Electronic High School Transcripts Dennis Crowson Blinn College TACRAO Technology Committee

Electronic High School Transcripts History of the project Outline of the project Advantages and Cost savings Project status and timeline

Would like to emulate the success of electronic college transcripts Process has been proven as successful Savings of time and money to transmit college transcripts Makes things easier on the students Could possibly become larger than college transcript network

History of the project TEA contracted with TRIAND Corp. to put all K-12 transcript data online –Web-Enabled Student Transcript (WEST) Project Statewide K-12 database set up TRIAND writing processes to upload data from ISD system to database –10 – 15 K-12 ISIS in Texas

History of the Project (cont.) Goal is to have all ISD’s in Texas in database by end of the year Have many completed The system currently houses over 2.4 million records Over 700,000 high school students Over 1,000,000 hits per day About 250 High Schools –Heavy in the Houston, Dallas, and Corpus Christi areas

TRIAND Information

College Involvement Contact made with TACRAO and TRIAND Idea that this could aide lead to electronic transcripts to colleges hatched TRIAND presented to the SPEEDE User’s Group Texas Higher Education Efficiency Committee identified efficiencies that could be realized TEXPRESS ad hoc committee formed

THEE Committee Committee formed to create high impact efficiencies in student services Council of Public University Presidents and Chancellors –Members include Troy Johnson and Christie Kangas One of their initiatives in their 2004 report was to: –“Develop a statewide system to encourage and facilitate the use of electronic high school transcripts”

TEXPRESS Dennis Crowson Dave Stones Shelby Stanfield Christie Kangas Fred Hample Mario Lucchesi Monique Snowden

Implementation Ideas One of the goals is to make it as easy and inexpensive as possible for both colleges and ISD’s Request triggered Data flow similar to that of SPEEDE college transcripts Issues to be resolved

ANSI X12 TS 130 "ExPRESS" (Exchanging Permanent Records Electronically between Students and Schools) High School Transcript UT SPEEDE Server Destination Institutions ANSI X12 TS 146 Request for Transcript ISD/Service Center State of Texas Common Application For Admission web site. Student requests high school transcript be sent to chosen institution TRIAND Educational Solutions Systems

ANSI X12 TS 130 "ExPRESS" (Exchanging Permanent Records Electronically between Students and Schools) High School Transcript UT SPEEDE Server Destination Institutions Student requests, in person, high school transcript be sent to chosen institution. ISD/Service Center TRIAND Educational Solutions Systems

Triggering Modalities Transcript triggered when students use Texas Common Application –Part of the overall seamless admissions model Transcript requested to be sent by the student Transcript sent by the high school Transcript requested by the college

More on Triggering Since many universities need current and final transcripts, some timing issues All students do not use the common application, so they will need mechanism Universities may only need those final transcripts of students who have been accepted and will attend

Common Application Triggering Goal is to have a “one-stop” application process Student enters high school code Either through a query or through an authentication screen, the HS transcript is requested –FERPA questions still –TS146 sent to TRIAND

Common Application Next step is to get test scores from common application in a similar manner A “one-stop” application!!!

Data Flow Data would go from the ISD’s to the TRIAND statewide database Then data would be sent to UT SPEEDE Server via EDI or XML Server would treat this similar to a college transcript and package to the individual colleges

SPEEDE Server Side Transcript received from TRIAND database Packaged and sent to destination colleges in the TS130 format (same format currently used for college transcripts) Same as current college transcripts

College Side Transcript can be printed as is using the UT provided printing program Or SIS could be programmed to download high school data into the college’s database Both EDI and XML aspects are being discussed –EDI Implementation first

ANSI X12 TS 130 "ExPRESS" (Exchanging Permanent Records Electronically between Students and Schools) High School Transcript UT SPEEDE Server Destination Institutions ANSI X12 TS 146 Request for Transcript ISD/Service Center State of Texas Common Application For Admission web site. Student requests high school transcript be sent to chosen institution TRIAND Educational Solutions Systems

What is needed ISD Side –Connection with TRIAND database Buy one of TRIAND’s other products and will get this free Other products cost approximately $1/student –Possibly some way to trigger transcript College Side –Ability to read in high school TS130 into SIS –Can always just print them out TRIAND Database –Triggering mechanism –Ability to send EDI or XML to SPEEDE server

Issues How to trigger the sending of the transcript? Legal issues – FERPA? Who will pay for the TRIAND database and support it? What data elements do we (colleges) need?

Advantages ISD Side –Do not have to print out and mail transcripts –Already connected with TRIAND database College Side –Faster receipt of high school transcript –Can automatically enter high school data into SIS Student –Transcript should get to college faster –Faster admissions decisions –Not solely dependent on high school to send transcript

Current Costs as identified by the THEE Committee –Colleges to process HS transcripts (10 min/transcript, $12/hr, 720,000 transcripts) »$1,440,000 –High schools to print transcripts (30 min/transcript, $13/hr, 720,000 transcripts) »$4,680,000 –High schools to mail transcripts ($1 / transcript) »$ 720,000

Current Costs as identified by the THEE Committee Total current annual costs »$ 6,840,000

New Annual Costs as identified by the THEE Committee ISD Costs –(1 minute / $12/hr) –$144,000 College Costs –($5,000 / College for 100 colleges) –$500,000 Other statewide costs –$ 6,000

Cost Savings Current Annual Costs$ 6,840,000 New Annual Costs 650,000 Annual Cost Savings$ 6,190,000

Start-up Costs As identified by the THEE Committee Colleges($11,000/college) $1,100,000 Only needed if SIS will be updated ISD’s($11,000/ half of HS) ($11,000/ half of ISDs) $14,916,000 This is the work TRIAND is currently doing Total$16,016,000 However these amounts could be much less

Project Status and Timeline TEXPRESS Committee members and other pilot schools have sent in mock requests for high school transcripts –160 were sent to TRIAND –All from the Houston area –All were found in the TRIAND database

Project Status and Timeline Meeting with Shelby, TRIAND, myself TRIAND programmers and UT programmers are meeting this week –EDI specifications will be discussed TRIAND plans to have these back to pilot schools by Dec. 1 “Gap Analysis” performed by pilot schools during December

Project status and timeline During spring TRIAND will implement some triggering mechanisms Testing of these done during the spring semester Triggering mechanism will be put into the common application during the spring and summer

Project status and timeline Production triggering put into place for the common application when the new features are frozen in August Available to state participants thereafter More information available this afternoon in the EDI workshop session

STATUS Not near as far along as we had hoped to be Impetus has been placed on TRIAND and hope they will now put more resources on the project TRIAND also now doing state of Wyoming –Only about 90,000 students

TEXPRESS Committee Dennis Crowson – Blinn College Fred Hample – UT San Antonio Christie Kangas – Texas State University Mario Lucchesi – Univ. of Houston Monique Snowden – Texas A&M Univ. Shelby Stanfield – UT Austin Dave Stones – Southwestern University

Presentation can be found at: Under Quick Links – Electronic High School Transcripts