User:Dthomsen8/National Course Atlas

The National Course Atlas is an online free repository of 3.5 million credit and noncredit educational courses offered by regionally and nationally accredited colleges and universities in the United States. Each course (education) is sourced from current postsecondary education providers in the United States offering the courses to the public or to private constituents.

Overview
The National Course Atlas was launched in 2006 by AcademyOne, Inc. aggregates thousands of separate college course catalogs or what is also published as annual course listings making it simpler to search and compare courses across independent educational providers spread out throughout the United States or online across thousands of separate web sites. The repository includes links to course equivalencies published by colleges and universities. It also includes an electronic request and reply lookup to allow determination of transferability by course extending the use the repository to other systems that desire to display transfer links. The repository also includes lists of assessment tests such as Advanced Placement (AP), College Level Examination Program (CLEP) and course credit recommendation exhibits produced by American Council on Education (ACE).

The National Course Atlas is refreshed annually by collecting the college catalogs and course offerings from over 4,100 distinct educational providers including every two year (community college) and four year institution in the United States. AcademyOne collects and parses 18,000 files each year to produce the annual updates. The online repository indexes the full course title and descriptions allowing any user to perform keyword and title searches to support a range of needs such as curriculum alignment, course evaluation, transfer evaluation, cross registration, dual enrollment, study abroad, online registration and course planning.

Historically, colleges, universities, career schools, adult education centers, corporate university and other educational providers annually revise and publish course catalogs and listings in a variety of formats. The National Course Atlas combines these separate course listings from individual providers into a single, searchable and maintainable electronic repository abstracting the differences in format to make it easier to search and compare course attributes which include prerequisites and co-requisites.

Educational providers also advertise their course offerings online through a variety of formats and systems. The National Course Atlas allows students, faculty, advisors and other interested parties to search the repository to find courses they may enroll in satisfying program requirements or interests. The course equivalencies can be revealed if available to determine transferability between educational providers. The National Course Atlas also enables educational providers to add course objectives, syllabi, learning outcomes, expected competencies and attributes defining the course, such as title, cost, location, method of instruction, length of instruction, meeting times, prerequisites, co-requisites, number of credits to be awarded and other descriptive elements.

The National Course Atlas, published by AcademyOne is one of the first examples of an aggregated course repository established in the United States used to support course planning spanning multiple educational providers. The National Course Atlas is used by government agencies, research centers, higher education, institutions, employers, workforce development organizations and academic advisors in a range of capacities to help facilitate student enrollment and course planning that may or may not lead to a formal credential.

Additional sources

 * CollegeTransfer.Net: The National Course Atlas of College Courses