1. History

Traditionally in the BC Transfer System, only universities granted undergraduate and graduate degrees and were exclusively the receiving institutions in the transfer equation. The senders were the institutes and community colleges that offered post-secondary certificates and diplomas and university transfer courses. Senders request articulation and receivers grant or deny the requests. The significant flow of students then was from the institutes and colleges to the universities, enabling access to degree completion. Articulation agreements were printed in hard-copy transfer guides and reflected this relatively simple relationship.

In 1995, the provincial government empowered BCIT, ECU and several of the community colleges, subsequently called "university-colleges" and now "teaching intensive universities", to grant four-year undergraduate degrees. Two-year undergraduate degrees and private institutions having Minister's consent to offer undergraduate programs are also relatively recent developments. These developments allowed some traditionally sending institutions to become receivers and some to also become both senders and receivers. The BC Transfer Guide grew in both volume and complexity becoming increasingly unwieldy and an online public database was developed to record and publish the thousands of course-to-course and other transfer relationships. The BC Transfer Guide is now published exclusively online and the underlying database structure is scalable to manage a large number of transfer agreements.

Students are moving more often and in different directions. This requires multi-directional articulation.

As the transfer system evolved, so have student mobility patterns. With more institutions, program types and transfer options available, students are moving more often and in different directions than before. This requires multi-directional articulation.

2. Current Situation

The BC Transfer System refers, collectively, to the group of institutions in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory between which students transfer under formal articulation agreements. Member institutions articulate post-secondary and undergraduate level transfer credit primarily at the first and second year level. Table 1 below lists all system institutions by type and defines which are senders, receivers or both. The institution's code is shown after each institution's name and is used throughout this guide.

Province-wide consultations were held on whether the BC post-secondary transfer system, as reflected in the BC Transfer Guide, was in need of expansion, renewal or radical change (BCCAT 2006). The developing consensus was that planning should occur for multi-directional and multi-level transfers, and that an expansion in the roles of some institutions is acceptable. Further, care must be taken not to compromise the existing system and not to create undue or unsustainable workloads at institutions. Incremental change is seen as more likely to yield success than wholesale reform.

Institution	Code	Sends	Receives
Alexander College*	ALEX
BC Institute of Technology	BCIT
Camosun College	CAMO
Capilano University	CAPU
College of New Caledonia	CNC
College of the Rockies	COTR
Columbia College	COLU
Coquitlam College	COQU
Corpus Christie College	CCC
Douglas College	DOUG
Emily Carr University	ECU
Farleigh Dickenson University*	FDU	n/a - has no course-to-course articulations
Justice Institute of BC	JIBC	n/a - has no course-to-course articulations
Kwantlen Polytechnic University	KWAN
Langara College	LANG
Nicola Valley Institute of Technology	NVIT
North Island College	NIC
Northern Lights College	NLC
Northwest Community College	NWCC
Okanagan College	OC
Quest University*	QU	n/a - has no course-to-course articulations
Royal Roads University	RRU	n/a - has no course-to-course articulations
Selkirk College	SELK
Simon Fraser University	SFU
Sprott-Shaw Community College*	SSCC
Thompson Rivers University	TRU
Thompson Rivers University, Open Learning	TRU-OL
Trinity Western University	TWU
University Canada West*	UCW	n/a - has no course-to-course articulations
University of BC - Okanagan Campus	UBCO
University of BC - Vancouver Campus	UBC
University of Northern BC	UNBC
University of Phoenix*	UOP
University of the Fraser Valley	UFV
University of Victoria	UVIC
Vancouver Community College	VCC
Vancouver Island University	VIU
Yukon College	YUKO

* Articulation limited to program(s) with Minister's consent

3. How to Use This Guide 

This guide has been developed primarily for institutions in the BC Transfer System interested in seeking designation as receiving institutions. Institutions are encouraged to consult this guide and use those sections most relevant to their needs. In addition, BCCAT's excellent How to Articulate Handbook (Finlay, 2005) contains a wealth of practical advice on most process and policy issues surrounding articulation. It would be redundant for the Best Practice Guide to cover the same topics; therefore this guide should be used in combination with the How to Articulate Handbook.

Next Section: