USM Leads Effort to Provide Enhanced Course-Sharing Platform to Ease Transfer, Degree Completion for College Students Throughout Maryland

New ARTSYS Partnership with Quottly will Include Students at 35 Higher Ed Institutions

Baltimore, Md. (Jan. 25, 2022) – The University System of Maryland (USM) will lead a partnership to provide an enhanced, academic course-sharing platform that will greatly boost the ability of college students throughout Maryland to transfer academic credit, complete their degrees and enter the state’s growing workforce and innovation economy. Students at 35 public and private higher education institutions across the state will benefit.

The USM partnership with Quottly—a leading provider of academic course-sharing platforms—will replace the state’s existing college-course credit portal, known as The Articulation System for Maryland Colleges and Universities (ARTSYS). The new ARTSYS platform will make transfer much easier for students to complete their degrees and enter or advance themselves in the state workforce. Among those students who will benefit are working adults with some college credit, students at any Maryland higher education institution who are considering transfer to one of the 35 ARTSYS institutions, and high school students who have enrolled for early-college-credit programs.

“For the USM and our 12 universities, this new platform is a game-changer,” said USM Chancellor Jay A. Perman. “A good share of our enrollment consists of students transferring into the University System from two- and four-year colleges. Easing their transition into the USM and helping them complete a degree are huge priorities for us, and streamlining the credit transfer process is key to both outcomes. Plus, it’s gratifying to know that this platform will help not only our own students, but those at institutions across Maryland.”

The new ARTSYS platform will help fill a critical need. The credit transfer process in higher education often involves cumbersome, labor-intensive requirements that can frustrate both students and administrators. The new partnership with Quottly will help students using the new ARTSYS more easily transfer credits and keep up with the status of those transfers at the participating institutions.

Quottly currently supports more than 200 colleges and universities nationally, with a combined enrollment of over 2.9 million students.

“Quottly offers powerful customization options that check all the boxes for our system,” said Dr. Antoinette Coleman, Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at USM. “We needed a partner with a robust infrastructure and integration abilities to realize our vision of credit transfer improvement and ease of use. The impact of this technology is significant for students and staff alike, not only in the USM but for all the public and private institutions we will serve in this partnership.”

For example, the new portal will let students know which classes transfer, where a student’s classes will be accepted as transfer credits, and how the classes will be credited. The platform also will give students capability to monitor their overall credits. However, the mission of the new ARTSYS computerized information system remains the same: to aid the transfer of students from Maryland community colleges to USM institutions and other participating institutions.

The USM comprises 12 institutions: Bowie State University; Coppin State University; Frostburg State University; Salisbury University; Towson University; the University of Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and the University of Maryland Global Campus. The USM also includes three regional centers—the Universities at Shady Grove, the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, and the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland—at which USM universities offer upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses.

The USM and its institutions compete successfully for nearly $1.5 billion in external grants and contracts annually. USM institutions and programs are among the nation's best in quality and value according to several national rankings. To learn more about the University System of Maryland, visit www.usmd.edu.

Contact: Mike Lurie
Phone: 301.445.2719
Email: mlurie@usmd.edu