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PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENT
Earning College Credit for Prior Life and Work Experiences
Policies and Procedures
Courses for Which College Credit Can Be Granted
Portfolio Development:
Earning College Credit for Prior Life and Work Experiences
Portfolio development is a process that allows you -- the adult, degree-seeking student -- to earn college credit by describing and documenting your life and work experiences. These experiences may include -- but are not limited to -- job experiences, non-transferable course work, participation in workshops and seminars, relevant volunteer activities, and use of self-help materials. Such experiences must be related to specific UW-Platteville courses in Accounting, Business Administration, Communication, Computer Science, Economics, Industrial Studies, or Speech.
You may attempt to earn college credit through the portfolio process
only if you are seeking a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at a distance and have been admitted to UW-Platteville. Special students (i.e., non-matriculated students) are not eligible to seek college credit through the portfolio process.
The main steps of the portfolio process are:
- Development of a detailed resume
- Review of the resume
- Enrollment in the course BSAD 4950 Special Problems: Portfolio Development
Development of a Detailed Resume
Your resume for portfolio screening should be comprehensive and more detailed than a resume you would prepare for a job search. Use concise phrases to describe details about your knowledge, skills, and training as demonstrated in various jobs, relevant volunteer activities, or non-transferable course work.
Prepare a list of work-related or community-based training or workshops that you have completed. Include specific topics covered and how many hours were devoted to each topic. You do not need to include any formal academic training that is already listed on your official transcripts.
Reading course descriptions may help you remember experiences that you want to include on your resume. See the
Courses For Which College Credit Can Be Granted, or contact the UW-Platteville Distance Learning Center at 1-800-362-5460 to receive a copy.
Review of the Resume
A faculty member who is experienced in portfolio assessment will review your resume to estimate the number and types of courses that you may challenge based on your life experience.
The faculty member must identify at least three courses that you may challenge before approving your enrollment in BSAD 4950 Special Topics: Portfolio Development. If you cannot challenge at least three courses, you may not enroll in the course.
If your enrollment in BSAD 4950 is approved, you might discover through the portfolio development process that you are eligible to challenge additional courses. Consult with the instructor of BSAD 4950 about challenging additional courses once you begin the course.
You will receive the results of your resume review by mail. An academic advisor is available to discuss the results with you.
Enrollment in the Portfolio Development Course
You will pay tuition for 3 credits and a portfolio assessment fee when you enroll in BSAD 4950, which is a print course. Upon completion of the course, you will earn 3 credits (pass/fail) that can be used as upper-division business electives. (To graduate from the university, you need at least 40 upper-division credits [i.e., courses numbered in the 3000-4000 range]. Some students need additional elective courses to meet this requirement.)
You may enroll in BSAD 4950 only once. Most students enroll in the course during their second or third enrollment period.
The portfolio process is a fair and rigorous one. You will not lose out on course content or skills that are usually obtained by completing the entire course. You will not get more credit than you deserve, and you could be awarded partial portfolio credit (1 or 2 credits for a 3-credit course).
Because you may only take BSAD 4950 once, you will want to earn as many credits as possible to count toward graduation. Your BSAD 4950 instructor and academic advisor are good resources to help you understand which courses will advance you toward graduation. Each student is unique in this regard and should seek advising assistance.
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Portfolio Development:
Policies and Procedures
- All life and work experiences must have occurred prior to completing BSAD 4950 Portfolio Development. The experiences must match, in large part, the course content of the UW-Platteville course(s) listed in Courses For Which College Credit Can Be Granted. This list is only intended to provide guidance regarding the courses you might be able to challenge through the portfolio development process. It is not an official list and is subject to change without prior notice. Academic departments may change course titles or descriptions, add new courses, or stop offering existing courses. For that reason, you should consult with your BSAD 4950 instructor or your academic advisor before developing a definitive list of courses to challenge.
- You must be admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, be registered for BSAD 4950 Portfolio Development, and have paid tuition and the portfolio assessment fee to be eligible to write a portfolio of prior life and work experience. You may register for BSAD 4950 Portfolio Development only if you have submitted a detailed resume, which a faculty member who is experienced with the portfolio process has evaluated. This may be done before admission to the university.
- You must submit a description and documentation for each experience used in challenging the individual courses. This course challenge is divided into three parts: (1) a description of the experiences, (2) a list of learning outcomes derived from the described experiences, and (3) documentation to prove that the experience occurred. Credit will be granted only for experiences that can be documented adequately.
- You will be assigned a portfolio instructor who will work with you on the portfolio development process. You will receive a course manual that explains the process in detail after you register for BSAD 4950 Portfolio Development.
- Your course challenge documentation will be given to the UW-Platteville faculty member who teaches that course on campus. That faculty member will determine the number of credits (0-3) you will be awarded for that particular course.
- If partial credit is granted for a required course that UW-Platteville offers in a print format, you must complete the remaining partial credit(s) during the next enrollment period; otherwise, you may lose the portfolio credit and may need to take the course for full credit. The faculty member who evaluated your course challenge will determine which units of a course you need to finish.
- If you receive partial credit for a course that is not required for the degree but is offered through the Business Administration at a Distance Program in print format, you must complete the remaining credits for the course during the next enrollment period. Again, the faculty member who evaluated your course challenge will determine which units of a course you need to finish.
- An unlimited number of credits may be earned through the portfolio process.
- No grades are given for course credits granted through the portfolio process. Courses for which credits have been granted through this process will be entered on your UW-Platteville transcript after the portfolio process has been completed and a transcription fee per credit has been paid. The credits will count toward your degree only after the transcripting fee has been paid and the courses are listed on your transcript. Credits earned through the portfolio process usually will not transfer into another college program at UW-Platteville or to outside institutions.
- Credits awarded through the portfolio process are considered to have been earned under the direction of UW-Platteville faculty, an issue that pertains to graduation requirements.
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Portfolio Development:
Courses For Which College Credit Can Be Granted
If you are thinking about preparing a portfolio to earn credit for prior life and work experience, you should try to match your experience with the UW-Platteville courses listed below. These short course descriptions also may be used to help you remember relevant experiences to include on the detailed resume you must prepare to determine whether you qualify for enrollment in BSAD 4950 Special Topics: Portfolio Development.
To be eligible for BSAD 4950, you must submit a detailed resume to be reviewed by a UW-Platteville faculty member who is experienced in portfolio assessment. Before approving your enrollment in BSAD 4950 Special Topics: Portfolio Development, the faculty member must identify at least three courses that you may challenge.
During enrollment in BSAD 4950, always consult with your assigned course instructor before preparing documentation to challenge a given course. You should verify how course challenges you plan to submit will provide you with credits that are necessary degree requirements. In some cases, you might have the knowledge and skills for a certain course challenge, but it may not be worth your time and effort to prepare a challenge for course credits unless you need those specific credits to graduate.
This is not an official list and is subject to change without notice. Please note that many of the courses that may be challenged through the portfolio process are NOT available at a distance.
Courses for Which College Credit Can Be Granted:
This file is in PDF Acrobat file format.
(Some course descriptions may not reflect those in the current catalog.)
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