Projects

Projects

With its commitment to facilitate more comprehensive understanding of the ever-changing BC post-secondary environment, BCCAT conducts and coordinates a wide variety of research and technology projects to inform and support institutional planning, procedures, and policies, and to enhance educational opportunities and experiences for BC post-secondary students. The projects listed below comprise the work approved by Council in the BCCAT workplan that are currently underway.

The list of Completed Projects contains information on earlier workplan projects. For published research, search Publications.

Transfer Mechanisms & Innovation

Work began in 2021/22 on the formation of a working group to review the course definition guidelines for courses that are included in the BC Transfer Guide. This work will continue in 2022/23. Stakeholder consultation is currently under way, and the working group will review current practices, and make recommendations regarding courses that should be included in the BC Transfer Guide.

BCCAT is working on a TCS release that will introduce new features to enable greater maintenance of articulation agreements. Greater awareness building and change management will be required to enable faculty and institutions to develop a practice of regular maintenance of agreements. BCCAT staff will undertake the development of support materials and training for articulation committees and faculty evaluators. 

As part of the Council work plan, this project will conduct a review of the BC Transfer System Membership policy, which was last updated in 2018. In addition, updates to Articulation Committee Resources, such as the How to Articulate Handbook, are currently underway.

The project will use a review of literature and of institutional websites, as well as interviews with Indigenous post-secondary organizations to explore how Indigenous approaches to research could inform BCCAT’s approach to research.

This study aims at assessing the volume and flows of international students in transfer pathways from programs designed for these students, including at selected private PSIs.

The goal of this project is to review policies and practices at BC Transfer System member institutions around course outlines, and to make recommendations to the BC Registrars’ Association on approaches to course outlines.

This research project will investigate whether or how occupational regulation affects transferability of courses and programs at BC Transfer System institutions. The outcomes of the project will inform and potentially provide guidance on transfer credit issues related to occupational regulation of curriculum and course content.

Student Performance & Mobility

The project is aimed to identify successful pathways from upgrading to undergraduate programs at BC open access institutions.

The Student Transitions Project links student data from the B.C. Ministry of Education with public post-secondary student data. The data allows investigation of student transitions, mobility, and outcomes from the Kindergarten-Grade 12 (K-12) education system to the public post-secondary system, while protecting individual privacy. The Student Transitions Project is governed by a steering committee with representation from British Columbia’s public universities, colleges and institutes; the Ministries of Education and Advanced Education, and BCCAT. Find out more about the Student Transitions Project.

The term “summer melt” denotes students who, having received an offer of admission, do not enrol anywhere in their first fall semester following high school graduation. The project is aimed at reviewing existing literature and identifying aspects of the phenomenon that may impact its expression in BC.

The goal of this project is to analyze current trends in the performance of transfer students at BC public universities as compared to direct-entry students enrolled at any time in the period 2018/19 – 2022/23.

This pilot project is aimed at assessing quantitative institutional data on transfer student and transfer credit volume from several Alberta and BC institutions to several BC and Alberta institutions respectively.

Data & Decision-Making

BCCAT has been working with BC Transfer System members and government on capturing transfer credit granted at most BC public post-secondary institutions. Currently, the work focuses on improving data consistency and reliability, and sharing the data with post-secondary institutions and system-level groups in order to better understand credit mobility in the province and beyond.

The project will review admissions processes at BC Transfer System institutions and compare these processes with EDI principles, with the goal of providing recommendations for designing or revising admissions policies that incorporate EDI principles.

This project will work with BC public post-secondary institutions to assess how the move to online delivery during the pandemic may have influenced student preferences for online delivery, and institutional planning around online delivery going forward.

This study aims at identifying and analyzing post-pandemic learners’ perceptions and preferences for means of delivery at BC Transfer System institutions.

The goal of this project is to overview the process for proactive (or direct) admissions in the US post-secondary education and potential use of the mechanism at BC PSIs.

Technology Services

Enhancements as part of the Information Technology work plan for the BC Transfer Guide this year will focus on increasing the availability of course information in the BC Transfer Guide, improvements to mobile adaptivity, and greater integration of transfer pathway information into the main course search.

The TCS will be enhanced with the release of a new dashboard feature that will provide key performance indicators to institutions on articulation activity. In addition, work will be undertaken to improve the accessibility of course outlines, and to continue to import Canadian and international equivalences from internal transfer tables held at institutions.

The BCCAT website will be migrated to a new content management system. As part of this migration, revisions will be made to improve the accessibility of publications, improve upon the articulation committee section, and to enable the site for full mobile adaptivity.