Panel Discussion: Electronic Exchange of Student Transcripts

Transcription

1 Panel Discussion: Electronic Exchange of Student Transcripts Tuesday, April 3, :00pm 2:00pm Session ID 359 SPEEDE A Professional Development Committee of AACRAO American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers

2 Presenters W. Matt Bemis Associate Registrar, University of Southern California Tom Stewart Retired College Registrar, Miami Dade College Doug Holmes g Programmer Analyst III, Ontario Universities Application Centre

3 Agenda A brief history and considerations of various methods of transcript exchange to include: EDI Transcripts PDF Transcripts XML Transcripts

4 EDI History The AACRAO Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange Committee (SPEEDE) began developing national standard in 1989 AACRAO SPEEDE developed the initial format for the College Transcript US Department of Education s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began developing a national standard during same timeframe NCES developed the format for the K-12 Transcript Both groups worked with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 to develop standard formats ANSI ASC X12 Transaction Set 130 for the Student Educational Record (Transcript) approved in early 90 s Goal to transmit data with the least amount of characters necessary

5 EDI Process Benefits Standards are consistent Resources are available Processes can be batched and automated Large volume of current institutions using standard State/Province and district initiatives Sender and receiver are identified Automated acknowledgements of both delivery and receipt possible Transmission through SPEEDE Server benefits trading partners Costs decrease Speede delivery

6 EDI Institutional Considerations Capabilities of the organization IT resources available Interest level of senior management Compatibility with SIS Cost/benefit analysis In house vs. vendor sponsored solution Efficiency gains Strategic goals Preferred trading partner methodologies

7 EDI Process Considerations Technical complexity limits some institutions Need for translation software or SIS compatibility to recognize full benefits Data mapping can be cumbersome Perception of complexity or lack of IT resources ANSI ASC X12A Education sub-committee inactive since 2005 Many small important setup details, but it s only done once

8 PDF History Portable Document Format (PDF) Created by Adobe Systems 18+ years ago PDF Proprietary rights were officially released by Adobe as an open standard in July 2008 PDF Standards for embedded and retrieving XML within a PDF approved by PESC in December 2010 Electronic image vs. electronic data Secure PDF digitally signed and certified as authentic PDF may be protected by password to open, and may specify restrictions when the document is decrypted restrictions on printing, life of fdocument, etc. Extract transcript data from SIS and render to PDF document

9 PDF Transcripts Benefits Can be sent to any computer anywhere; not just to another school Considerations Upload of data to SIS difficult (but embedded XML standards will help) More secure than mail Less opportunity for fraud Longevity Different philosophies on appropriateness of expiration Faster delivery and easy for human to print or view Low cost Ease of Import into document management systems Multiple transmission methodologies Vendor differences Varying cost models for senders/receivers Fast implementation Robust rights management for the PDF Document

10 PDF Challenges Mac users directed to spam filters Bad address Print or no print Are recipients willing to accept a PDF transcript?

11 What is XML? XML stands for Extensible Markup Language XML is a markup language much like HTML XML was designed to carry data, not to display data XML is designed to be self-descriptive

12 XML High School Transcript Schema

13 XML Example </TransmissionData> - <Student> - <Person> <SchoolAssignedPersonID> </SchoolAssignedPersonID> <AgencyAssignedID> </AgencyAssignedID> <RecipientAssignedID> </RecipientAssignedID> <Birth> <BirthDate> </BirthDate> </Birth> - <Name> <FirstName>Kristen</FirstName> <MiddleName /> <LastName>Young</LastName> </Name> - <Gender> <GenderCode>Female</GenderCode> </Gender> </Person>

14 Key Benefits of XML Content identification Enforced structure International standard Industry standardization

15 Additional XML Benefits It supports Unicode, allowing almost any information in any written human language to be communicated Format uses English and less abbreviations making it less technical to read than EDI format It can be updated incrementally It is platform-independent, d t thus relatively l immune to changes in technology Forward and backward compatibility are relatively easy to maintain despite changes in Schema Compatible with SEVIS, IPEDS and NCATE (for teachers) XML preferred by IT because it is a format they are familiar with

16 XML Considerations XML syntax is large relative to EDI (binary) representations of similar data This results in higher storage, transmission and processing costs Example 2K EDI = 30k XML (compression available in Office 07) XML syntax is verbose, especially for human readers, relative to other alternative 'text-based' data Number of tags = more to sift through to determine what you need for your SIS as a receiver

17 Resources Available to You:

18 Texas Server Registrant Lists and Activity reports

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20 Other Resources of Interest

21 Questions? Additional Resources org/speede/index cfm pesc.org

22 Additional Resources AACRAO Professional Development AACRAO offers professional development opportunities through meetings, online classes and webinars. For more information, please visit Publications AACRAO offers a valuable library of resources on transfer and other higher education topics. For a listing of our recent publications, please visit