As part of AACRAO’s Comprehensive Learner Record and Learner and Employment Record Signature Initiative, we are participating in an exciting project to see if AI can be harnessed to build structured, interoperable, machine-readable data information
from student record transcripts rendered as PDFs. As we all know, the vast preponderance of transcripts are produced and transmitted as PDFS. Though PDFs have greatly improved service to our students by enabling quick fulfillment and transmission,
the resulting document is not a digital one. Though we have had a digital data standard (SPEEDE) since the late 1980s, the standard has not been adopted and used by most higher education institutions (less than 20% of institutions exchange records digitally). For many (at least some) institutions, the resources required to create and consume
digital student records can be a heavy lift, and, as a result, have opted out. The goal of the Experience You project (XpU) is to create a nonproprietary means to create structured and machine-readable data from PDF transcripts. The targeted data standard
for the converted output will be CLRs and rendered in the 1EdTech Comprehensive Learner Record (v2) standard.
The XpU project is part of a Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and Walmart.org grant awarded to the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USCCF) and Education Design Lab and coordinated through the T3 Innovation Network’s LER Network. (For more information about the Experience
You project, please refer to the Experience You Project Paper or the recorded Zoom sessions here). AACRAO is participating in
the project by providing student record expertise in the interpretation of the student record transcript and formed the XpU Advisory Committee to perform these tasks. In addition, we know the project will require a plethora of record samples
from a variety of institutions in order to be successful and we would like to assist with that task as well.
This is where we hope you (AACRAOans) can provide assistance.
You can all be heroes in this effort by providing a sample transcript from your institution to broaden the set of working documents available to the development team. By samples, we mean examples that may reside on your websites or others that serve to
describe these credentials to students, and recipients, or simply serve for the purpose of demonstration. PDFs would be the preferred format, but the working group will willingly perform screen scraping (or other artifacts) if that is easier for you. If
you have samples from real students, even better, but only if sharing with us is compliant with FERPA and all relevant policies at your institutions. The more student record transcripts we can obtain the greater the likelihood of success.
If you do have a sample transcript either on a website or as a PDF, could you send us the link and/or the PDF? We will aggregate and compile them. Please upload your sample directly through this form, or feel free to email it to mcconahaym@aacrao.org
We have great hope that this project will lead to an easier path for all higher ed institutions to participate in an interoperable, safe, and trusted digital credential world. We truly believe XpU can assist in providing students with the best possible
chance for a successful future and the potential to ease higher education evolution into a more digital interoperable world.