In July 2000, the Chancellor of the Texas State Technical College System entered into a standardized, statewide memorandum of understanding [Ref 3] with the Virtual College of Texas (VCT), a collaborative of Texas' 50 community college districts and the Texas State Technical College System. Through VCT, students may register at their local colleges to take credit and non-credit distance learning courses from other colleges throughout Texas, thus providing Texans access to quality instruction and support regardless of distance or time constraints. The courses provided are found in the Lower Division Academic Course Guide Manual (ACGM) [Ref 4], which contains all of the courses under the Texas Common Course Numbering System transferable to any public community or technical public college in the State of Texas, and the Workforce Education Course Manual (WECM) [Ref 5], which contains all of the workforce education courses that may be offered by technical and community colleges for contact hour funding. Colleges may participate in the Virtual College of Texas as either a host or provider college. At the present time, TSTC Harlingen participates solely as a host college, which means that TSTC Harlingen receives the student's tuition, fees and contact-hour reimbursement, provides the student with support services (such as counseling and advisement, financial aid, technical support, and access to learning resources), provides any special facilities and services required by a course, administers tests in a proctored environment, and awards course credit and transcripts it. The college that actually provides the course delivers the course instruction; administers the assignments, tests, and course activities; and assigns final grades.

The Memo of Understanding [Ref 3] and the VCT Operations Manual [Ref 6] address the SACS standards that ensure quality of instruction. The provider colleges agree to use qualified faculty to teach and/or supervise courses and ensure and maintain instructor credentials to meet SACS credentialing requirements and any other entity having required guidelines. Instructor credentials are always available from provider colleges upon request.

The provider college must evaluate the course and the instructor, although the host college may also conduct a course evaluation. TSTC Harlingen monitors the quality of VCT courses as documented in the Distance Learning Assessment Plan [Ref 7] and the accompanying Report of Results [Ref 8]. The Summary of Improvements Brought About by Assessment [Ref 9] outlines how the Distance Learning Department uses assessment results to make improvements in its host responsibilities.

Students graduating from high schools within independent school districts who participate in the Advanced Technical Credit (ATC) Program [Ref 10] or with whom TSTC Harlingen has formal Tech Prep [Ref 11] or local [Ref 12] articulation agreements may receive semester hour credit for specified courses covered in the articulation agreements.

As Policy 3.56, Initiating and Maintaining Articulation and Tech Prep Agreements, [Ref 13] specifies, the TSTC Office of Collaborative Projects (OCP) is responsible for monitoring conformance with all SACS and THECB rules for articulated credit. In conformance with these requirements, the OCP maintains up-to-date articulation agreements with participating school districts, coordinates meetings between high school and TSTC Harlingen faculty to review existing articulation agreements and course crosswalks, and the negotiation of new agreements. The OCP is also responsible for reviewing and recommending the awarding of articulated credit when the student enrolls at TSTC Harlingen in accordance with COP 3.62, Articulation Credit [Ref 14]. The Office of Admission and Records awards and transcripts articulated credit based on the OCP recommendation in accordance with COP 3.62 Articulation Credit [Ref 14].

The TSTC Harlingen Collaborative Projects Advisory Committee is responsible for conducting an annual review of all statewide and local articulation agreements against SACS standards, THECB rules, the TSTC Harlingen purpose statement, and all local policies governing the articulation process. The last review was conducted on October 2, 2003, as documented in the OCP Advisory Committee minutes of the meeting [Ref 15].

TSTC Harlingen awards three types of articulated credit to high school graduates: (1) statewide articulated credit through participation in the Advanced Technical Credit Program, (2) Tech Prep articulation credit awarded to qualified high school graduates covered by Tech Prep agreements between the school district and TSTC Harlingen; (3) local articulation credit awarded to qualified high school graduates covered by local articultion agreements between the school district and TSTC Harlingen. Each is described separately below.

Advanced Technical Credit (ATC) Program. The ATC Program is a statewide advanced placement process for students enrolling in postsecondary workforce education programs, such as those offered at TSTC Harlingen, by which public high schools in Texas may offer content-enhanced courses that provide students meeting criteria outlined in the ATC standard articulation agreement [Ref 10] credit for corresponding college courses listed in the course crosswalk from any college offering the corresponding Workforce Education Course Manual (WECM) [Ref 5] courses. The document "Advanced Technical Credit (ATC) Program (Statewide Articulated Courses): Information Essential to Two-Year Community, Technical, and State Colleges" [Ref 16] states that "policies and practices established by the ATC Program address standards of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges, which are relevant to the award of articulated credit." These policies and practices include requirements related to the collegiate level of course work and learning outcomes, required training of qualified high school faculty by college faculty, high school faculty qualifications and a statewide database recording faculty qualifications, and standards for policies governing articulation at the college campus.

Tech Prep Articulation. Texas State Technical College Harlingen is a member of the Tech Prep Consortium of the Rio Grande Valley [Ref 17]. The college has six-year 2+2 degree plans and formal Tech Prep articulation agreements with 29 independent school districts in the Rio Grande Valley.

Local Articulation. For students from independent school districts not participating in the statewide ATC Program and for students enrolling in certificate of completion and non-Tech Prep-approved Associate of Applied Science degree programs, TSTC Harlingen negotiates and maintains local articulation agreements with school districts that conform to the same rules and practices as those for ATC and Tech Prep.

The third consortia or contractual relationship through which credit instruction is provided by another accredited institution for TSTC Harlingen is through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) [Ref 18] with Laredo Community College (LCC) [Ref 19]. Through special funding provided by the Texas Legislature, TSTC Harlingen was directed to assist Laredo Community College in the initial development of new technical programs for the Laredo, Texas, area. The MOU specified that LCC would provide the developmental, academic, and support courses for the program curricula, and TSTC would provide the technical curricula in laboratory spaces provided by LCC on their campus. Courses taught by LCC are drawn from the statewide Academic Course Guide Manual (ACGM) [Ref 4], are taught by qualified LCC faculty under SACS and THECB guidelines, and are, therefore, fully accepted in transfer by TSTC toward the technical degree, which is awarded by TSTC.

TSTC faculty members instruct all technical courses under the same instructor qualification guidelines, operating systems, and policies as the home TSTC campus, thereby ensuring the same degree of quality and the same measure of control of curriculum and instruction as if the program were based on the TSTC campus.