Setting Up Transfer Credits & Eqvs

FlightPath is able to handle transfer credits (courses taken outside of your school), and automatic transfer credit equivalencies easily, so long as data is loaded into the appropriate tables. 

If you are using Banner, you should look at the Banner Integration module, which is capable of loading these tables automatically each night in an automated routine.

This step is not required for FP to function, but adding in transfer credit support does provide the students and advisors with much more information.

The related tables:

transfer_institutions

This table keeps track of other schools, keyed by a unique code for each school, the institution_id.  The state field isn't used at the moment, so it is not necessary to fill in.

transfer_courses

These are the actual courses offered by other institutions which your school is aware of, which students might be able to take.

  • transfer_course_id - By default, this is an auto-incremented integer field.  If you already have a numeric ID for your transfer courses, you should probably use that instead.
  • institution_id - tied to the transfer_institutions table.
  • subject_id - subject id of the course. Ex: ACCT
  • course_num - course num of the course. Ex: 1001
  • title - Course's title or short name.  Ex: "Intro to Accounting"
  • description - Optional field, not currently used by FP.  This would be a longer description of the course.
  • min_hours - The minimum hours this course might be worth.
  • max_hours - Similar to min hours.  For courses with fixed hours, this would be the same number as min_hours.

student_transfer_courses

These are the courses which your students have actually taken at other schools, and the grades they made.

  • student_id - The CWID of the student
  • transfer_course_id - Tied to the transfer_courses table
  • student_specific_course_title - The title of the course when that student took the course, or the title which was assigned to the student when they were admitted to your school.
  • term_id - The term_id in which the course was taken.  This should match as closely as possible to your school's term_id scheme.  Enter "1111" for unknown.
  • grade and hours_awarded are self-explanitory.

transfer_eqv_per_student

These are transfer equivalencies on a per-student basis.  FlightPath will make a best-fit effort to apply 1:1 substitutions for these eqv's.  If the eqv is not 1:1, FP will still show the courses, but they will not automatically fill in to the degree plan.

  • student_id - CWID of the student
  • transfer_course_id - Tied to transfer_courses
  • local_course_id - Tied to FP's local table, courses
  • valid_term_id - The term_id this eqv became valid.
  • broken_id - If the transfer eqv was "broken" into several "pieces", then each piece would get a number higher than 0.  If the course is a simple 1:1 eqv, then enter "0" here.  Enter any other number if not.  This is what FP will use to determine if the course is a 1:1 eqv.