A consortial course taught at a teaching institution is treated by the home institution as if the home institution is teaching its own equivalent course. Each home institution may approach the method of registering the student and entering the grade a little differently. The different approaches are often, but not exclusively, caused by the various student information systems that schools use. A best practice is for home institutions to create a new Acadeum course section, a "dummy" section. This process allows the home institution to register the student into the equivalent course at the home institution in a section that will not influence other operational aspects, such as faculty load and class size. Once registered in the new section, the home institution can bill the student accordingly, award Title IV as applicable, and enter the grade when received.
Acadeum cautions against the practice of creating new courses in the SIS that reflect the consortial relationship with the teaching institution. Unless the home institution's transcript has a clearly defined explanation for each of these new courses and how the consortial relationship works, creating new courses has the potential to create issues if a student attempts to transfer or pursue the next degree. The reason issues arise is that the receiving institution will not understand what the new courses mean as they will likely not fall within the parameters of every other course on the transcript. This is why creating a new section is a best practice as sections often do not show up on transcripts. The transcript for the student should list only the equivalent course at the home institution.
The home institution may also create a mock term running alongside other terms. Students can be registered in the home institution course, but in the mock term designated for Acadeum courses. Business rules can be created around the Acadeum term (i.e. what/if to charge, how to route the information, how to report on these enrollments, etc.).
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