Michigan Embraces Electronic Transcripts

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Michigan Embraces Electronic Transcripts

5/7/2008

By Linda L Briggs

"We get wheelbarrows of paper documents in the mail every day," according to Michael Cook, senior associate director of admissions at Michigan State University. "Our goal is to become paperless here in the admissions world," he added, "but that's not as easy as it seems."

To reduce paper flow, save money, and serve students better, Michigan State has begun using the services of electronic transcript firm ConnectEdu. Cook said he's confident that MSU's move from paper to digital transcripts, although a slow process that is just in its beginning stages, will pay off handsomely eventually. Although it will take time, with 46,000 students and 25,000 applicants a year, MSU hopes to eventually see a sizable dent in the paper flow.

ConnectEdu, which was formed in 2002, is gradually recruiting high schools throughout Michigan, at no charge, to submit their student transcript information to ConnectEdu's Connect! system. The company said it has signed up large public higher education institutions in Michigan including not only Michigan State University, but also the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn.

The company interfaces securely with individual high schools' student information systems to convert high school transcripts into electronic data, then offers that information to client schools. ConnectEdu also offers additional services to students, parents, and guidance counselors to help them research and select schools, including help for parents in applying for financial aid. After working in the state for a year, the company said it has 200 Michigan high schools in its network and 14 colleges and universities. Most if not all of the largest higher education institutions in Michigan have signed on, meaning potentially hundreds of thousands of student transcripts to be exchanged annually eventually.

ConnectEdu works with high schools, including training, implementation and data loading, at no charge. Institutions such as MSU are in effect sponsoring the implementation of the technology statewide. At least for now, Michigan high schools must be users of Connect! in order for students, counselors, and parents to have access, since the service is not available to the general public.

Rather than delivering transcripts as Adobe-format PDF documents, ConnectEdu converts incoming student transcript information to the XML data standard, using guidelines set by the Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIFA) and the Postsecondary Education Standards Council (PESC). PESC, formed in 1997, is a non-profit umbrella association of colleges and universities, along with professional organizations, vendors, and state and federal government agencies, that is working to establish data exchange standards in education.

Historically, Michigan State scans paper transcripts as it receives them, then stores the transcript information electronically. But even with that system, Cook said, "we still end up pushing [paper] through the office during the entire process." The Connect! system enables the university to accept an electronic transcript when a student applies from a ConnectEdu-affiliated high school, thus eliminating the paper process for the most part.