How to Find and Interpret Courses

Finding Courses

The Search Courses page contains six fields for entering search criteria: Service, Keywords, Course Number, School/Location, Date, and ACE ID. A detailed explanation of how each field is used in the search can be found by clicking the question mark icon next to the field.

If search criteria are entered into multiple fields, then the search results for all fields are added together (ANDed). To illustrate, entering elec into Keywords and ft rucker into School/Location searches for all courses taught at Fort Rucker AND containing the word fragment elec somewhere in the course title or subtitles.

The Keywords and School/Location fields each allow for compound criteria. Use the plus sign (+), ampersand (&), or the word and when criteria are to be combined (ANDed). Use the vertical pipe (|), a blank space, or the word or when criteria are to be considered separately (ORed). When there is a mixture of ANDs and ORs, the ANDs are evaluated first. To illustrate, aviation & radar equipment + maintenance is evaluated as (aviation AND radar) OR (equipment AND maintenance). The search engine is not case sensitive, and spaces before or after the plus sign (+), vertical pipe (|), or ampersand (&) operators are not required. Surround a phrase with quotes to avoid having the enclosed words considered separately (ORed) because of blank spaces. To illustrate, "electronics technician" results in a search for electronics technician instead of electronics OR technician.

The search engine automatically expands abbreviations for fort and camp. Thus, entering either ft bliss or ft. bliss into the School/Location field results in a search for fort bliss. Further, in exception to the above rules for compound criteria, fort or camp (or any of their abbreviations) and the word that immediately follows are NOT treated as separate criteria, but as a single criterion. Thus ft. rucker results in a search for fort rucker, not fort OR rucker.

Interpreting Courses

Course exhibits are subdivided into multiple sections, and are structured the same for all services. The sample course exhibit is annotated to identify each section and describe its content and purpose.

When you read an exhibit, consider not only the credit recommendation section, but also the learning outcomes and instruction sections. These portions of the exhibit outline the course content and scope and also provide essential information about the nature of the course. This information will help you determine the appropriate placement of credit for each individual student within the requirements and programs at your institution.

The credit recommendations are advisory. Users are free to modify the credit recommendations in accordance with the institutional policy and the educational goals of each applicant.