AACRAO and the Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) recently reinvigorated their partnership during a meeting at the 2019 Groningen Declaration Network conference in Puebla.
“We’ve been more than just sister organizations for the last few decades,” said ARUCC president Romesh Vadivel. “More than half of our institutions are AACRAO members as well.”
The organizations had a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under their former executive leadership (prior to 2012), and the current association leadership recognized the need to reinvigorate the understanding with regards to the growing intersecting interests shared by the associations.
"AACRAO has had active member institutions from Canada for many years and our partnership with ARUCC helps us ensure that we are serving their needs,” said AACRAO Executive Director Mike Reilly.
Electronic transcripts and more
“ARUCC is a forward-thinking organization and is leading Canadian colleges and universities efforts to build a network of digital student records exchange in collaboration with the Groningen Declaration Network [GDN],” Reilly said. “This is a very exciting project that will position Canada well for the expansion of global student mobility. We are exploring ways to work together on research to better inform practice and learn from each other."
With the global proliferation of electronic transcripts and learning records, both organizations have been doing significant work around electronic data exchange. In addition to their participation in GDN, other areas of potential collaboration include work with PESC, study abroad, and the rise of big data and analytics.
“There’s a pressing need for individual organizations and institutions to fully understand the trends that are impacting us, which we can do better by building robust and collaborative communities of practice,” Vadivel said. “Though there may be nuances in practices from one country to the next, there’s enough similarity to build a good framework for more specific and interesting research.”
Both organizations also look forward to deepening their relationships with their Mexican counterpart ARSEE to build a stronger professional network across North America.
“As national organizations, we must also be more globally aware of the issues that impact learners, be they immigration initiatives, social mobility trends, new technologies, etc.,” said Vadivel. “Partnering with AACRAO amounts to somewhat of an economy of scale for our organizations: we’ll all benefit by working closely together, and this agreement helps reinforce that.”