Relevant to: Faculty and Staff.
Introduction
This article covers frequently asked questions regarding incoming transfer credit. General topics include 1) when and how student transfer records are updated, 2) credit acceptability, and 3) viewing evaluated info (such as general education, liberal designations, and SUNY Empire equivalent coursework).
Resources
Overview of all the available types of transfer credit:
Student Degree Planning Guide, Part II: "Advanced Standing Credits"
Transfer Decision Records:
List of Evaluated Transfer Coursework (updated regularly)
General Education Resources:
Student Degree Planning Guide, Chapter 5: "General Learning and SUNY General Education Requirements"
In-Depth General Education Criteria
Dashboards for Courses Approved by the Office of the Provost
General Education Mentor Kit with Frequently Asked Questions
Liberal Arts Resources:
Student Degree Planning Guide, Chapter 6: "Liberal Arts and Sciences and Advanced-Level Learning"
Guidelines for Assessing Learning, Liberal Arts and Sciences Section
Frequently Asked Questions
When and How Student Transfer Records are Updated
When and where will transfer information display?
When an official transcript arrives, transfer credit has the following lifecycle:
- Admissions scans the transcript into Banner Document Management (BDM)
- Laserfiche, our Optical Character Recognition software, extracts information from the transcript
- Staff around the university quality-review the information
- The information is added automatically to all Ellucian systems, including Self-Service Banner, Administrative Banner, and DegreeWorks. Banner pairs the incoming transfer codes with any information from transfer review about liberal/Gen Ed/etc. At this point, students and mentors can view which degree requirements have been fulfilled by transfer using the DegreeWorks audit. The transfer team also starts the process of reviewing any unevaluated credit.
- After an overnight update, credits become available in the “Add Transcript Studies” cache in DP Planner for import. Any transfer review information that Banner found is also made available.
How do I know if the school has received my mentee’s transcript yet?
The student documents are available for you to view in Banner Document Management. Please keep in mind that if you are in a non-campus location, you will need to log in through connect.sunyempire.edu. If you have any technical issues, please put in a tech ticket with the IT Service Desk.
Are transfer credits still entered for new students into DP Planner?
We have gone live with a transcript scanning software as of February 2022. This software helps ensure that official transcript information is entered into Banner rather than needing to be hand-typed into DP Planner, with the occasional exception of professional learning evaluation (PLE) credits (see question below).
PLEASE NOTE: The actual degree plan itself will only display credits once a student or mentor imports them.
Why are my student's PLE credits not available to import?
PLE credits for students that sent transcripts prior to Fall 2021 will need to be hand-entered by students and/or mentors into DP Planner. If you are unsure if a PLE document is acceptable for credit, please view the "Credit Acceptability" section below, and/or contact plaoffice@sunyempire.edu. If you are unsure how many credits a PLE is worth, please view the information about individual PLEs that can be found in Resources & Criteria sections 400-800.
Why are my student's Joint Services Transcript credits not available to import?
JST credits take longer to be made available. The process of evaluation is very similar to traditional university transcripts, but the JST credits undergo a redundancy check before they become available to import. See the chart below.
How do I import Joint Services Transcript Credit into DP Planner so that it shows in the correct spot on the degree plan?
Please see the chart below.
I do not have access to/am having trouble viewing transcripts in NOLIJ and/or BDM
Please contact the IT Help Desk.
Credit Acceptability
Do credits need to be visible on the SSB student profile to be usable in a degree plan?
Credits do not need to be visible in Self-Service Banner to be used in a degree plan. As long as the credit is from an acceptable source (see question below) and Admissions has received official documentation, the credit is available during educational planning. Mentors have access to official student documents through Banner Document Management and Nolij. (Please note, mentors who are not on a campus location will need to get to BDM through connect.sunyempire.edu)
Where do I find information about whether my student's transcript is acceptable for credit?
When an official document is received by Empire State University, it is given an annotation. In Nolij, this annotation has been stamped directly on the transcript. In Banner Document Management, the annotation can be found in the "Routing Status" field in the document index. You can learn how to view index fields for an open document in this KnowledgeBase article.
The meanings of annotations can be found on page 44 of the Student Degree Planning Guide.
Do students need an original transcript?
Students should submit official transcripts from institutions from which they would like to transfer credit. Original transcripts will help to ensure accuracy on student records, maximize students’ prior learning, and avoid any potential duplication of credits. This also aligns with our current Admission criteria which states that “an official transcript will be needed for each institution attended, even if transfer credit from a previous institution is listed on another university transcript.”
The original announcement of this practice was sent by the Office of Academic Affairs in December 2021.
What is the university's policy around D grades?
D grades are not accepted in transfer except as part of an earned associates degree (please note that this excludes AOS degrees).
In accordance with the External Transcript Policy students who were awarded an Associate in the Arts (AA), Associate in Science (AS), or Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree can bring in all or part of the credit earned, including courses with D grades. There is no requirement for students to utilize the entire associates degree in order to bring in D grades.
The original announcement was sent by the Office of Academic Affairs in August 2020 as part of an External Transcript Policy Announcement.
If a student has an earned AA, AS, or AAS degree, courses with D-grades may be transferred and used in the Empire degree. If you see that D-grades from earned degrees are not counting toward credit totals, please email transferreview@sunyempire.edu and the Office of the Registrar will research and adjust the credits, if appropriate.
Viewing Evaluated Info (e.g. Gen Ed Info, Liberal/Nonliberal Designation, Matching SUNY Empire Courses)
How do I tell if coursework has been evaluated to see if it liberal and/or meets Gen Ed?
There are three primary methods:
- Transfer Evaluation System (TES) by Collegesource:
View the list of previously evaluated courses on the SUNY Empire State University Transfer Evaluations Public View. These are organized by institution.
The example below shows how course information might appear in TES. Based on this Equivalency Detail, we know that MGF 1106 from Florida College has been determined to be equivalent to SUNY Empire’s MATH 1025. Because there is no Begin Date or End Date listed, students are eligible for this equivalent no matter when they took MGF 1106. The Note confirms that the credits from the incoming course are considered liberal and meet the Mathematics General Education requirement.
In DegreeWorks, both the original code and a SUNY Empire equivalent code should show for transfer credit. If the SUNY Empire equivalent has a subject of "TXXX", the transfer credit has not yet been evaluated. For pressing questions about unevaluated transfer credit, contact us at the email below.
If the SUNY Empire equivalent has any other subject, the credit has been reviewed. For example, PSYC 1005 and TSOC 1XXX both refer to fully evaluated credit.
3. DP Planner:
In DP Planner, when you press the "Add Transcript Credit Studies" button, coursework that has already been evaluated will have notes listed between the credit total and the grade. 
If no note exists, the course has not yet been evaluated.
If coursework has not yet been evaluated, how do I tell if it meets General Education requirements?
If the coursework is from a SUNY school, you can view General Education determinations that have been made on the SUNY General Education Dashboards. Additionally, if the school sent a SUNY General Education Transcript Addendum (GETA), we will also accept any General Education determination listed.
Transfer credit from non-SUNY schools that has not yet been evaluated will be subject to the determination of the faculty committee as part of the degree planning approval process.
Why don’t I see specific course titles for transfer courses in Self-Service Banner?
Depending on the system, there are two ways a transfer course may display: the original course title and number, or the SUNY Empire equivalent course title and number. In Self-Service Banner, the SUNY Empire equivalent displays. College-level courses that are eligible for transfer but do not have an exact match in the SUNY Empire catalog – or have not yet been evaluated for such a match – will have a title like “Transfer Course,” “Transfer Math,” “Transfer Psychology,” etc.
You can view the original transfer titles in other systems such as Banner Document Management, DP Planner, and DegreeWorks.