The UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme (UCTS) is a recommended conversion scheme for credit transfer, which started in 1999, to improve the student mobility in Asia and the Pacific under the UMAP programs since 1999, modeling the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) under the ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) on developing the UCTS.

However, the original conversion process was requiring the conversion from the number of credits in Asia to that in Europe, and reconversion of that to the number of credits in Asia. It has made the users’ process complicated, and at the UMAP Board Meeting in May 2013, it was decided that new UCTS concept was to be introduced. The new concept has enabled UMAP participating universities in member countries to transfer their credits by conversion of equal number of credits with each other.

The concrete concept of UCTS which has been introduced since 2013 is as follows:

UCTS is the concept of a conversion scale to enable the fair credit transfer by reconverting different individual credit systems into the unified point system, so that we can understand the actual difference between different credit systems. It is developed in order to promote the transfer of credits and grades by developing the student mobility programs among the Asia-Pacific countries.

(1)Prompt operating procedures：By utilizing UCTS which is based on the unified conversion scale, especially, the credit transfer among the Asia-Pacific countries could be implemented between one credit to the other one credit equally in many cases. UCTS enables simplification of operating procedures even though the number of student mobility programs have been increased. UCTS also enables simplification of certain operating procedures even in the case of credit transfer with the countries which were not utilizing UCTS and with overseas universities which have different credit systems.

(2)Improvement of equality of credit transfer：UCTS enables a university persons concerned to understand the credit system of counterpart universities concretely, and enables them to implement the credit transfer more equally.

(3)Building of trusting relationship：Finally, the most important thing is that UCTS enables us to build the trusting relationship and promote the higher quality student exchange between partner universities by utilizing UCTS systematically.

*Please refer to the “UCTS User’s Guide” for the detailed information of new UCTS.

The following table illustrates a recommended conversion of UCTS with various national and regional credit systems:

^※ECTS－European Credit Transfer System

^※※These 3 British credits are based on the conversion principle of British credits with ECTS defined by the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education）(2008). This principle is effective among all higher education institutions that use CATS (Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme) in the UK.

※Please refer to the following documents for the detailed information of new UCTS.

【References】

・

“UMAP Exchange Program and UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme (UCTS) Users’ Guide” Booklet (Published by the UMAP Japan National Committee at JASSO) (pdf: 3.57MB)

・

“UMAP Exchange Program and UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme (UCTS) User’s Guide” （Published by the UMAP International Secretariat）