ACAT Secretariat

The Secretariat works collaboratively with post-secondary institutions/stakeholders and government in Alberta and Canada to provide Alberta Transfer System and learner pathways operational leadership, oversight, and support for post-secondary learner pathways, mobility, and formal and informal recognition of prior learning, with a focus on learners, admissions, and transfer.

The Secretariat:

• Facilitates ACAT governance, operations, and support (see Current System Coordination and Next Steps).
• Facilitates Alberta Transfer System operations and Learner Pathways System (LPS) technology and tools for institution/stakeholder collaboration, initiatives, and data management amongst 44 institution members from Alberta and five other jurisdictions, directly engaging with:
  • Strategic Contact Persons/Registrars for strategic decision making for the LPS tools and data, Transfer Credit Awarded data collection, and the broader Alberta Transfer System and learner pathways in Alberta's Adult Learning System.
  • Operational Contact Persons for LPS tools, high school transitions and transfer decisions data, and transfer best practices.
  • Students, student advisors, registrars, vice-president academics/provosts, faculty, administration, K-12, government, local and jurisdictional organizations, and other stakeholders to support ease of access to public-facing learner pathways data and information for post-secondary planning for students via Transfer Alberta and the Transfer Alberta Search Tool, and for institutions/stakeholders via the ACAT website.
• Manages projects, institution and student tools, and system operations for learner pathways data access (e.g., Learner Pathways System (LPS) applications, data standards, and data sets, Transfer Alberta, ACAT, research, Transfer Credit Awarded data set, and Student Mobility Reports).
• Facilitates LPS Principles, membership roles and responsibilities, training/supports, and member institution pathways data and information management (e.g., institution course and program transfer decisions and offerings for transfer credit, targeted high school transitions information (e.g., AP, IB, dual credit, academic upgrading, provincial equivalencies), annual Transfer Credit Awarded data submissions and reports, and information for other pathways, including Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR), targeted program pathways, and interprovincial mobility).
• Collaborates with other similar operational jurisdictional and national admissions and transfer bodies and other key post-secondary education learner mobility-related organizations in Canada (e.g., Pan-Canadian Consortium on Admissions & Transfer (PCCAT), Councils on Admissions and Transfer and Like Bodies in Canada (CATCan) Network, Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC), Canadian Association for Prior Learning Assessment (CAPLA)) to support a PCCAT MoU for student mobility and student access to transfer and pathways information in Canada.
• Coordinates 18 subject area articulation committees led by institutions and operated under ACAT governance (e.g., faculty, student advisors, dual credit administrators, Registrars’ Offices) with government/organization participation, and collaborates with 3 affiliated committees led by institutions and operated under their own governance structures.
• Coordinates and supports government and institution/stakeholder technology, research and data initiatives, as well as other collaborative projects that support student access to pathways information and supports for post-secondary planning and formal and informal recognition of prior learning.
• Supports Ministry/government, team, stakeholder, and system (provincial, national, international) learner pathways-related goals, policies/legislation, and initiatives to support learner mobility.