Crediting & PLAR service
Crediting & PLAR service
The following overview provides an introduction to the topic of recognition of competences acquired outside of higher education.
Recognition of competences acquired outside the university
The recognition of competences acquired outside of higher education supports lifelong learning and is intended to help achieve better permeability between academic and vocational education and training.
It is based on the conviction that students who have already taken part in academic appointments and further education or have extensive professional experience already have skills that can be equivalent to the learning outcomes of degree programmes.
The aim of credit transfer is, on the one hand, to validate the competences already acquired and, on the other hand, to reduce the workload for students whose acquired competences are accepted as a substitute for study modules, which may lead to a reduction in the duration of studies.
The prerequisite for recognition is the equivalence of the competences acquired outside the university with the learning outcomes of a study module in terms of content and level. The equivalence can be checked in a quality-assured manner through a systematic comparison based on concrete evidence from the non-university context with the competence objectives of a study module.
The equivalence assessment can generally be used as part of a generalised or individual credit transfer procedure, although universities still usually prefer individual procedures (case-by-case decisions). The PLAR procedure at the University of Oldenburg is one of the individual procedures. You can find information on the procedure in the instructions for the equivalence assessment.
Students must apply to the Examinations Office for recognition of competences acquired outside the university. The PLAR Service of the University of Oldenburg supports students in the application process. The basis for the equivalence assessment is a portfolio created by the student with evidence of the acquisition of competences from formal, non-formal or informal educational contexts.
Crediting vs. recognition
The terms " credit transfer" and " recognition" are sometimes used interchangeably, but differ in terms of the context in which competences are acquired: credit transfer refers to competences acquired outside a university, while recognition refers to competences acquired at the university. Recognition concerns both access to another university or another degree programme and the replacement of individual modules with prior learning.
At the University of Oldenburg, the term recognition is sometimes used both for the recognition of competences acquired outside the university and for the recognition of prior academic achievements.
Expertise
The concept of competence here stands for knowledge, skills and abilities or for the combination of knowledge and ability.
Competences acquired outside of higher education are often synonymous with professional competences from training, further education and academic appointments, but in some cases can also come from the private sphere, e.g. in the form of professionally pursued hobbies.
A distinction is made between formally, non-formally and informally acquired competences:
Formally acquired skills come from organised and structured learning contexts and have a certified qualification as proof. Skills are acquired in a targeted manner.
Examples: Qualifications from school, initial, further and continuing education
Non-formally acquired competences originate from less structured contexts that nevertheless have an institutional framework. As a rule, they are not documented by certified qualifications. However, the acquisition of competences is intended here.
Example: In-company further education
Informally acquired competences originate from - usually academic - practice. The acquisition of competences is not intended and is generally difficult to prove, but is usually easy to demonstrate as part of the portfolio procedure.
Example: Project organisation
Regardless of how the competences were acquired, they can be credited towards a degree course.
PLAR service
The PLAR service has been in place at the University of Oldenburg since 2017. Originally funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), the university has now stabilised and structurally anchored it. The PLAR service offers students a central point of contact and interface for the possible recognition of competences acquired outside of higher education. It supports students in recording and presenting their competences and the entire application process. The PLAR Service is a co-operation between the Department for Study Affairs and the Competence Centre for Credit Transfer of School I, the Centre for Lifelong Learning and the Examinations Office. It works closely with the subject representatives responsible for credit transfer in the School.
The University of Oldenburg's PLAR service has adopted the idea of using credit portfolios to make the recognition of competences acquired outside of higher education plausible and comprehensible for study modules from the PLAR model at the University of Athabasca (Canada).
Students can submit a proposal to the University of Oldenburg for recognition of competences acquired outside of higher education if they have competences from initial, further and continuing education as well as previous professional activity and are enrolled in a degree programme. The PLAR service helps students to compile the documents required for the application and to plan their credit transfer.
PLAR
PLAR stands for Prior Learning Assessmentand Recognitionand means the recording and recognition of previously acquired learning outcomes or competences. At the University of Oldenburg, this refers to the recognition of academic appointments or competences acquired outside of higher education. While the topic of credit transfer has only begun to establish itself in the German higher education landscape since the turn of the millennium, Prior Learning Assessment gained a foothold internationally, particularly in the United States, as early as the middle of the 20th century.
The PLAR approach is based on three central convictions:
1. the act of learning is crucial, not the context in which learning takes place.
2. authentic documents from the learning process can be used as evidence or proof of competences acquired outside of higher education.
3. the students themselves must actively participate in order to demonstrate the competences they have already acquired.