Should a person receive credit for experience whether at work or elsewhere? If no clep or other standardized test is available how would you evaluate this?
> Should a person receive credit for experience whether at > work or elsewhere? "All experience involves learning, but not all learning is college-equivalent." -- Carolyn Mann If the learning is college-equivalent, then yes. An important criterion is often that the student should have a theoretical as well as a practical grasp of the material. And if a course requires that a student not only know the subject but be able to treat it coherently in a term paper, the assessment process should address that, too. > If no clep or other standardized test is available how would > you evaluate this? A professor of the appropriate speciality should devise a special (oral or written) exam, or assess the student's portfolio, and the student (or whoever is subsidizing the student) should fully compensate the professor for doing so. See the Levicoff Portfolio http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5e7856%241sq%40dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com for some good examples of how this can be done. "Remember that you have the option of earning credit based on evidence alone, testing alone, or a combination of evidence and testing."
When last heard from, he was tackling (for fun) yet another DL program which he declined to identify (but said was in Canada). Steve comes & goes, I'm sure he'll be back sooner or later. You really can't blame him for taking a break, he's been answering the same questions for over 10 years. Bruce
Very few learned societies in the UK still operate their own exams - IMechE, ICE, IEEE, IED, etc - and to become a member of such institutions a relevant tertiary qualification is needed together with a relevant experience history. Experience history can, and usually does, cover; hands-on work related experience, length of related experience, management and supervisory related experience, relevant design experience, relevant courses attended, articles and relevant papers published, and so on. Such experience history is a prime consideration when seeking a particular level of membership. In fact once you have the required tertiary qualification one of the key factors leading to a higher grade of membership is invariably solely related to experience. For example - I joined the Institution of Engineering Designers in the UK in 1961, as a Graduate Member (the next level above the Student membership level), but with the appropriate tertiary qualification, plus two years on the drawing board. Over the next 25 years I progressed from a Graduate to an Associate, to a Member and on to a Fellow. All achieved by relevant experience. This system is really little different to tertiary institutions awarding credits for 'recognition of prior learning'.
I joined the IEEE (which is not as British as FNHayes implies: it's a worldwide, US-based professional society that includes a "United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland Section" among many others) as a Senior Member. To get Senior Member status, I had to submit my CV and letters of recommendation from 3 Senior Members or Fellows. The IEEE, and the 4 people who wrote letters for me, took my word for everything on my CV. I hope the process for awarding academic credit for "prior learning" is a bit more rigorous than that.
Apolgies Mark, my post should have read 'IEE' (Chartered Institution of Electrical Engineers) and not IEEE. The UK Engineering Council, and the requirements of its member institutions for documenting 'experience' are extremely rigorous and involve legal documentation, and, in many cases, a professional interview - before you can possibly move up a grade or be slotted into one when an application is made. These requirements can be seen on the websites of all the UK engineering institutions. I believe that in many countries where 'recognition of prior learning/experience' is in place a similar process to that used by the UK professional engineering institutions is practised. At the lower end of the UK scale, non-Engineering Council institutions practise a much lower level for documenting the 'experience' requirements, but such levels of membership invariably lack the 'status' achieved by Engineering Council membership.
