Articulation guidelines for Economics courses
Overview
It is important to plan carefully which courses to take when studying abroad to ensure a successful transfer credit process. The goal of this guide is to help you understand the process of articulation of Economics courses at the Vancouver School of Economics (VSE). In general, when preparing your course selection, note that VSE will articulate only courses that:
- Are academic,
- Have the appropriate level of rigor,
- Count towards degrees at the institution that offers them,
- Are in the field of Economics,
- Are offered by the Economics department or their equivalent, and
- Use appropriate assessment methods.
In addition, you should avoid taking courses that overlap with the material covered in courses already taken, or required in the future.
Interdisciplinary courses or courses that are offered by Economics departments but whose content falls far outside the content of any course we offer might not be articulated.
How are articulation requests assessed?
The assessment of courses follows a two-stage procedure.
- An assessment of whether the course falls within the scope of economic curriculum (i.e., is a course in question within a field of economics), whether it is of sufficient rigor to be considered an academic course (including the assessment methods), and whether a course counts towards a degree at the institution that offers it. Courses that do not meet these criteria are denied articulation.
- If the course passes the first stage successfully, then in the second stage, the equivalency of the course to courses offered by VSE is determined. To better understand the first stage of the articulation process, read below on what constitutes an academic course and the scope of VSE articulation (i.e., which courses are considered economic courses). Note that if the course passes the first stage, the course will be articulated. However, what credit such a course will be assigned is evaluated in the second stage.
What is an academic course?
Academic courses have a lot of rigor and content that require a certain level of maturity and preparedness, and their assessment methods are non-activity and non-participation based. To determine whether a course is academic, you should check that the course has the same level of rigor that you expect of courses at UBC.
Which courses are considered economics?
Modern economics has wide scope and it might not always be immediately clear whether a course belongs to economics. However, the following are aspects important to pay attention to:
- Is the course offered by an Economics department? Courses not offered typically are denied articulation even if they cover economic issues since such courses typically use different methods and have different focus compared to economics courses.
- Who is the target audience of the course? Economics courses that target mostly non-major or are interdisciplinary have a different focus than economics courses targeting audiences with previous knowledge of economics.
- Is this a finance course? With few exceptions, finance courses need to be articulated by the Sauder Business School.
Assessment Methods
Courses at different institutions use different assessment methods. However, for a course to be articulated by the Vancouver School of Economics, its assessment methods must be consistent with those used by the equivalent courses offered by the VSE. In particular, courses at the 3rd and 4th-year levels are expected to have large written exam components and little to no activity-based or participation-based components. In general, courses that have large non-exam components are often below the level of rigor expected of courses offered as the VSE.
Credit at the offering institution
Some universities offer courses that do not grant academic credit towards their own degrees. This is particularly common in the summer session. The VSE will not articulate any courses that do not grant academic credit at the offering institution. Examples of these are the Fudan International Summer Session and Cambridge Pembroke College Summer Programme. Before registering for an exchange course, particularly during the summer session, take care to ensure that the course grants academic credit towards official degrees at the offering institution.
Determining equivalency
Determining equivalency is a complex process and many aspects go into it. Among those are:
- What are the prerequisites?
- What textbook/course materials are used?
- What are assessment methods are used?
- What are the topics covered?
- What methods are used in class?
Overall, the year-level for transferable courses is determined based on their curriculum (this includes both difficulty and subject matter) and assessment methods. The assessment is conducted using VSE standards; the course’s year level at the partner institution plays no role in that decision.
Courses with no prerequisites and open to anyone without any knowledge of economics will be either not articulated or articulated as first-year economics depending on other aspects of these courses.
Senior-level courses
Senior-level (that is, 400-level) courses at the VSE are unique in their rigor and level, which is often close to graduate-level. Thus, only courses that cover advanced modeling and quantitative or empirical approaches will be articulated as senior-level courses. Standard undergraduate textbook-based courses do not meet the above criteria. Note that the majority of elective courses are awarded 3rd-year credit since relatively few institutions offer courses at the level expected from 400-level courses at the VSE.
Exclusions
ECON490 has to be taken at the VSE and no course taken at any partner institution will be articulated as equivalent.
Articulation is for incoming, current, and outgoing students to request transfer credits. Current UBC students who plan on going on exchange or taking courses at other institutions should contact their faculty advising transfer credit advisor before submitting an articulation request.
Incoming exchange students should contact Go Global to verify course prerequisites.