Policy ACA-81, better known as the Master Course Inventory (MCI), is a university-wide policy that was approved in 2002. The MCI ensures identically numbered/titled courses on different IU campuses are equivalent when compared to one another. This is used in the event that a student decides to do an intercampus transfer.

To ensure that identically numbered/titled courses are compared properly, the MCI has a “model framework” that is applied system-wide. The requirements of this framework include:

1. A brief but informative description of the content of the course,
2. the nature of prerequisite qualifications for students taking the course,
3. the student learning outcomes for the course,
4. standards of competency as defined by the discipline, and
5. any other agreed upon features essential to assure the comparability of course offerings.

The MCI can be accessed via ­the Indiana University Information Environment. The course catalog report in IUIE contains all equivalences for courses across IU.

This framework helps transfer students receive their credits when they are transferring from one IU campus to another, and aids in the prevention of credit loss.