by Rita
26. January 2011 15:39
CATS, Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme, is a university system for awarding course credit in the United Kingdom. It can be easily converted to both U.S. credits and ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System).
4 CATS credits are equivalent to 2 ECTS credits or 1 U.S. credit, so CATS credits must be divided by 4 to convert to the U.S. system.
1 CATS credit is also equal to 1 SCQF (Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework) credit.
Some universities in the U.K. use a different system. For example, Open University, a popular distance learning school, uses CATS for undergraduate courses and Open University credits for Master's programs. In that case, 60 Open University credits = 40 CATS = 10 U.S. credits. This translates to 2.5 U.S. credits per course, which is less than a typical U.S. university course.