A Case for Electronic Transcripts
Thomas C. Black · College and university · 2007
By fully embracing the latest technology, you can change everything about your transcript operation. You can provide better service to students and alumni. You can lower production costs, or reassign or shrink your staff. You can beat fraudulent perpetrators, and you can free your constituencies from the shackles of paper-bound systems! All of these statements could have been the mantras of those encouraging the transmission of transcript data between higher educational institutions via Electronic Data Interchange (edi). Some 650 postsecondary institutions adopted this highly successful standards-based data transmission method. However, that wonderful breakthrough in technology more than fifteen years ago does not meet all the needs of those we serve today. It took the Internet and other supporting technologies to make other options available. This article encourages you to reexamine the world of electronic transcripts and to look at how the University of Chicago is going about this business, anew, naming the supporting cast, not as a form of endorsement - although we do like the choices we've made - but to clearly define the systems the University is using and, I hope, to further stimulate your thinking as to what is possible. The Case for Electronic Transcripts It is perhaps ironic that universities and colleges are recording and storing academic data on their current and former students in sophisticated student information systems whereas the transcripts from these systems, by a vast margin, are printed on paper and delivered via commercial carriers. Certainly this is due in part to the limitations of intended recipients; they do not have access to the means to securely accept electronic reports or data. Those who do have the means are institutions of higher education, as already mentioned, and they exchange electronic transcripts formatted to an edi standard, and now to an xml (extensible markup language) standard. The adage it ain't broke, don't fix it, comes to mind concerning transcripts. We are comfortable with processing hard copy and on a limited basis exchanging data with a handful of institutional trading partners. But there are three reasons worth considering that make a case to move to electronic transcripts: 1) service, 2) efficiency, and 3) opportunity costs. Although it is possible to order plane tickets and fly to another state within hours, with the exception of those who are transmitting data via edi or xml, we cannot securely, quickly, or cost effectively deliver a transcript to someone in another state on the same day. (And those transmitting data via edi/xml do so in overnight batches.) Even if you're willing to accept overnight delivery, it costs a fortune to use next day service. You can deliver for little cost if you don't mind how long the package takes to be received, or you can deliver quickly if money is no object. This is not service. The report to the nation by Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of on the state of higher education, A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education, makes quite a case for being more efficient and accountable to our constituencies. It is therefore not unreasonable for us to become more broad-minded about leveraging today's technology to solve what our students and alumni view as a trivial delivery problem. If we who are within the registrar's profession do not actively address this problem, governments and businesses will. And some have already. We may not like what they come up with. The longer we wait, and the less actively involved we remain, the less likely we are to be given a choice as to what solution(s) we must use. Each day we use obsolete methods and practices is another day lost in becoming more efficient, better stewards of the resources we have been given. Keeping Pat at the PC, printing, folding, stuffing, and stamping means that you have a fixed approach that may not become any more productive, costs more from year to year, and possibly blinds you from discovering new opportunities, even new ways, to apply Pat's great skills to other areas within your organization that are presently overburdened or understaffed. …