This document serves as an executive summary of the ongoing activities of the Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange (SPEEDE) Committee of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee was formed in the mid 1980's and has been very active since then in the coordination, development, and implementation of international exchange standards in United States and Canada by representing secondary and postsecondary education in collaboration with the standards setting body, P20W Education Standards Council (PESC). The Committee reports to the AACRAO Vice President for Information Technology (Group VI), Jim Bouse.
This report contains the 2nd quarter 2013 AACRAO SPEEDE Committee activities and efforts. More information about the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee and on-going activities can be found.
Committee Meetings & Conferences:
AACRAO SPEEDE Committee members serve in many capacities from conducting webinars, presentations, and roundtable discussions at various AACRAO national and regional conferences to participating and chairing various PESC workgroups to develop standards, implementation guides, crosswalks, and programming of crosswalks. Weekly conference calls occur every Thursday at 4pm ET with an average of seven (of nine) members to discuss workgroup updates, and other SPEEDE-related business.
Quarter one AACRAO meeting and conference activities included:
| Face-to-Face meetings | April 14th @ AACRAO Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA) May 2nd and 3rd @ PESC Spring Data Summit (San Diego, CA) |
| AACRAO Webinar | None conducted in Q2 |
| National Conference Presentations | April 14th-17th AACRAO Annual Meeting “ Eight presentations and one roundtable were conducted |
| *Regional Conference Presentations | June 6th - Shelby Stanfield presented at the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) conference on SPEEDE and electronic transcripts |
*The AACRAO SPEEDE committee will make available to all AACRAO state and/or regional groups (e.g. PACRAO, SACRAO, Middle States, etc ) the opportunity to conduct an EDX workshop and several presentations. The committee will be presenting four sessions at the Pacific ACRAO (PACRAO) conference in October 2013. If you are planning your 2014 regional conference and would like members of the SPEEDE Committee to present, please email your request to speede@aacrao.org as soon as possible and more information will be sent.
Quarter one PESC activities included participation in periodic conference calls for the following workgroups:
| Academic e-Portfolio | Canadian PESC User Group | Change Control Board | Common Data Services | Common XML |
| Electronic Authentication/ Authorization(EA2) | Education Record User Group | PESC Board | PESC Seal of Approval | Technical Advisory Board |
Committee Technical Activities & Efforts:
Texas Server Updates (provided by Shelby Stanfield)
Progress on transition the UT SPEEDE Server to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) is going well. The UT Team and the NSC team have weekly conference calls as part of the planning and move. Our target date for the switchover to the NSC is mid-September; however this is not a hard deadline. Prior to the switchover, the NSC will start to manage communications and notify the UT SPEEDE Server community of any changes that may need to be made (such as firewall adjustments). Both UT Austin and the NSC are dedicated to making this switchover as seamless as possible and are actively working together to ensure that all files are received and delivered.
As users of the UT SPEEDE Server noticed, on July 3rd, 2013, the production UT SPEEDE server suffered a fatal hardware failure that stopped all traffic. Data loss was minimal; primarily some log records and a subset of files delivered from 5:00am -7:00am. By July 6th, partial functionality was restored by use of a backup server, and by July 19th the majority of the active UT SPEEDE Server users were back in full production.
In the upcoming month, UT Austin will be switching from the backup server to a new virtual production server. Prior to this switchover, UT will be sending test files to all active users to identify in advance any potential delivery issues. This should make this VM switchover as seamless as possible. As noted in previous emails to the UT SPEEDE Server community, the new delivery address is 146.6.225.62.
Recovering from the hardware failure revealed instances of out-of-date or older, unsupported software still in use which provided an additional opportunity to perform much needed upgrades. We appreciate everyone's patience and support both during our disaster recovery as well as our transition to the NSC.
More information will be made available in the coming weeks.
PDF Best Practices
With the rapidly changing environment of PDF transcript exchange, the SPEEDE committee has been tasked with developing a PDF best practices document to accompany the Electronic Transcript Task Force's Report that was published in 2008. A survey was sent to the following: (1) AACRAO membership via AACRAO Connect; (2) PESC Education Record User Group; (3) SPEEDE listserv; and (4) University of Texas Server registrants. Thank you to all that took the time to participate in the survey. A best practices document is being compiled and will be available soon!
Crosswalk Development:
Final versions of all approved EDI and XML standards can be downloaded from the PESC web site (Standards & Workgroups section) at http://www.pesc.org/interior.php?page_id=86. All modifications to these standards are handled through the PESC Education Record User Group (ERUG) to create new up-to-date versions. More information on ERUG can also be found on the PESC web site at http://www.pesc.org/interior.php?page_id=188.
Membership:
There are currently nine members serving on the committee. The committee welcomes your interest in becoming more involved in this AACRAO Professional Development Committee. To learn more you can:
| View the SPEEDE website | http://aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede.aspx#.UVWNSDcW8_1 |
| Review SPEEDE Mission Statement, Objectives, and Goals | http://aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede/missionstatement.aspx#.UVWM-jcW8_0 |
| Review current SPEEDE Members list | http://www4.aacrao.org/committees/?period=now&committee=SPEEDE |
| Still have questions or want to join? | Send email to speede@aacrao.org |
Other:
AACRAO SPEEDE Committee members are instrumental in submitting various items, questions, answers, etc. and contributing feedback to the AACRAO SPEEDE community via the SPEEDE-L list serv. If you are interested in signing up to receive emails regarding SPEEDE topics, go to http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SL1=SPEEDE-L&H=LISTSERV.VT.EDU.
The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee has published the Electronic Data Exchange (EDX) Primer. The EDX Primer addresses the most commonly asked questions regarding electronic data exchanges, including matters relating to both traditional EDI standards and contemporary XML data standards as shaped by the P20W Electronic Standards Council (PESC). Written by the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee, the Primer compiles EDX-related technology and contact information resources, along with lists of Web site sources and state, provincial, and regional initiatives and mandates. More information may be found at http://www.aacrao.org/publications/publications_catalog/publications_catalog_technology.aspx.
This concludes the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee report for 2nd quarter 2013.