FAIRFAX, Va. – February 27, 2014 – Ellucian® and the National Student Clearinghouse® announced today the delivery of Ellucian eTranscripts, an interface that automates the time-consuming administrative tasks required to process and release transcripts, reducing the workload of the registrar’s office and improving the service quality to students and alumni. eTranscripts is a secure interface for institutions to authenticate, produce, and transfer transcripts electronically and in real-time between the National Student Clearinghouse and Ellucian’s administrative systems.
The volume of transcript requests is rising, driven by the increasing mobility of today’s college students. One-third of students transfer or change schools at least once in five years, according to the Transfer and Mobility report published by the National Student Clearinghouse® Research Center™. Fulfilling requests manually takes institutions an average of four days to process and send the transcripts. With eTranscripts, the process is automated and the transcript is ready for electronic delivery or pick up in minutes; and 90% of transcripts are processed without manual intervention.
“eTranscripts provides an outstanding ‘touch-free’ electronic transcript processing and delivery option for students,” said Lee M. Colaw, chief information officer at Amarillo College which processes thousands of transcripts annually. “The processes for student authentication and identification, transcript order submission, and transcript PDF generation and customization are all automated, providing immediate and secure electronic transcript delivery. Students can submit a transcript request outside of normal office hours and receive an official transcript PDF within 20 to 30 minutes. This is a great service for them when they are applying for jobs, scholarships, or admission to a university.” The popularity of transcripts PDFs, which account for nearly one-third of Amarillo’s transcript volume, is increasing rapidly at the college.
Ellucian eTranscripts supports the Banner by Ellucian and Colleague by Ellucian administrative systems. The solution, developed in partnership with the National Student Clearinghouse, creates a secure interface between institutions participating in the Clearinghouse’s Transcript OrderingSM service and the institution’s Ellucian administrative system. eTranscripts is available at no additional cost to Ellucian support customers that choose to activate the API and that also participate in Transcript Ordering, which is free to institutions. The interface is implemented using the PESC XML Transcript standards, minimizing the institutions’ development time and maintenance investment.
“Together the National Student Clearinghouse and Ellucian teams have worked very hard to finally provide higher education with a world-class solution that simplifies and accelerates the transition from paper to electronic data exchange. I look forward to the great enhancements that will be enabled on the electronic data front through our continued collaboration,” said Rick Torres, president and CEO of the National Student Clearinghouse. “We’re also excited about the opportunity to help as many schools as possible take advantage of our touch-free automated and integrated solution, a clear and unique benefit to the entire higher education community made possible through our strategic partnership.”
“Integrating our administrative systems with other solutions and services to improve efficiency on campus is a core goal of Ellucian’s Extensible Ecosystem,” said Mark Jones, chief product officer, Ellucian. “eTranscripts is a simple, no-cost solution that eases the workload on staff and lets the institution serve its students better.”
The Ellucian Extensible Ecosystem is a flexible and open foundation that spans the company’s core administrative systems. One of the ways that Ellucian delivers on this architectural approach is through a robust API and web services strategy that wraps around the core ERP platforms, supporting deep, standards-based integration and extending interoperability with new and existing software solutions from Ellucian, its partners, and other third parties.
The National Student Clearinghouse is demonstrating the new interface at the 2014 AACRAO Annual Meeting and at Ellucian Live. Institutions can contact their Clearinghouse Regional Director for more information or to schedule a demo at the AACRAO or Ellucian Live meetings.
About Ellucian
Ellucian helps education institutions thrive in an open and dynamic world. We deliver a broad portfolio of technology solutions, developed in collaboration with a global education community, and provide strategic guidance to help education institutions of all kinds navigate change, achieve greater transparency, and drive efficiencies. More than 2,400 institutions in 40 countries around the world look to Ellucian for the ideas and insights that will move education forward, helping people everywhere discover their futures through learning. Visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com, follow Ellucian on Twitter (@EllucianInc), and like Ellucian on Facebook (/EllucianInc).
About The National Student Clearinghouse
The National Student Clearinghouse (a nonprofit formed in 1993) is the trusted source for and leading provider of higher education verifications and electronic education record exchanges, handling more than 700 million verification requests and 250 million education record exchanges annually. The Clearinghouse serves as a single point of contact for the collection and timely exchange of accurate and comprehensive enrollment, degree, and certificate records on behalf of its more than 3,500 participating higher education institutions, which represent 98 percent of all students in public and private U.S. institutions. The Clearinghouse also provides thousands of high schools and districts with continuing collegiate enrollment, progression, and completion statistics on their alumni.
Through its verification, electronic exchange, and reporting services, the Clearinghouse saves the education community cumulatively more than 500 million dollars annually. Most Clearinghouse services are provided to colleges and universities at little or no charge, including enhanced transcript and research services, enabling institutions to redistribute limited staff and budget resources to more important student service efforts. Clearinghouse services are designed to facilitate an institution’s compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, The Higher Education Act, and other applicable laws.
In addition, the Clearinghouse provides accurate, timely enrollment and degree verifications to student loan providers, employers, student credit issuers, the U.S. Department of Education, and others who access its registry more than half a billion times annually. For more information, visit www.studentclearinghouse.org.
Trademark information: Banner®, Colleague®, and Ellucian®, are trademarks of Ellucian Company L.P. or its affiliates and are registered in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. © 2009–2014 Ellucian Company L.P. and its affiliates.