Cornell University Electronic Student Records Systems Project Report

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Appendix L. SPEEDE/ExPRESS Process

Background:

• History
  • 1960s: keypunch cards, sorters
  • 1970s: on-line terminals
  • 1980s: touch-tone telephone/voice response applications, distributed processing, fax
  • 1990s: EDI and SPEEDE/ExPRESS (Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange Committee and Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for Students and Schools)
• EDI: electronic transmission of standard business documents in a predefined format from one company's business computer application to its trading partners' business computer application
• Avoid human intervention and data entry redundancy
• Education 'industry' EDI applications: academic transcripts; financial aid transcripts; enrollment verifications; applications for admission, financial aid, housing; course descriptions; purchase orders, requisitions and invoices; payments and other transfers of funds
• Sub-Committee A Education Administration (X12), 1995, of the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) 1979

Overview:

SPEEDE/ExPRESS uses electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to automatically respond to requests. AACRAO's Guide to Implementation of Electronic Transcripts and Student Records is available in hard copy and on-line. There is a Transaction Set (TS) for each step in the process (or transaction) used in receiving and responding to requests. Some of these are standard Transaction Sets and some of them were developed by AACRAO specifically for electronic transcripts. The Transaction Set consists of data elements that are captured to support and document the transaction. The steps in the process are:

• An authorized requestor sends a request (TS 146) Generally, universities are requesting transcripts from other universities at the request of a student
• When received, the receiving system sends an automatic response (TS 997). This is a key component in preventing fraudulent transcripts. The response serves as a warning if the university identified as the requestor receives a response for a request it did not generate. The log of requests sent should match responses received.
• The request receives either a negative response (TS 147) that it cannot fulfill the request, or a positive response (TS 130), the transcript itself.
• Receipt of the transcript generates a transcript acknowledgement (TS 131)

In addition to the Transaction Sets that have been defined, as illustrated in the diagram above, AACRAO is working on the following Transaction Sets:

• TS 188, Request/Response for Educational Course Inventory (one, more, or all course descriptions)
• TS 189, Application for Admission to Educational Institutions
• TS 193, Financial Aid Transcript (financial aid history)

TS 188 is of particular interest for discussions of course documentation.