Not every session at the annual meeting involves a panel or power point on the stage with an audience in array. For the past two years AACRAO has devoted space in the convention center for a hall of posters. In addition to some nifty-looking material, you can also get some great information in a condensed and digestible format.
One such poster presentation was prepared by the SPEEDE committee and at designated times, Jerald Bracken, Sue Reyes, and Doug Holmes were all available to chat about what the heck EDX actually is.
Put simply, it stands for electronic data exchange. You must have a package of information that both the sending and receiving party are equipped to receive and work with, and you must have a means of transmitting that data. Could you send an email with all the information plopped in there? Sure – it would be quick and easy, but obviously security and privacy concerns don’t really make that a viable option in higher education. The SPEEDE committee, which stands for the Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange, has worked for many years to develop standards related to EDX and to disseminate that information to the AACRAO membership.
The poster presenters posited three viable options, each with their own set of benefits and drawbacks. The first method is a secure PDF (portable document format) which essentially functions as an image of the data. It retains the look and feel of a traditional paper transcript, complete with security features like watermarks. In addition, it also requires relatively little technical knowledge to implement and is already widely used. Storing and sending these potentially large files is still cheaper than paper, but costs may vary depending on whether a vendor is used or if you use a secure file transfer protocol to exchange transcripts.
The second method is EDI, or electronic data interchange, which is a flat file with delimited data similar to a csv. Fun fact – the EDI language was actually developed by the SPEEDE committee to facilitate data exchange in the early days of institutional EDX. The implementation for EDI is slightly more technical*, but within the EDI network it is easier and cheaper to send and receive than PDFs, and it is currently more widely used by institutions than XML-formatted transcripts.
Last but not least, the poster presenters talked about XML, or extensible markup language. This is produces a more versatile and verbose data file with tags that identify different data elements. Your IT staff probably know XML already, or at least are familiar with it. However, unless you or your staff have a programming background you will have to rely on IT staff to implement the system to translate the XML. As far as exchange goes, the XML network for transcript exchange is still young and growing, although there are vendors who can assist. Having said that, XML is widely used outside of the transcript domain.
Whatever method you currently use or are thinking about using, there are plenty of resources to help out, between vendors, the SPPEDE Committee and from AACRAO and its members. The SPEEDE committee consists of individuals who are experts on essentially all methods of data exchange, so look for their sessions at out meeting, check out www.aacrao.org/speede, or contact them at speede@aacrao.org.
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* Download the partial poster image below to see an example of the typical syntax required in an EDI document. It's also reproduced in part here:
Key (no quotes)
" | " = delimiter
" CRS " = named segment, e.g., this line will contain the course name, and other course details
" SUM " = GPA in course will be contained on this line
" ||| " = empty fields
" ; " - segment transition
The rest of the information is custom: you can add as much or as little information as you would like, so long as it is consistent.
SES|200507|1|||Fall 2005;
SUM|U|4|N|||1|||3.33;
CRS|R|U||1|01|B+||||82|0014.000|3.33||CECN|801|Principles of Engineering