as four to six weeks to implement the solution, depending on the availability of key personnel at the customer site," says von Gunden. "And OnBase is flexible enough to accommodate differences in the way schools want to handle the routing of exception courses for review or the matching with existing course equivalencies."
Who's the real winner?
The short answer? Everyone's a winner with TCE.
"Any type of school can benefit, but community colleges and mid- to large-size four-year public institutions benefit the most because they typically receive higher numbers of transfer students/transcripts," says von Gunden.
Operations staff and directors in admissions and the registrar's office will welcome the solution because it eliminates the burden of manual processes, shortening the credit evaluation cycle time and increasing positive interaction with students and faculty.
And then there's the most important constituent of all, the real winner: the student.
"Imagine how happy students will be when they know which courses they've already taken at their previous school will count toward a degree at your institution – especially when you can deliver that information fast," says von Gunden.
Students can make confident enrollment and course scheduling decisions, avoiding the cost and time to take a course equivalent to one they took at their old school.
"So, it helps both the student and the advisor conduct an accurate degree audit," says von Gunden."The advisor can determine what's required, what has already been taken, what is left to be taken, at any time along the way to graduation. There are no surprises."