Automating Reverse Transfer Processes in the State of Tennessee

At the recommendation of the legislature, a statewide higher education taskforce was formed to develop and implement reverse transfer policies across Tennessee. After much collaboration, the taskforce determined the most feasible way to implement reverse transfer processes statewide would be through a centralized, automated software system. Although they had the technical resources across the state to write the software in-house, Tennessee realized that those people had full-time jobs doing other things that would take a higher priority. It was decided partnering with AcademyOne to develop and implement our AwardED™ reverse transfer system was a perfect solution.

Like other states in 2010, Tennessee was looking for ways to improve degree completion rates across their institutions of higher education. The College Completion Act was passed, and conversations began about reverse transfer as another route to a college degree especially for early community college transfer students.

The reverse transfer initiative became part of the governor’s larger “Drive to 55” campaign to raise the number of residents in the state with a postsecondary credential from 32% to 55% by the year 2025. A taskforce comprised of members from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, The Tennessee Board of Regents, the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, and the University of Tennessee System began work on outlining guidelines and making policy decisions. When funding for the project was provided by the state through an appropriation and a Credit When It’s Due grant administered by the Lumina Foundation, they began looking for a software vendor to partner with and develop a product that would meet all their needs.

The Tennessee taskforce came to understand early on the obstacles they would face with a large statewide implementation of a project with so many moving parts. The challenges included getting student opt-in and consent to share their academic records between institutions, exchanging data on a large scale across multiple student information systems, and limiting the amount of manual and repetitive tasks that would burden their institutional administrators, faculty, and staff.

The state issued a competitive RFP and selected AcademyOne as their vendor of choice to develop the software and run some pilot testing then implement it on a statewide scale. When deciding what they might need, it was very important that the software would work with more than one student information system and be very low maintenance. It was also imperative that the software would facilitate the exchange of data and run a multitude of simulated degree audits with speed and efficiency.

Tennessee’s implementation of AwardED™ has benefited everyone involved and provided a substantial return on their investment. Our automated workflow software helps the institutions streamline their reverse transfer procedures, reduce manual and repetitive workload, and ultimately contribute to higher degree completion rates.