February 2013 - PESC

FEBRUARY 201 3 

NEWS AND COMMENTARY ON TECHNOLOGY & STANDARDS IN EDUCATION 

S 

THE 

TANDARD 

www.PES C.or g 

P20W EDUCATION STANDARDS COUNCIL 

Simplifying 

Access 

Improving 

Data 

Quality 

Reducing 

Cost 

All States Succeeded in 

Establishing Interoperable 

Inter-State Toll Booth Systems 

Bank Stakeholders Successfully 

Collaborated & Established 

Interoperable ATM Networks 

Mortgage & Credit Card 

Stakeholders Succeeded In 

their Respective Industries 

But What’s Preventing 

Interoperability 

in Education? 

PLUS 

‣ SHEEO President PAUL E. LINGENFELTER Ph.D. to Keynote Spring 2013 Data Summit 

‣ FAFSA, MyDataDownload, Shopping Sheet, School Code List & Software Specs 

‣ NCES Releases V 3.0 of CEDS 

‣ MOOC’s, Bill of Rights & State Spending on Higher Education Rebounds

FEB RUA RY 2 013 

More pics on page 5. 

Th e STANDARD NEWS A ND C OM M ENTA RY ON T EC HNOL OGY & STA NDA RDS IN EDUCA T ION 

Inside 

THE 

STANDARD 

www.PESC.org 

THE STANDARD 

the online newsletter 

published monthly by 

PESC covers news and 

events that impact 

technology, data 

standards and systems 

interoperability across 

P20W education. 

PESC 

1250 Connecticut Ave NW 

Suite 200 

Washington, D.C. 20036 

p +1.202.261.6516 

f +1.202.261.6517 

www.PESC.org 

Unifying the Education Domain 

EDITOR/PRODUCER: 

Michael D. Sessa 

PESC President & CEO 

Michael.Sessa@PESC.org 

© 1997 – 2013. PESC. 

All rights reserved. 

PAGE 2 COMPLETING THE FAFSA 

PAGE 2 UPCOMING ENHANCEMENTS TO MYSTUDENTDATA DOWNLOAD ON NSLDS 

PAGE 3 

PAGE 3 

PAGE 6 

NCES RELEASES V 3.0 OF COMMON EDUCATION DATA STANDARDS (CEDS) 

UNIVERSITIES TRY MOOC’S TO LURE SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS TO ONLINE PROGRAMS 

SHEEO PRESIDENT PAUL E. LINGENFELTER TO KEYNOTE SPRING 2013 DATA SUMMIT 

PAGE 8 PESC MEMBERSHIP UPDATES & NOTIFICATION OF ANNUAL MEETING MAY 1, 2013 

PAGE 9 WHAT’S PREVENTING INTEROPERABILITY IN EDUCATION 

PAGE 10 HELPFUL SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS TO PROMOTE FAFSA COMPLETION 

PAGE 11 STATE SPENDING ON HIGHER EDUCATION REBOUNDS AFTER YEARS OF DECLINE 

PAGE 12 

PAGE 15 

PAGE 16 

PAGE 17 

PAGE 17 

PAGE 18 

PAGE 19 

PAGE 21 

PAGE 23 

PAGE 28 

'BILL OF RIGHTS' SEEKS TO PROTECT STUDENTS’ INTERESTS 

2013-14 APPLICATION PROCESSING SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS (FINAL) 

HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY LINKS TO NAEP 12 TH GRADE PREPAREDNESS EFFORTS 

FORUM GUIDE TO TAKING ACTION WITH EDUCATION DATA 

IMPLEMENTING THE FINANCIAL AID SHOPPING SHEET 

2013-2014 FEDERAL SCHOOL CODE LIST OF PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS 

AS LOAN SERVICERS MULTIPLY, SO DO PROBLEMS FOR STUDENTS, COLLEGES SAY 

CHANGE TO LOG-IN PROCESS FOR ALL FEDERAL STUDENT AID SYSTEMS BEHIND AIMS 

IN JOB-PLACEMENT RATES, FUZZY DATA, LACK OF STANDARD TRACKING MAKE CLAIMS UNRELIABLE 

INBLOOM LAUNCHES TO ENABLE LEARNING THROUGH EASIER ACCESS TO INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY 

ATTACHED SPEEDE UPDATES FOR SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER 2012 

ATTACHED FEDERAL REGISTER: IMPROVING DATA COLLECTION ACTIVITIES UNDER NSLDS 

ATTACHED RECENT NCES NEWS AND REPORTS 

POSTED EDUCAUSE’S ECAR STUDY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, 2012 

POSTED SHEEO’S ECONOMIC BENEFIT OF POSTSECONDARY DEGREES: STATE AND NATIONAL LEVEL ANALYSIS 

POSTED 

FY2012 AGENCY FINANCIAL REPORT: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

POSTED EDUCATION AT A GLANCE: OECD INDICATORS 2012 

*POSTED ONLINE AT WWW.PESC.ORG UNDER RESOURCES, WHITE PAPERS 

1 PESC UNLOC K ING T HE P OW ER OF DATA



COMPLETING THE FAFSA 

On January 1, the Department’s Office of Federal 

Student Aid (FSA) released the Free Application for 

Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2013-14 

academic year. 

Completing the new FAFSA is the first step in 

accessing more than $150 billion available in 

federal student aid, including grants, loans, and 

work-study funds. 

In addition, many states and colleges use FAFSA 

data to determine student eligibility for state and 

institution-based aid. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO 

http://studentaid.ed.gov/fafsa. 

Recent blog posts outline five reasons to complete 

the FAFSA (http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/5- 

reasons-you-should-complete-the-free-applicationfor-federal-student-aid-fafsa/) 

and provide answers 

to the top three questions about the FAFSA 

(http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/top-3-fafsafaqs/). 

Later this month, FSA will launch a public service 

campaign to promote the availability of financial 

aid for college. The campaign will include TV, radio, 

print, and web advertisements. 

A version of the ad is posted at 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0mlUznsg2U& 

feature=youtu.be. 

UPCOMING ENHANCEMENTS TO 

MYSTUDENTDATA DOWNLOAD ON NSLDS 

by Pamela Eliadis, Service Director, System 

Operations & Aid Delivery Management, FSA 

January 18, 2013 

We are pleased to announce that on January 27, 

2013, "MyStudentData Download" functionality 

will be enhanced on the NSLDS Student Access 

Web site. As previously described in an August 16, 

2012 electronic announcement, posted on the 

Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) 

Web site, 

MyStudentData Download (previously referred to 

as the MyData Button) allows students to 

download their loan, grant, enrollment, and 

overpayment information from the National 

Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) into a machinereadable, 

plain text file. 

In an ongoing effort to provide students with their 

most current and helpful data, the downloadable 

file will be updated to include the following fields: 

File Source 

File Request Date 

Loan Award ID 

Loan Attending School OPEID 

Loan Interest Rate 

Loan Repayment Plan Begin Date 

Loan Repayment Plan Scheduled Amount 

Grant Attending School OPEID 

Overpayment Attending School OPEID 

We have posted an updated NSLDS MyStudentData 

Download file layout to the NSLDS Record Layouts 

page on the IFAP Web site. 

This document defines the layout of the file that 

students will be able to download from NSLDS 

Student Access and assists software vendors with 

designing new tools for students to maximize the 

usefulness of the data. 

Contact Information 

If your students have questions about 

MyStudentData Download on NSLDS, ask them to 

contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center 

at 800/4-FED-AID (800/433-3243) or by e-mail at 

FederalStudentAidCustomerService@ed.gov. 

TDD/TTY service is also available at 800/730-8913. 




NCES RELEASES V 3.0 OF COMMON 

EDUCATION DATA STANDARDS 

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 

is pleased to announce the release of Version 3 of 

the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) 

which can be found at the CEDS website: 

http://ceds.ed.gov. 

CEDS is a national collaborative effort to develop 

voluntary, common data standards for a key set of 

education data elements to streamline the 

exchange, comparison, and understanding of data 

within and across P-20W institutions and sectors. 

CEDS Version 3 includes a broad scope of elements 

spanning much of the P-20W spectrum and 

provides greater context for understanding the 

standards' interrelationships and practical utility. 

Specifically, Version 3 of CEDS focuses on elements 

and modeling in the Early Learning, K12, and 

Postsecondary sectors and also expands into career 

and technical education, adult education, 

workforce, and support for the Race to the Top 

Assessments. 

The CEDS website includes three ways to view and 

interact with CEDS: 

1. By element: Via the Elements page, users can 

access a searchable glossary of the CEDS 

"vocabulary," including names, definitions, 

option sets, technical specifications, and more. 

2. By relationship: Through the CEDS Data Model, 

users can explore the relationships that exist 

among entities and elements-viewable both 

through a logical data model. 

3. By comparison: Supplemental tools enable 

users to take the next step and put CEDS into 

practice. CEDS ALIGN allows a user to load his 

or her organization's data dictionary and 

compare it, in detail, to CEDS and the data 

dictionaries of other users' organizations. This 

facilitates alignment with CEDS and across 

systems, paving the way for easier sharing and 

comparison of data. CEDS CONNECT is an 

innovative tool that allows users to find and 

create "Connections" from unit-level data 

elements (variables) to practical applications 

across the P-20W environment 

UNIVERSITIES TRY MOOCS IN BID TO LURE 

SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS TO ONLINE 

PROGRAMS 

by Steve Kolowich 

Since massive open online courses exploded into 

the public consciousness, college presidents have 

been trying to figure out how to use higher 

education’s most hyped innovation to deal with 

one of its greatest challenges: enrolling and 

graduating more students at a time of rising costs 

and declining support. 

Academic Partnerships, a company that helps 

traditional institutions build online programs, 

believes it has found a way. And it involves 

awarding academic credit to students who take 

MOOCs—at no charge. 

The company announced on Wednesday that it and 

a group of its public-university clients were 

planning to recast certain conventional online 

courses as MOOCs in the hope that the free 

courses could serve as a tool for recruiting students 

into their online degree programs—in particular, 

students who are likely to succeed. 

Academic Partnerships is calling the new program 

MOOC2Degree. The particulars will vary by 

institution, but in general each participating 

university will allow students anywhere in the 

world to take an online course free. If a student 

then decides to enroll at the university, the 

university will count the credit hours earned in the 

MOOC toward a degree without charging the 

student. Universities typically charge students 




several hundred dollars per credit hour, and 

courses typically carry three credit hours. 

Randy Best, chairman and chief executive of 

Academic Partnerships, talked about the program’s 

goals in a conference call with reporters on 

Wednesday. “We believe that it turns the MOOC … 

into a practical tool,” he said. 

The company says a number of its clients are 

planning to offer MOOC2Degree courses, including 

the University of Arkansas system, the University of 

Cincinnati, the University of Texas at Arlington 

College of Nursing, the University of West Florida, 

and Cleveland State, Florida International, Lamar, 

and Utah State Universities. (Another client, 

Arizona State University, says it plans to participate 

but will charge students who enroll there for 

credits earned in its MOOCs.) 

In trials at several of those institutions, where 

prospective students were offered the opportunity 

to take their first online course free, 72 to 84 

percent of the participating students ended up 

signing up for a second course, Mr. Best said. 

Elizabeth Poster, dean of the Arlington nursing 

college, told The Chronicle that she expected 

thousands of students to register for a course that 

the college plans to offer as a MOOC. 

The assessments for that course, an elective in the 

college’s online R.N. to B.S.N. program, will be just 

as rigorous as those in a conventional online 

course, said Ms. Poster. But the college will not be 

able to afford to provide as much individual 

support to students who enroll in the MOOC, she 

added. 

For example, in its current online courses, which 

enroll up to several hundred students, the college 

provides academic “coaches” who oversee cohorts 

of 30 students each. If registrations shoot into the 

thousands in the MOOC version of the course, the 

college will not be able to scale up its support 

infrastructure accordingly, said Ms. Poster. “We 

can’t offer exactly the same resources, because it’s 

just not possible,” she said. 

Lawrence Johnson, interim provost at the 

University of Cincinnati, also expressed doubt that 

the university’s MOOC2Degree courses would be 

able to provide students with the same level of 

individual attention, even if the assessments and 

the professors were the same as those for a typical 

online course. 

Ideally, the MOOC2Degree effort will not only 

enable the universities to promote their online 

programs while reducing the cost of degrees to 

students, Mr. Best added in an interview, but it will 

also help the universities identify students who are 

well equipped to complete their online courses. 

Retaining and graduating students has been 

especially challenging for online programs—in part 

because online students tend to be working adults, 

and also because some students do not take well 

to the medium. Universities tend to lose money on 

dropouts. 

MOOC2Degree is designed to give students a riskfree 

way to try out a course before committing to 

an online program, Mr. Best said. But the program 

also aims to give its university clients a risk-free 

way to try out students before admitting them, he 

said. 

Online education has given rise to sophisticated 

tools for quantifying student performance—not 

only how well they do on tests, but also how active 

they are in discussion forums and how frequently 

they engage with learning tools and materials that 

are embedded in the online-learning platform. 

Academic Partnerships has been investing in those 

tools on behalf of its clients, Mr. Best said. 

By the time a MOOC student applies to enroll at a 

participating university, he said, admissions 

officials—and, later, instructors—will already know 

something about their habits and abilities. 




PESC’s Michael Sessa (l) and Oracle’s David Webber (r) 

at the Spring 2012 Data Summit at the Wynn Las Vegas 

05/02/2012. 

Don Phillips (l) and PESC Board Director Peter 

Knepper (r) of XAP at the Spring 2012 Data Summit. 

Oracle’s Carroll Brown (l) with PESC Board Director 

Andy Wood (lc), Peter Hurley of University of Michigan 

(rc), and PESC Board Chair Francisco Valines of Florida 

International University (r) at the Fall 2012 Data Summit. 

Rajiv Kaushik of University of Toronto and the Kuali 

Foundation (l), Tom Stewart of AACRAO (c), and Susan 

McCrackin of the College Board (r) at the Spring 2012 

Data Summit. 

Bill McKee of OCAS and fellow Canadian PESC 

User Group members Rudy Sykes of OUAC, Jam 

Hamidi of BCCampus and Kelly McMullen of 

ApplyAlberta at the Fall 2012 Data Summit in 

Vancouver at the Four Seasons 10/17/2012. 

Parchment’s Mark Cohen at the Fall 2012 Data Summit 

at which PESC celebrated its 15 th Year Anniversary, 

having been founded originally August 1997. 

PESC Board Director Tuan An Do of San Francisco 

State Univesity, AACRAO SPEEDE’s Jerry Bracken, 

and PESC’s Clare Smith-Larson at the Spring 2012 

Data Summit. 

Kuali Foundation’s Rick Skeel and CommIT Project 

Manager Tim Cameron. 




SHEEO PRESIDENT PAUL E. LINGENFELTER PH.D. 

TO KEYNOTE PESC SPRING 2013 DATA SUMMIT 

DATA SUMMIT THEME: 

“CONNECTING KIDS TO COLLEGE AND CAREER” 

SIGNIFIES PESC P20W PERSPECTIVE & NAME CHANGE 

PAUL E. LINGENFELTER Ph.D. will serve as PESC’s 

keynote speaker for its Spring 2013 Data Summit 

being held May 1-3, 2013 in San Diego at the OMNI 

Hotel. Dr. Lingenfelter serves as President of the 

State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) 

association, a position he’s held since 2000. 

Dr. Lingenfelter’s work as 

President of SHEEO has 

focused on increasing 

successful participation in 

higher education; accountability 

for improving 

learning; finance; & 

building more effective 

relationships between 

K-12 and postsecondary 

educators. Under his 

leadership, SHEEO organized the National 

Commission on Accountability in Higher Education, 

created the annual study State Higher Education 

Finance, published More Student Success: A 

Systemic Solution and substantially expanded 

SHEEO collaborations with the Council of Chief 

State School Officers (CCSSO). 

From 1985 to 2000, he served at the John D. and 

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where in 1996 

he was appointed Vice President to establish and 

lead the MacArthur Foundation Program on 

Human and Community Development. Earlier, he 

was involved in the full range of the Foundation’s 

international and domestic programs as Associate 

Vice President for Planning and Evaluation & 

Director of Program Related Investments. 

Dr. Lingenfelter was Deputy Director for Fiscal 

Affairs for the Illinois Board of Higher Education 

(IBHE) from 1980 to 1985 and held several other 

positions with the IBHE and the University of 

Michigan from 1968-80. His educational 

background includes an A.B. from Wheaton College 

in Literature, an M.A. from Michigan State 

University, and a Ph.D. from the University of 

Michigan in higher education with an emphasis in 

public policy. He is the author of numerous studies 

and articles related to his work in higher education 

and philanthropy, and he currently serves on the 

boards of the National Student Clearinghouse and 

the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning 

and Accountability. 

Dr. Lingenfelter’s keynote address State 

Perspectives on Higher Education for the 21 st 

Century will be held over lunch Wednesday May 1, 

2013 at PESC’s Spring 2013 Data Summit in San 

Diego at the OMNI Hotel. His address will discuss 

the funding, management and administration of 

public education and the challenges states face in a 

21 st century learning environment. 

Joining Dr. Lingenfelter as Featured Speakers (check 

the PESC website for updates and additional speakers): 

‣ SCOTT GILLIE, Executive Director, 

Encouragement Services, Inc. & President, 

Alliance of Career Resource Professionals 

(ACRP) – Introducing ACRP 

‣ MAUREEN MATTHEWS WENTWORTH, 

Program Director, Education Data and 

Information Systems, Council of Chief State 

School Officers (CCSSO) – National Data 

Initiatives 




‣ JOHN C. ITTELSON, PH.D., Director of 

Communication, Collaboration, and Outreach, 

California Virtual Campus; Professor Emeritus 

California State University Monterey Bay – 

Student eDentity: ePortfolios and Beyond! 

‣ BILL MCKEE, Director of Operations, Ontario 

College Application Service (OCAS) & Chair, 

PESC Canadian User Group – Canadian 

Transcript Exchange Network 

‣ TIM CALHOON, Technology Center Director, 

Office of the Chancellor, California Community 

Colleges – EdExchange: Enabling Common Data 

Exchange for California in the 21st Century 

‣ JEFFREY ALDERSON, Senior Director of Product 

Innovation, ConnectEDU - MyData 

As PESC’s XML High School Transcript standard is 

now supported across the United States of America 

and Canada, coupled with additional PESC 

Approved Standards that are attracting labor and 

workforce stakeholders, the PESC Board of 

Directors and Members agreed in 2012 that a 

name change to the organization was necessary. 

Now with a new name, P20W Education Standards 

Council, PESC will continue on its collaborative 

mission which includes continued development 

and support of common data standards, 

establishment and support of common data 

networks and infrastructure, common 

authentication and web services protocols 

enterprise-wide, seamless connections bridging 

postsecondary education systems to secondary and 

labor and workforce systems, and an eye on 

emerging technologies like social networking. 

PESC thanks DIAMOND Sponsors: 

Common Application 

www.CommonApp.org 

ConnectEDU 

www.ConnectEDU.com 

National Student Clearinghouse 

www.StudentClearinghouse.org 

ORACLE 

www.Oracle.com 

Parchment 

www.Parchmen t.com 

SCRIP-SAFE 

www.SCRIP-SAFE.com 

USA Funds 

www.USAFunds.org 

XAP 

www.XAP.com 

The PESC Spring 2013 Data Summit takes place 

Wednesday May 1-3, 2-13 and includes PESC's 

Annual Spring Membership Meeting and Annual 

Spring Reception. 

Data Summits focus on open, collaborative, 

community development, implementation and 

integration, maintenance & exchange of data and 

data standards. Access, overall connectivity, data 

quality and political factors that drive education 

systems and technology are also discussed. 

All Concurrent and General Summit Sessions and 

events are open to all registered attendees and 

dress code is business casual. Transparent 

collaboration, engaging discussions, awareness of 

technical resources & best practices, identification 

of emerging technologies, new business contacts 

and tips from experts of leading community 

organizations can be expected. 

In continuing its mission of leading and governing 

community-based collaboration, the Spring 2013 

Data Summit is held in partnership with AACRAO 


REGISTRATION FORM 

Spring 2013 Data Summit 

MAY 1–3, 2013 | SAN DIEGO | OMNI HOTEL | PESC.ORG 

CONNECTING KIDS TO COLLEGE AND CAREER


Registration is now available for the 

PESC SPRING 2013 DATA SUMMIT! 

The PESC Spring 2013 Data Summit takes 

place Wednesday May 1–3, 2013 & includes 

PESC’s Annual Spring Membership Meeting 

and Annual Spring Reception. 

PESC is pleased to incxlude 

Paul E. Lingenfelter, Ph.D., 

as its keynote speaker. Dr. 

Lingenfelter will deliver his 

address State Perspectives 

on Higher Education for 

the 21 st Century on May 1, 

2013 over lunch. 

Please use this form for registration or 

register online at www.PESC.org. 

For lodging, please contact the hotel directly: 

OMNI San Diego Hotel 

675 L Street 

San Diego, CA 92102 

1-800-THE-OMNI 

$199 per night single/double in “PESC” Group. 

Hotel cut-off date for group rate is April 1, 2013. 

Data Summits focus on open, collaborative, 

community development, implementation and 

integration, maintenance & exchange of data and 

data standards. Access, overall connectivity, data 

quality and political factors that drive education 

systems and technology are also discussed. 

All Concurrent and General Summit Sessions and 

events are open to all registered attendees and 

dress code is business casual. Transparent 

collaboration, engaging discussions, awareness of 

technical resources & best practices, identification 

of emerging technologies, new business contacts 

and tips from experts of leading community 

organizations can be expected. 

In continuing its mission of leading and governing 

community-based collaboration, the Spring 2013 

Data Summit is held in partnership with the 

AACRAO SPEEDE Committee, the Common 

Education Data Standards (CEDS) Initiative & 

Consortium, InCommon & the US Department of 

Education.


Sessions at the Spring 2013 Data Summit will be 

held on the following efforts and topics. Please 

check the PESC website at www.PESC.org for the 

program and agenda. 

Development Efforts 

− Academic ePortfolio 

− Student Loan Data Reporting 

− Common Data Services Task Force and 

EDexchange 

− EA2 Task Force, InCommon and CommIT 

Board, Committees & User Groups 

− Change Control Board 

− Seal of Approval Board 

− Technical Advisory Board 

− Canadian PESC User Group 

− CEDS User Group 

− Education Record User Group 

− Student Aid User Group 

General Session Topics 

− 

Check www.PESC.org for updates and info! 

Please register for the PESC Spring 2013 Data Summit! 

YES, please register me: 

Registration Name 

Street Address 


NON 

MEMBER 

MEMBER 

$450 $795 

Title and Organization 

City, State and Zip 

Phone Fax Email Address 

$ 

Payment Amount 

To register, please complete this form and send it 

along with a check payable to: 

Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council 

1250 Connecticut Avenue NW ~ Suite 200 

Washington, DC 20036 

Fax: 202-261-6517 

PESC's tax ID# is 52-2179499 *Early Bird Rates listed



SPEEDE Committee, the Common Education Data 

Standards (CEDS) Initiative & Consortium, 

InCommon & the US Department of Education. 

Sessions at the Spring 2013 Data Summit will be 

held on the following efforts and topics. Please 

check the PESC website for program and agenda 

updates and for General Session speakers. 

Development Efforts 

− Academic ePortfolio 

− Common Data Services Task Force & 

EDexchange 

− EA2 Task Force, InCommon & CommIT 

− Student Loan Data Reporting Workgroup 

Board, Committees & User Groups 

− Canadian PESC User Group 

− CEDS User Group 

− Student Aid User Group 

оĚƵĐĂƟŽŶRecord User Group 

− Seal of Approval Board 

− Technical Advisory Board (TAB) 

− Change Control Board (CCB) 

PESC MEMBER MEETING 

WEDNESDAY MAY 1, 2013 

5:30PM – 6:30PM 

OMNI HOTEL 

SAN DIEGO 

Please be advised that the next meeting of the 

PESC Membership has been scheduled for 

Thursday May 2, 2013 from 5:30pm-6:30pm and 

will be held during the Spring 2013 Data Summit in 

San Diego at the OMNI Hotel. 

Scheduled for this meeting are elections to the 

PESC Board of Directors. Nominations for the PESC 

Board of Directors will open in March 2013…stay 

tuned! 

NEW PESC MEMBERS 

Association of Career Resource Professionals 

www.acrpro.org 

iDATA Incorporated 

www.iDATAinc.com 

Memorial University of Newfoundland 

www.MUN.ca 

PREMIER PESC PARTNERS 

* OUR HIGHEST MEMBERSHIP LEVEL * 

ConnectEDU 

www.ConnectEDU.com 

National Student Clearinghouse 

www.StudentClearinghouse.org 

Parchment 

www.Parchment.com 

SCRIP-SAFE International 

www.Scrip-Safe.com 

USA Funds 

www.USAfunds.org 

“At ConnectEDU, we are passionate about 

adopting, maintaining & promoting industry 

best practices to benefit our customers, 

specifically around the use of data,” stated 

Jeffrey Alderson, Senior Director of Product 

Innovation, ConnectEDU, Inc. & PESC board 

member. 

“Parchment is committed to driving 

industry standards for the exchange of 

credentials data among educational and 

professional organizations because it 

improves efficiencies from all sides, “ said 

Matthew Pittinsky, Ph.D., CEO, Parchment. 




WHAT’S PREVENTING INTEROPERABILITY 

IN EDUCATION? 

Michael Sessa 

Bank stakeholders successfully collaborated 

& established interoperable ATM networks. 

All states succeeded in establishing 

interoperable inter-state toll booth systems. 

Mortgage & credit card stakeholders 

succeeded in their respective industries. 

? But what’s preventing interoperability in 

Education? 

I have a confession to make. When I first joined 

the PESC Board of Directors back in 1999, I was 

under the impression that the education industry 

was functioning in a harmonious, interoperable 

way with a solid, agreed upon and supported 

infrastructure. 

After all, I started my career in banking in 1990, 

managing student loans as an underwriter and 

overseeing branch compliance as compliance 

officer. I remember when automated teller 

machines (ATMs) first launched and all the 

inconveniences of banking were suddenly and 

miraculously alleviated. 

Banking had not only succeeded in implementing a 

very user-friendly and practical process, but in so 

doing morphed banking into a real-time mobile 

commodity while satisfying all legal and technical 

issues from liability to two-factor authentication. 

The need for interoperability really hit me at my 

next job in 1995 while overseeing a company 

transition from a mainframe to client/server 

system. I was responsible for migrating 33 API’s as 

well as managing the change process for all of the 

customers and businesses that were 

communicating electronically. 

INTER-STATE TOLL BOOTHS 

E-ZPass Interagency Group, a 

community-based association of 

states and agencies, helps govern 

inter-state toll booths. 

MORTGAGES 

MISMO – Mortgage Industry Standards 

Maintenance Organization, a not-forprofit, 

community-based membership 

association and subsidiary of the MBA. 

CREDIT CARDS 

Networks like MasterCard & VISA work 

with the PCI Data Security Standards 

Council, a not-for-profit communitybased 

membership association. 

ATM MACHINES 

Inter-bank networks such as PLUS, 

Cirrus, STAR, and LINK use and are 

governed by international banking 

standards. 

What struck me first about the old system was the 

number of redundant API’s. Multiple, disparate 

API’s supporting the same business process was 

extremely expensive as the situation prevented 

standardized training, administration, customer 

service and product development. 

Do I dare say I was naïve when I joined PESC in 

2002? I was hoping to finally find the missing link, 

the answer to interoperability, as if it were just 

waiting to be found and uncovered. 

Well what have I learned since 2002? 

Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20. Meaning 

when we look back we always minimize certain 

details and certain topics get lost through history. 

What we have to remember is that it took years 

and years for the banking industry to come 

together to agree upon ATM’s. We have to 

remember that many mistakes were made along 

the way and that many difficult situations were 


What everyone’s talking about. 

APPROVED 


STANDARDS 

High School & College 

TRANSCRIPTS 

ARE DATA SPECIFICATIONS 

available free of charge from PESC.org, 

designed & approved through the PESC community 

for implementation in various technologies used 

by secondary & postsecondary educational 

institutions, state agencies & software vendors 

who use and exchange current and historical 

student academic records and/or transcripts. 

EXPERIENCE. THE DIFFERENCE. 

©PESC 2013. All rights reserved.



addressed and successfully resolved. But in the 

end, with a common mission and fair and 

equititable return on investment, collaborating 

together each sector or community of interest 

(ATM’s, Credit Cards, Mortgages and Inter-State 

Toll Booths) collaborated to not only benefit 

themselves and their respective partners but laid 

out a solid long-lasting infrastructure that enabled 

numerous additional products and services. 

Each sector of community of interest is also 

governed openly and transparently by the 

respective stakeholders within that sector or 

community of interest. 

So what I’ve learned is two fold: we must first ask 

What does it take to be interoperable? 

The Education industry is highly complex and its 

number of stakeholders connected and the 

different ways these stakeholders are connected is 

equally complex and intricate. 

Some might argue that Education is interoperable, 

that it is in fact working. It might not be working 

well or efficiently and might be costing us more 

than we can bare, oh and we aren’t always happy 

with the quality of data we can produce, but hey 

it’s working. I beg to differ. 

My first answer to the original question is this: We 

are getting there, yes much slower than anyone of 

us wants, but we are in fact getting there. The 

level of awareness about systems, technology & 

standards has never been higher than right now. 

The political will is correspondingly high as well. 

The U.S. Department of Education is helping pave 

the way with funding for states and state systems 

and by coordinating standards development work. 

Yes there are still enormous challenges before us 

specifically around the transitions (elementary to 

secondary, secondary to postsecondary, 

secondary/postsecondary to labor/workforce) and 

we are learning how to ensure that as we build for 

the future that we are building with a common 

mission in mind. 

My second answer is this: technical 

interoperability can only take us so far. The 

technology is sitting there waiting for us to tell it 

what to do. If our policies and messages are not 

aligned, how can we expect our systems and ddata 

to be aligned? We must focus equally on the 

business side of interoperability as well. 

What do I mean by this? Each state, each system, 

each network seems to be subject to different laws 

and regulations, have different vendors and 

suppliers and pricing structures, and have varying 

market factors influencing them. We must focus 

on aligning our businesses as much as we focus on 

aligning our data. This requires that we all adopt a 

common mission for the greater common good. 

PESC and its members propose that the greater 

common good is student achievement. 

What about funding you might ask? Wouldn’t a 

huge amount of funding solve our interoperable 

problems. Yes funding is definitely required, but 

again funding alone is not the answer. 

Continued strong leadership, agreement on 

outcomes and goals and a strategic vision, along 

with open communications and a true willingness 

to collaborate will eventually get us there. 

As the stakeholders in education, it’s up to us. It’s 

an overwhelming challenge to overcome. But year 

after year, we continue to bring sectors and regions 

together. 




HELPFUL SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS TO 

PROMOTE FAFSA COMPLETION 

by Brenda Wensi, 

Chief Customer Experience Officer, FSA 


Federal Student Aid (FSA) wishes you a Happy New 

Year! For us, a new year means a new FAFSA. FSA 

provides more than $150 billion in grants, loans, 

and work-study funds each year to help pay for 

college or career school and as you know, 

completing the FAFSA is the primary step for 

determining eligibility for federal student aid and 

subsequently accessing these funds. 

With the 2013-14 application having gone live 

January 1, FSA’s Digital Engagement Group is 

asking for your assistance in promoting FAFSA 

completion. 

We are asking for your help in getting the message 

out through your social media channels about the 

importance of completing the FAFSA early in the 

year. To help you do that, we have developed some 

resources for you to use: 

FSA’s social media content calendar to support 

FAFSA completion: Includes Facebook posts and 

tweets 

20 Tweets to promote FAFSA completion 

10 Facebook Posts to promote FAFSA completion 

Helpful videos 

o Overview of the Financial Aid Process 

o FAFSA Overview 

o How to Fill Out the FAFSA 

Helpful infographics 

o The Financial Aid Process 

o Why Go to College? 

Embed our videos, infographics and Twitter 

stream into your site 

o How To Embed Videos from YouTube 

o How To Embed Infographics 

o How to add the @FAFSA Twitter Stream to 

your Website 

In addition, over the next few months, the Federal 

Student Aid Digital Engagement Group will be 

actively managing our own presence on social 

media with a strong focus on FAFSA completion. 

We highly encourage you to use and repost our 

content whenever applicable. Here are the places 

you can find us: 

www.facebook.com/FederalStudentAid 

www.twitter.com/FAFSA 

www.youtube.com/FederalStudentAid 

www.storify.com/FAFSA 

www.visual.ly/users/FederalStudentAid 

1998 Amendments to the Higher 

Education Act of 1965 

P.L. 105-244 

Sec 101---Revision of Title I 

PART D---ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS FOR DELIVERY OF 

STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE 

`SEC. 143. ADMINISTRATIVE SIMPLIFICATION OF STUDENT 

AID DELIVERY. 

`(a) IN GENERAL- In order to improve the efficiency and 

effectiveness of the student aid delivery system, the 

Secretary and the Chief Operating Officer shall 

encourage and participate in the establishment of 

voluntary consensus standards and requirements for the 

electronic transmission of information necessary for the 

administration of programs under title IV. 

`(b) PARTICIPATION IN STANDARD SETTING ORGANIZATIONS- 

`(1) The Chief Operating Officer shall participate in the 

activities of standard setting organizations in 

carrying out the provisions of this section. 

`(2) The Chief Operating Officer shall encourage higher 

education groups seeking to develop common 

forms, standards, and procedures in support of 

the delivery of Federal student financial 

assistance to conduct these activities within a 

standard setting organization. 

`(3) The Chief Operating Officer may pay necessary 

dues and fees associated with participating in 

standard setting organizations pursuant to this 

subsection. 


EDUNIFY 

SUPPORTED BY 

EXPER IENCE. T HE DIF FEREN CE.



These tools can be found in the Tools for Schools 

section on IFAP. We will provide bi-monthly 

updates to tweets, posts, and other timely 

information for use on your social media channels. 

Thanks for your support and commitment to 

advancing the higher education goals of students 

and families across the country. We encourage you 

to forward this information to others who may be 

interested. 

Contact Information: 

If you need additional information or assistance, 

please contact fsanewmedia@ed.gov. 

STATE SPENDING ON HIGHER EDUCATION 

REBOUNDS IN MOST STATES AFTER YEARS 

OF DECLINE 

By Eric Kelderman 

After falling nearly 11 percent since the 2008 fiscal 

year, state appropriations for higher education are 

on the rise in most states. But the long-term effects 

of budget cuts stemming from the economic 

downturn still could take years to erase, according 

to an annual survey. 

Over all, states spent just 0.4 percent less on higher 

education in the fiscal year that began last July 1, 

compared with the previous year, according to the 

survey, which was compiled by researchers at 

Illinois State University and the State Higher 

Education Executive Officers. In the previous fiscal 

year, in 2011-12, state spending on higher 

education declined 7.5 percent over all. 

But in the current fiscal year, 30 states actually 

increased their appropriations for colleges and 

financial aid, ranging from 0.1 percent in New 

Mexico to nearly 14 percent in Wyoming, according 

to the survey's data. 

The overall drop in this year's budgets stemmed 

from larger cuts in big states, such as Florida, 

where state lawmakers have decreased highereducation 

spending by 8 percent. 

In California, where state money for colleges fell 

nearly 6 percent from the year before, Gov. Jerry 

Brown, a Democrat, has proposed increasing state 

funds for the public-college systems by 4 percent 

to 6 percent in the coming fiscal year. As in many 

other states, that proposal came with the 

expectation that state colleges will keep tuition flat 

and increase their efficiency in producing 

graduates. 

During the past five years, however, all but 12 

states have reduced higher-education spending 

over all, including cuts of nearly 37 percent in 

Arizona and 36 percent in New Hampshire. More 

than a dozen states have slashed tax dollars for 

colleges by more than 20 percent since the 2008 

fiscal year. 

"Barring a further downturn in the economy, the 

relatively small overall change ... suggests that 

higher education may be at the beginning stages of 

a climb out of the fiscal trough caused by the last 

recession," says a news release accompanying the 

survey data. 

That small bit of optimism was balanced, however, 

by a new report from Moody's Investors Services, 

which issued a negative outlook for the entire 

higher-education sector in 2013. That assessment 

includes even the most competitive research 

universities, which the credit-rating agency had 

previously given a stable outlook. 

"Public universities can expect the share of their 

operating revenues from state appropriations to 

continue to stagnate or even decline," the report 

says. 

The change in outlook was also driven, in part, by 

potential cuts in federal research dollars, says the 

Moody's analysis, as Congress and the White House 

continue to haggle over ways to reduce the federal 

deficit. 




Colleges have been cutting costs since the 

beginning of the economic downturn, the Moody's 

report says, but will have to continue to consider 

longer-term strategies for keeping operating costs 

low. 

In addition, revenue from tuition and state 

appropriations will be constrained as students and 

families become more sensitive to rising tuition 

and fees, the report says. The number of highschool 

graduates is also expected to decline 

nationally in the coming years. 

'BILL OF RIGHTS' SEEKS TO PROTECT 

STUDENTS' INTERESTS AS ONLINE 

LEARNING RAPIDLY EXPANDS 

by Steve Kolowich 

A dozen educators met last month in Palo Alto, 

Calif., to discuss the future of higher education. 

They had been convened at the epicenter of 

technological innovation in higher education by 

Sebastian Thrun, a pioneer of massive open online 

courses, and yet the task at hand had nothing to do 

with software or strategy. It had to do with 

citizenship. 

The Philadelphia Convention, it was not. But the 12 

educators, many of them well known in onlineeducation 

circles, did manage to draft a document 

that they hope will serve as a philosophical 

framework for protecting the interests of students 

as online education, propelled and complicated by 

the rise of MOOCs, hurtles into a new phase. 

Called "A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in 

the Digital Age," the document proposes a set of 

"inalienable rights" that the authors say students 

and their advocates should demand from 

institutions and companies that offer online 

courses and technology tools. 

Those rights should include access and privacy, 

along with access to information about the 

financial models of institutions and companies 

offering online courses, write the authors. 

Mr. Thrun, the founder of the MOOC provider 

Udacity, said his involvement in drafting the 

document does not amount to a pledge or 

endorsement by his company. And despite the 

legislative reference in the document's title, the 

"bill of rights" does not have regulatory teeth. 

Still, its authors hope the document will frame the 

standards and expectations that guide universities 

and their constituents as online tools and platforms 

become part and parcel of traditional higher 

education. 

Defining Terms 

Online education has been around for decades, but 

the excitement surrounding MOOCs and the 

blending of business interests with traditional, 

mission-driven higher education threatens to 

obscure educators' obligations to students, said 

Cathy Davidson, an English professor at Duke 

University who helped write the document. 

"The problem is, it's been such a short time span 

and there's so much hype around MOOCs, and 

some of the terms and agreements around MOOCs 

are so ill defined and changing and amorphous that 

no one knows what the business models are" or 

what rights students have as consumers, Ms. 

Davidson said. 

"The idea is to have a larger conversation about 

this so that MOOCs don't become the Facebook or 

Instagram of higher education—where you sign up 

for some free service and it turns out that you're 

the product being sold," she said. 

The authors of the document express particular 

concern about the opportunity for online providers 

to collect and profit from data and content 

submitted by users. "Students have a right to know 

how data collected about their participation in the 

online system will be used by the organization and 

made available to others," they write. "The 




provider should offer clear explanations of the 

privacy implications of students' choices." 

Students should also own the intellectual-property 

rights to any content they create by participating in 

online courses, the authors add. And online 

providers that offer the promise of some kind of 

credential or badge for completing coursework 

should be able to give students some indication of 

its "authenticity, meaning, and possible recognition 

by others." 

Reorienting the Conversation 

The best-known signatory of the "bill of rights" is 

also perhaps its most surprising. To the extent that 

the document regards for-profit purveyors of 

online education as a potential threat to students' 

rights, Mr. Thrun would seem to be the subject of 

the authors' demands, in addition to being an 

author himself. 

The Udacity founder said he had no objection to 

that. He said he wanted to reorient the 

conversation about MOOCs to focus on pedagogy 

rather than economics. 

"It's time for people to speak up [about] what the 

pedagogical objective really is, because we are 

trapped in a world that is excited about the 

enrollment numbers" primarily, Mr. Thrun said in 

an interview. 

Mr. Thrun, whose company makes money by 

helping companies recruit students who have 

opted into Udacity's job-placement program, said 

he hoped the proposed bill of rights would put 

pressure on the education-services industry, but 

also on traditional colleges and universities. When 

it comes to how they determine prices for online 

courses and where students' money goes, he said, 

some institutions are less than forthcoming. 

"There's a whole bunch of universities that use 

online education as a cash cow," said Mr. Thrun. 

"One of the questions that has arisen is that, if you 

can actually save money online, can you pass along 

those savings to the student?" 

Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera, another forprofit 

MOOC provider, said he too was pleased by 

the idea of articulating and respecting the rights of 

online students. 

"The idea of listing some of the rights we'd like to 

confer to students is a good one," he said via e- 

mail. "Fortunately, today's MOOC movement is 

already led by many of the world's top universities, 

which are used to serving students and respecting 

students' rights." 

HIGHER ED’S BIGGEST PROBLEM: WHAT’S 

IT FOR? 

By Jeff Selingo 

The release this week of a bill of rights for learning 

in the digital age was criticized by some who said 

the document had been put together by a group 

that didn’t include the very people it is meant to 

protect: students. 

The problem is, there is no traditional learner 

anymore. What’s more, we no longer even have a 

common definition of “higher education.” The lack 

of consensus about what the higher-education 

system in the United States should be producing is 

largely to blame for the pressures facing colleges 

and universities today, from lagging financial 

support to proving their value to students and 

parents. 

We desperately need some sort of rallying cry, akin 

to the post-World War II period of the GI Bill, the 

late-1950s space race, or the introduction of the 

modern financial-aid programs with the first Higher 

Education Act, in 1965. The lack of consensus, 

which dates back several decades now, has 

resulted in a lack of public support for higher 

education, especially public colleges and 

universities. 




Take flagship institutions, for example. As those 

campuses have relied less on public subsidies, their 

missions have shifted, especially when it comes to 

the number of in-state residents they serve. 

President Obama has attempted to start a national 

dialogue by calling for the United States to lead the 

world in its proportion of people with college 

credentials. While getting students to complete a 

degree or certificate rather than just accumulate 

credits is a worthy goal, simply pushing more 

people through colleges and universities is not the 

definition of a successful higher-education system 

in the minds of most experts. 

What is needed to truly serve the students of the 

future—and where state and federal leaders could 

really lend a hand—is to make the system more 

flexible for the next generation of learners and the 

institutions that serve them. 

Despite all the talk about how today’s traditional 

student is yesterday’s nontraditional student, we 

still have a financial-aid and regulatory system built 

on a one-size-fits-all model, with 15-week 

semesters and credit based on time spent in a 

classroom seat. As a result, it is difficult for 

institutions to consider new ways of serving the 

diverse needs of today’s students. 

My concern with all the news-media attention 

MOOCs are getting right now is that it is crowding 

out informed discussions of other innovative 

solutions to improve learning and control costs. 

One model that is getting scant attention, for 

instance, despite growing interest from traditional 

universities, is competency-based degrees. 

This year three traditional universities—Northern 

Arizona, Southern New Hampshire, and the 

Wisconsin system—are experimenting with 

degrees based on competencies. Officials at all 

three institutions believe a program based on what 

a student knows rather than seat time is the only 

way to begin clearing the logjam of time-pressed 

adults who need a postsecondary education. 

Building the programs, however, has required 

those officials to work alongside their accreditors 

and the Education Department to get around a 

myriad of rules. 

Those rules, of course, are designed to protect 

students and attach integrity to a college degree. 

But surely we can build a system that is both 

flexible and accountable. Otherwise there is little 

incentive for college leaders to follow a different 

path than the institutions ahead of them, or to look 

radically different. 

“Our students have all the information that we 

have as professors,” says Aaron Brower, special 

assistant to the president of the University of 

Wisconsin system (and a professor on the Madison 

campus). “So there is no premium on access to 

information.” 

Indeed, the whole notion of how students acquire 

information, toggling between devices and sources 

and working collaboratively, has transformed the 

learning process. The question now is how to build 

an educational system around this new information 

ecosystem. “It gives us the chance to put learning 

outcomes first and provides the opportunity for 

individual instruction,” Brower says. 

It also gives us the chance to build consensus 

around a diverse higher-education system that is 

flexible and responsive—yet accountable—to a 

generation of learners where one mode of teaching 

no longer fits all and where face-to-face, hybrid, 

and online-only education can perhaps peacefully 

coexist. 

2013-2014 APPLICATION PROCESSING 

SPECS FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS 

William Leith, Service Director, Program 

Management, Federal Student Aid 

We are pleased to announce the posting of the 

final 2013-2014 Application Processing System 




Specifications for Software Developers. Other than 

removing designations of this version as a "draft," 

no changes have been made to the specifications 

since the last posting (see the specifications posted 

on August 16, 2012). 

Note: The 2013-2014 parameters for the Reject 20 

edits (4030-4034) remain pending while we await 

the release of new 2013 income values by the 

Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Revised 

specifications will be posted when the new income 

values are available from the IRS. 

In addition to its current availability on the 

Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) 

Web site, the specifications will also be available in 

the next several days from the Federal Student Aid 

Download (FSAdownload) Web site, located at 

https://www.fsadownload.ed.gov. 

If you have questions, contact CPS/SAIG Technical 

Support at 800/330-5947 (TDD/TTY 800/511-5806) 

or by e-mail at CPSSAIG@ed.gov. 

HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY 

LINKS TO NAEP 12TH GRADE 

PREPAREDNESS EFFORTS 

A new survey report released by the National 

Assessment Governing Board details the tests 

postsecondary education institutions nationwide 

use for college placement. The survey is a key 

component of a research program on how the 

National Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP) can be used as an indicator of 12th-grade 

academic preparedness for college and job 

training. 

The report, Tests and Cut Scores Used for Student 

Placement in Postsecondary Education: Fall 2011, 

describes the tests, and cut scores on those tests, 

used by a nationally representative sample of 2- 

year and 4-year institutions to assess entry-level 

students' need for placement in remedial/ 

developmental reading and mathematics courses 

versus regular credit-bearing courses. The 

Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP - also 

known as The Nation's Report Card - hired Westat 

to conduct the survey. 

Some of the major findings include: 

 

 

The frequency that postsecondary education 

institutions use student performance on tests 

in determining entry-level students' need for 

remedial/developmental courses is higher in 

mathematics than in reading. Overall, 71 

percent of these institutions reported using 

some math test and 53 percent some reading 

test in evaluating students' need for 

remediation. 

All 2-year public institutions reported using 

some mathematics test, and 94 percent 

reported some reading test, to determine 

student need for remediation. Among 4-year 

public institutions, the respective numbers for 

mathematics and reading were 85 percent and 

51 percent. 

The overall mean cut scores reported for national 

standardized mathematics tests were: 

1. 19 on ACT mathematics on a scale of 1 to 36 

2. 471 on SAT mathematics on a scale of 200 to 

800 

3. 70 on ACCUPLACER Elementary Algebra on a 

scale of 20 to 120 

4. 57 on ACCUPLACER College-Level 

Mathematics on a scale of 20 to 120 

5. 49 on COMPASS Algebra on a scale of 1 to 99 

6. 43 on COMPASS College Algebra on a scale of 

1 to 99 

The overall mean cut scores reported for national 

standardized reading tests were: 

18 on ACT Reading on a scale of 1 to 36 

456 on SAT Critical Reading on a scale of 200 

to 800 




76 on ACCUPLACER Reading Comprehension 

on a scale of 20 to 120 

41 on ASSET Reading Skills on a scale of 23 to 

55 

76 on COMPASS Reading on a scale of 1 to 99 

The survey's findings will be used to inform the 

work of determining how NAEP can measure 

academic preparedness on its 12th grade 

assessments in math and reading. More than 30 

studies are part of the preparedness research 

program, the results of which will be released this 

year. 

The Governing Board's work in 12th grade 

preparedness is part of a decade-long effort. It 

began in 2002 with the establishment of a national 

commission, which recommended changes to 12th 

grade NAEP assessment and reporting, including 

the introduction of state-level results and 

preparedness measures. In 2005, the Board 

adopted a resolution to begin reporting 

information on 12th grade preparedness using 

NAEP results. A technical advisory panel, appointed 

by the Board, made recommendations for a 

program of preparedness research that was 

adopted by the Board in 2009. Read more about 

the Board's NAEP 12th grade academic 

preparedness research at: 

http://www.nagb.org/what-wedo/commission/researchandresources.html. 

The National Assessment Governing Board is an 

independent, bipartisan board whose members 

include governors, state legislators, local and state 

school officials, educators, business 

representatives, and members of the general 

public. Congress created the 26-member Governing 

Board in 1988 to set policy for NAEP. 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress 

(NAEP), also referred to as The Nation's Report 

Card, is the only continuing, nationally 

representative measure of achievement in core 

subjects at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP provides 

achievement results and reveals trends over time; 

compares performance among states, urban 

districts, public and private schools, and student 

demographic groups; and informs the public about 

elementary and secondary school student academic 

performance. 

FORUM GUIDE TO TAKING ACTION WITH 

EDUCATION DATA 

The Forum Guide to Taking Action with Education 

Data provides stakeholders with practical 

information about the knowledge, skills, and 

abilities needed to more effectively access, 

interpret, and use education data to inform action. 

The document includes an overview of the evolving 

nature of data use, basic data use concepts, and a 

list of skills necessary for effectively using data. The 

Guide recommends a question-driven approach to 

data use, in which the following questions can help 

guide readers who need to use data to take action: 

What do I want to know? What data might be 

relevant? How will I access relevant data? What 

skills and tools do I need to analyze the data? What 

do the data tell me? What are my conclusions? 

What will I do? What effects did my actions have? 

and what are my next steps? The Briefs that 

accompany the Introduction are written for three 

key education audiences: Educators, School and 

District Leaders, and State Program Staff. 

IMPLEMENTATION OF FINANCIAL AID 

SHOPPING SHEET 

David A. Bergeron 

Acting Assistant Secretary 

for Postsecondary Education 

On July 24, 2012, Secretary Arne Duncan posted an 

open letter to college presidents asking for the 

voluntary adoption of the Financial Aid Shopping 

Sheet. On July 25, the U.S. Department of 




Education (Department) published Dear Colleague 

Letter GEN-12-12, releasing the Shopping Sheet 

format and requesting institutional commitment to 

use this format. 

As of December 2012, nearly 600 institutions have 

committed to adopting the Shopping Sheet. The 

Department is continuing its work with institutions 

and software developers to provide guidance 

regarding the implementation of the Shopping 

Sheet. 

This letter contains a set of frequently asked 

questions (FAQs) on the implementation of the 

Financial Aid Shopping Sheet for the 2013-2014 

school year. The FAQs clarify the intent of the 

Shopping Sheet and how it can be used in an 

institution’s financial aid award process, identifies 

additional tools the Department will supply to aid 

implementation efforts, and explains the 

information available to the general public on the 

Department’s Web site. 

We encourage you to review the FAQs. If you have 

additional questions regarding the Shopping Sheet, 

please send an e-mail to ShoppingSheet@ed.gov. 

Additionally, more information on the Financial Aid 

Shopping Sheet is available at: 

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/guid/aidoffer/index.html. 

We thank you for your continued consideration in 

adopting the Shopping Sheet for the 2013-2014 

school year. 

2013-2014 FEDERAL SCHOOL CODE LIST OF 

PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS 

William Leith, Service Director, Program 

Management, Federal Student Aid 

We are pleased to announce the availability of the 

updated 2013-2014 Federal School Code (FSC) List 

of Participating Schools on the Information for 

Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site. 

The Federal School Code List contains the unique 

codes assigned by the Department of Education for 

schools participating in the Title IV federal student 

aid programs. Students enter these codes on the 

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to 

indicate which postsecondary schools will receive 

the processed application results. 

The Federal School Code List of Participating 

Schools is only available electronically as a PDF or 

Microsoft Excel (XLS) file. We no longer distribute 

the list in hard-copy format. In addition to the 

Federal School Code search that is already available 

on FAFSA on the Web (http://www.fafsa.gov), the 

PDF and XLS files provide you with the most 

current FSC information available in a searchable 

format. Updated PDF and XLS files are posted on a 

quarterly basis. 

Submitting Updates to FSC Information 

FSC information must be kept current. To update 

your FSC information, go to the Electronic 

Application for Approval to Participate in the 

Federal Student Financial Aid Programs (E-App) 

Web site, located at http://eligcert.ed.gov. Click on 

“Update your Federal School Code Addresses 

which are used by the FAFSA” on the left side of 

the page under the “Other Features” section. 

Note: A school can only have one city and state for 

each FSC. In addition, changes to the FSC File do 

not update your school's name or address in any 

other U.S. Department of Education database. If 

you need to change the “Official Name or Address” 

of your school, you must submit an “Update” 

application through the E-App Web site. 


We appreciate your assistance in keeping your 

school’s FSC information up to date. For help with 

the E-App Web site, contact the Federal Student 

Aid School Participation Team for your state. Please 

see the E-App home page for the phone number of 

your School Participation Team. 




AS LOAN SERVICERS MULTIPLY, SO DO 

PROBLEMS FOR STUDENTS, COLLEGE 

OFFICIALS SAY 

By Michael Stratford 

When students or recent graduates come to talk 

with Anthony M. Sozzo about repaying their 

federal loans, he sometimes struggles with what to 

tell them. 

It's not that Mr. Sozzo, an associate dean for 

student affairs at New York Medical College, is new 

to the subject. In fact, he's a 37-year veteran of 

financial-aid counseling, and he chairs the 

committee on graduate-student issues at the 

National Association of Student Financial Aid 

Administrators. 

But the answers his students are seeking, he says, 

like how much they'll owe under an income-based 

repayment plan, are increasingly being complicated 

by an ever-expanding federal loan-servicing 

system. 

The number of entities that service the loans 

owned by the federal government has risen sharply 

over the past several years, from one company in 

2008 to 13 as of this month. And the number will 

continue to rise; the Department of Education is 

scheduled to add nine more servicers by 2014. 

Subcontracting may end up raising the total by 

more than a dozen. 

Keeping up with the increase in servicers has been 

a challenge, financial-aid officers say, and at the 

individual-borrower level the changes are causing 

confusion over what borrowers are expected to 

pay and where they should go to manage their 

loans. 

Federal loan servicing "should not be all over the 

place like this," Mr. Sozzo says. "Students are 

getting stung, to say the least." 

One of the worst problems that has arisen with 

the growth in servicers is a lack of consistency in 

how they operate, says Mary B.W. Fenton, director 

of student aid at the University of New Mexico's 

Health Sciences Center. 

Borrowers calling different services can "get five 

different answers to a question," she says. "And 

sometimes even if I were to call just one servicer, I 

might get different answers depending on who I 

speak to." 

Ms. Fenton, Mr. Sozzo, and other aid 

administrators point to the income-based 

repayment program as emblematic of the 

consistency problems. 

To apply for the program, borrowers have to 

provide documentation of their income. But 

different servicers, the administrators say, are 

applying different standards for what 

documentation is required. Some base monthly 

payments on a recent graduate's annual expected 

salary, while others rely on a previous year's tax 

return. 

The discrepancies mean that two students from the 

same institution with nearly identical starting 

incomes could end up having different monthly 

payments, Mr. Sozzo says. Aid administrators say it 

is frustrating for them and their students to not be 

able to calculate ahead of time what the monthly 

loan payments will be. 

Growth of Servicing 

From the advent of the federal direct-loan 

program, in 1993, until a few years ago, the 

Education Department contracted out the servicing 

on those loans to one company, Affiliated 

Computer Services. 

But in 2009, the department increased the number 

of servicers to account for a sudden increase in its 

loan portfolio as it purchased loans made through 

the government's bank-based lending program. To 

keep up with those loans, the department solicited 

bids for additional servicers and selected four: 




Great Lakes, Nelnet, the Pennsylvania Higher 

Education Assistance Agency, and Sallie Mae. 

In 2010, as part of the law that ended bank-based 

lending, a large number of not-for-profit and state 

loan agencies were guaranteed federal loanservicing 

contracts without having to go through a 

competitive bidding process. 

As participants in the bank-based lending system 

that was coming to an end, those organizations 

were also interested in adding a revenue stream, in 

the form of federal loan servicing. 

The department has since begun bringing those 

not-for-profit servicers online. The law entitles 

each one to an initial allotment of at least 100,000 

accounts. The companies' contracts allow them to 

take on more loans if they do well on comparative 

performance metrics. 

All of the not-for-profit servicers contacted by The 

Chronicle declined to comment about their work 

with federal direct loans, citing an order from the 

Department of Education that prohibits them from 

speaking with the news media about their 

contracts with the department. 

Samantha DeZur, a spokeswoman for the 

Education Finance Council, the trade group 

representing the servicers, confirmed that the 

companies had been instructed by the department 

to not speak with reporters, although she said she 

could not provide additional details about the 

nature of such guidance. 

The contracts that the servicers sign, which are 

public, do not appear to include any provisions that 

would prohibit them from publicly discussing their 

operations. 

Brand Recognition 

Regardless of how the expansion came about, the 

growth in the number of servicers has caused 

confusion for borrowers, aid administrators say. 

Some of the issues are exacerbated by the fact that 

the department continues to bring on new 

servicers. 

"Every time I see a new one added, it sends chills 

down my spine," says Ms. Fenton, the aid 

administrator from New Mexico. 

Margaret Rodriguez, senior associate director of 

financial aid at the University of Michigan at Ann 

Arbor, says her office has received dozens of calls 

from former students wanting to know whether or 

not correspondence from a new servicer is 

legitimate or just junk mail. Borrowers do not get 

to choose their servicer; the Education Department 

assigns a company on the basis of the type of loan. 

In response to those concerns, the Education 

Department has provided guidelines for how 

servicers should use its logo in their 

correspondence with borrowers. The companies 

are also prohibited from combining their servicing 

correspondence with advertising materials for their 

other products. 

Even so, the servicers are still sending branded 

correspondence to borrowers and benefiting from 

borrowers' familiarity with their brands, says Ms. 

Rodriguez, who adds that more servicer anonymity 

would better serve borrowers. 

The National Direct Student Loan Coalition, a group 

of college-aid administrators, which she chairs, has 

suggested that if the Education Department must 

contract with multiple servicers, it should find a 

way that is "invisible to the borrowers and the 

schools," Ms. Rodriguez says. 

For instance, she says, the technology exists for the 

department to create a system in which borrowers 

call one number or visit one Web site, enter an 

identification number, and are then connected to 

the company that services their loans. 

Other groups have also been following the 

servicing issues and looking for solutions. The 

committee on graduate students that Mr. Sozzo 




chairs for the aid-administrators' association, for 

example, planned to meet in Washington last 

weekend to try to figure out "what's going wrong 

here," he says. 

"It's become a crisis to us," he says. "We were 

having problems with six or seven servicers in the 

system. What's going to happen when we're up to 

17 or 19?" 

CHANGE TO LOGIN PROCESS FOR ALL 

FEDERAL STUDENT AID SYSTEMS BEHIND 

AIMS 

Pam Eliadis, Service Director, System Operations & 

Aid Delivery Management, Federal Student Aid 

Over the last year, we have implemented several 

new technology security initiatives at Federal 

Student Aid. As described to the community in a 

January 13, 2012 electronic 

announcement posted to the Information for 

Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site, these 

initiatives were designed to comply with mandated 

government-wide security requirements and are 

part of an ongoing effort to ensure the security of 

the Federal Student Aid data systems. 

One of these initiatives will result in a change in 

early March 2013 to the login process for all 

systems that are behind Federal Student Aid's 

Access and Identity Management System (AIMS). 

AIMS enables authorized users to log in once to 

access multiple Federal Student Aid systems rather 

than needing to log in multiple times using various 

identification methods. 

Beginning Monday, March 11, 2013, any user of a 

system behind AIMS will be required to read and 

accept the Federal Student Aid Privacy Act 

Acknowledgement and Rules of Behavior, as well as 

be required to take Security Training on an annual 

basis. 

The systems/Web sites that are currently behind 

AIMS and which will be affected by this change are 

eCampus-Based 

(eCB), eCDR 

Appeals, Experimental 

Sites, FAA Access to CPS 

Online, Financial Partners 

Datamart, 

National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) 

Professional 

Access, and Student Aid Internet Gateway 

(SAIG) 

Enrollment. 

As a result of this change, users of NSLDS will no 

longer be required to accept the NSLDS-specific 

Privacy Act Acknowledgement and Rules of 

Behavior, or complete the NSLDS Security Training. 

In addition, users of eCDR Appeals will no longer 

need to accept the eCDR Appeals-specific Rules of 

Behavior as part of the initial enrollment process. 

These system-specific processes will be replaced by 

the new AIMS security process. 

Note: As described in a January 25, 2013 electronic 

announcement, we 

are also preparing to implement a change in how 

authorized users access the Common Origination 

and Disbursement (COD) System via the Web. 

Upon implementation of that change in May 2013, 

COD Web site users will follow an updated AIMS 

login process similar to the one described in this 

communication. Additional information about the 

COD Web site access change will be included in 

forthcoming electronic announcements posted to 




the IFAP Web site. 

In the following sections, we describe each step in 

the new process, and provide important detail 

about what the user will see upon login to a system 

behind AIMS. We present this information in the 

following order: 

* Privacy Act Acknowledgement 

* Rules of Behavior 

* Annual Security Training 

* Contact Information 

Privacy Act Acknowledgement 

After implementation of this change on March 11, 

2013, a user logging in to any system that is behind 

AIMS will first be presented with the new Privacy 

Act Acknowledgment. The Privacy Act 

Acknowledgment reminds the user that Federal 

Student Aid systems contain personal information 

protected by the Privacy Act of 1974 (as amended). 

By logging in, the user is personally confirming that 

they are an authorized user of the Federal Student 

Aid system, will adhere to the requirements of the 

Privacy Act, and understand the consequences for 

violating the Privacy Act. 

The new Privacy Act Acknowledgment page will 

appear each time a user logs in to a system behind 

AIMS, regardless of how many times the user logs 

in that day. 

Rules of Behavior 

After the user reads and navigates past the Privacy 

Act Acknowledgment page, they will be presented 

with the new Rules of Behavior page. The Rules of 

Behavior identify responsibilities and expectations 

for all individuals accessing Federal Student Aid 

systems and includes information about authorized 

use of the systems, password security, properly 

storing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), 

and training requirements. By checking the box at 

the end of the page, the user is confirming that 

they understand and agree to the Rules of 

Behavior. 

Unlike the Privacy Act Acknowledgment, which will 

be presented to the user upon every login, the 

Rules of Behavior will appear only the first time a 

user logs in to a system behind AIMS each day. 

After that first login, the user will not see the Rules 

of Behavior again that day, even if they log out and 

then log back in to a system behind AIMS. 

Annual Security Training 

Following the Privacy Act Acknowledgment and 

Rules of Behavior, a user who is required to take 

the new Security Training will be presented with 

the training module. The Security Training consists 

of a series of Web pages that provide important 

information about the acceptable uses of Federal 

Student Aid systems, data protection, creating a 

secure password, and other reminders critical to 

maintaining system security. A mandatory 

checkbox is presented at the conclusion of the 

training, for the user to acknowledge they have 

completed the training. 

The Security Training will be required on an annual 

basis, one year from the date the user completes 

the training. Users who are required to take the 

training will be presented with a reminder, which 

will appear after the Privacy Act Acknowledgment 

and Rules of Behavior pages ten days prior to the 

training due date. After receiving the reminder, the 

user may complete the training at that time and 

the reminder will cease to be presented. 

Alternatively, the user may choose to skip the 

training, and the reminder will continue to be 

presented to the user upon every login for the 

remainder of the ten day period. Once the ten days 

have passed the user will be required to complete 

the training before accessing any system behind 

AIMS. 

Upon implementation of this change on March 11, 

2013, the new annual Security Training 

requirement for users accessing systems behind 

AIMS will be applied as follows: 




* NSLDS Users- We will populate the AIMS 

database with the last NSLDS annual training date 

of all users who are currently authorized to use 

NSLDS. This date will be used by AIMS to identify 

when training is due for each current NSLDS user 

(the AIMS due date will be one year from the 

NSLDS completed date). The user will be prompted 

when training is due. 

* Non-NSLDS Users- All other users will be 

prompted to complete the new Security Training 

the first time they log in to AIMS after 

implementation of this change. Due to the critical 

nature of this requirement, we will not provide the 

ten-day warning for these users during this initial 

implementation. 


We appreciate your cooperation in providing 

secure access to Federal Student Aid systems. 

If you have any questions regarding this message, 

contact FSA Security Architecture at 

secarched.gov@ed.gov. 

MEMBERSHIP UPGRADES NOW AVAILABLE 

BECOME A PREMIER PARTNER IN PESC 

**IT's FREE TO UPGRADE** 

For commercial Members, non-profit association 

Members and non-profit organization Members: 

In an effort to thank these Member organizations 

for their continued support of PESC over the years, 

PESC is pleased to announce the establishment of a 

new membership benefit which allows current 

PESC Members (limited to non-profit organizations, 

non-profit associations and commercial 

organizations only) to pass on at their discretion, 

free Limited PESC Memberships to other 

organizations. This new benefit is available 

effective immediately for Members current in their 

PESC dues and is automatically included in your 

current dues. 

Limited PESC Membership includes all Member 

benefits including external reference as a PESC 

Member except internally: 

 

 

The number of representatives that can 

participate in PESC is limited to one 

representative. 

All designated representatives are ineligible to 

serve on the PESC Board of Directors. 

Organizations with Limited PESC Memberships that 

are interested in having more than one 

representative participate in PESC or interested in 

serving on the PESC Board of Directors, must 

upgrade their Membership from Limited to 

Member. 

PESC Members that take advantage of this benefit 

and bring in at least one Limited PESC Member will 

be upgraded to Premier Partner and this exclusive 

status will be reflected by PESC in all marketing 

materials, presentations and on the membership 

page of the PESC website. Check www.PESC.org 

for more information. 

IN JOB-PLACEMENT RATES, FUZZY DATA 

A LACK OF STANDARD TRACKING MAKES 

MANY COLLEGES' CLAIMS UNRELIABLE 

By Timothy Sandoval 

Almost all graduates of Ferris State University find 

jobs, at least according to the statistics the 

university promotes to attract students. 

"Ferris graduates have a 98-percent job placement 

rate," the university, in Big Rapids, Mich., highlights 

in boldface on a Web page for recruiting 

international students. A general marketing page 

notes an overall placement rate of 97 percent, and 

in some disciplines, 100 percent. 

Those rates are enviable. But, especially in this 

economy, are they even possible? 




As it happens, the last year for which Ferris State 

reported a 98-percent job-placement rate was 

2005-6, when fewer than half of its graduates 

responded to the university's destination survey. 

Since then, the share of students responding to the 

survey has dropped, to 22 percent in 2009-10, the 

most recent year for which figures are available. 

The university reported a job-placement rate that 

year of 86 percent, although the older numbers 

remain online. 

Like Ferris State, many colleges release placement 

rates based on scant information: More than a 

third of colleges' reported rates in 2010 were 

based on responses from half of their graduates or 

fewer, according to the National Association of 

Colleges and Employers. That raises the question of 

whether the results are skewed by greater 

participation among happily employed graduates. 

"This problem is endemic to many graduation 

surveys," says Philip D. Gardner, director of the 

Collegiate Employment Research Institute at 

Michigan State University. "Another sample of 20 

percent to 30 percent, which includes different 

respondents, could produce a different set of 

results." 

Ashley Enke left her part-time job, listed by her 

alma mater as a Mayo Clinic research assistantship, 

this month. She is moving back home to Omaha, 

where she will take classes to fulfill requirements 

to apply to medical school. 

Ashley Enke started as an unpaid research assistant 

at the Mayo Clinic in July 2011 and was hired part 

time in March 2012; she left this month. "It's not a 

stable position," Ms. Enke says of her listing on St. 

Olaf College's Web site. 

That's not the only reason much job-placement 

data are unreliable—for prospective students 

comparing colleges or anybody else keeping tabs. 

For one, some colleges don't collect such data at 

all. Some survey students immediately upon 

graduation, and others track employment success 

over several months. Some include recipients of 

associate and graduate degrees in their statistics, 

and others eliminate them or separate them out 

into different reports. Few ask if the jobs that 

students acquire relate to their fields of study or 

career paths; many count any positions at all, even 

unpaid internships. 

"The problem is that there are no standard 

questions or even agreed-upon standards," says 

Mr. Gardner. 

Some career and for-profit colleges, as well as law 

schools, have faced high-profile accusations of jobplacement 

fraud, in the form of lawsuits and 

scrutiny from accreditors. Meanwhile, experts also 

question the reliability of some of the data that 

traditional undergraduate institutions release. 

Since 2008, the federal government has required 

colleges to disclose any placement rates they 

calculate to prospective students who request the 

information. And institutions with certificate 

programs, predominantly in the for-profit sector, 

must report placement rates to the Education 

Department. State lawmakers may ask public 

colleges for the numbers, but their legislatures are 

mostly silent on how the data should be tracked, as 

are regional accreditors that oversee the vast 

majority of nonprofit four-year institutions. 

National accreditors are more prescriptive, but 

their standards vary. 

At Ferris State, Kristen Salomonson, dean of 

enrollment services, acknowledges that response 

rates are low. So low, she says, that it's "dangerous 

to draw conclusions" about the success of Ferris 

graduates. 

As response rates have fallen, the university has 

moved away from marketing its job-placement 

numbers, she says. Still, their use on the Web site is 

fair because the full reports are also online, she 

says. Ferris State's use of the data, she says, is 




probably not that different from what most 

colleges are doing. 

Pursuing Graduates Online 

Students and families who look at placement rates 

while choosing colleges may be confused. Colorado 

College, for instance, reports that 53 percent of the 

Class of 2012 is employed. Another small liberalarts 

college, Colgate University, in upstate New 

York, reports that 72 percent of the Class of 2011, 

the most recent for which data are available, had 

jobs in 2011. 

At face value, Colgate's graduates seem more 

successful. But the timing of the colleges' surveys 

may explain the discrepancy. Colgate tracks 

students for six months after they graduate, but 

Colorado polls them during the rehearsal for 

graduation ceremonies, a time when many are still 

weighing their options. 

"That most definitely has an effect," says Gretchen 

Wardell, office coordinator at Colorado's career 

center. "At grad practice each year, there are 

dozens of kids waiting to hear back from jobs." The 

college used to try tracking students for six months 

after graduation, she says, but only 30 to 35 

percent would respond. 

Both Colorado and Colgate achieve high response 

rates—above 80 percent—the former by tapping a 

captive audience, the latter by pursuing graduates, 

one by one. 

Staff members in Colgate's career-services office 

start collecting placement-rate data six months 

after graduation by sending successive surveys to 

each graduate's e-mail address. For those who do 

not respond, officials look on LinkedIn, Facebook, 

and other social-media sites to see if they can 

figure out what the graduates are doing. The staff 

members also ask professors, coaches, and others 

on campus who may know where students ended 

up. They stop only once they get information on 80 

percent of graduates. 

"It is painstaking and time-intensive, but that is 

how we get a decent response rate," says Teresa 

Olsen, interim director of Colgate's career center. 

About a third of colleges had response rates above 

75 percent in 2010, according to the National 

Association of Colleges and Employers. But roughly 

the same proportion posted rates of 50 percent or 

less. 

It's hard to know what an adequate response rate 

is for the surveys, says Mark Schneider, vice 

president at the American Institutes for Research: 

"Until you find out what that selection bias is, a 

good response rate is hard to gauge." But 

especially when it drops below 50 percent, he 

thinks that mostly successful graduates are 

responding. 

Underemployment Unknown 

Even when job-placement surveys yield high 

response rates, they can be fuzzy on what counts 

as a job. Many colleges don't ask graduates 

whether their jobs are related to their degrees or if 

they feel those jobs have career potential. Most 

colleges do not account for underemployment or 

know if a graduate is reporting an unpaid 

internship. 

Kansas State University's placement rate for the 

Class of 2011 was 92 percent, with 70 percent of 

graduates employed and 22 percent continuing 

their education. 

But the data may include underemployment, says 

Kerri Day Keller, director of career and 

employment services at the university. She tries to 

make sure that all graduates listed as employed are 

in paid positions, but it is possible, she says, that 

some unpaid ones slip in. 

Kansas State doesn't track whether graduates have 

jobs related to their degrees because that can be 

subjective, says Ms. Keller. What about a history 

major who works for the Boy Scouts, she says, or 

an engineering major who moved to India to be an 

American-accent trainer? 




One question colleges should always ask employed 

graduates in placement surveys is whether their 

jobs require a degree, says Andrew M. Sum, 

director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at 

Northeastern University. 

Mr. Sum analyzed census data and found, for 2011, 

that 54 percent of college graduates under the age 

of 25 were either unemployed or employed in jobs 

that did not require a college degree. Those were 

the worst results he'd seen since 1995, he says. 

"This is bad for the country." 

A recent study by Rutgers University had similar 

results. Researchers interviewed 444 graduates 

from the Class of 2006 through the Class of 2011 

and discovered that many were struggling to find 

full-time work. Only 51 percent were employed full 

time. Twenty percent were attending graduate or 

professional schools, 12 percent were working 

part-time or were unemployed, and 6 percent were 

in the military or volunteering, according to the 

study. (It excluded graduates who were not looking 

for work.) 

The researchers had decided to do the study in part 

because they thought colleges' job-placement 

numbers were unreliable, says Carl E. Van Horn, 

director of the John J. Heldrich Center for 

Workforce Development at Rutgers. 

Whether a job requires a degree is helpful 

information, but underemployment is still difficult 

to track, says Mr. Schneider, of the American 

Institutes for Research. Salaries are probably a 

better measure of student success, he says. But 

even when colleges' job-placement surveys ask 

about salaries, some graduates do not give that 

information. Colgate University and Colorado 

College don't track salaries at all. At Kansas State, 

employed graduates in most majors reported 

salary data at a response rate of 65 percent or 

higher. But only 47 percent of graduates in the 

university's College of Arts and Sciences reported 

their salaries. 

Mr. Schneider has worked for the State of Virginia 

on a public database, scheduled to be released in 

August, that will show the median salary for 

graduates of various programs and majors at all 

public and some private colleges. To develop the 

database, Mr. Schneider has collected figures from 

the state's unemployment-insurance agency and 

combined them with the unique ID numbers most 

Virginia college students carry. Five other states are 

considering similar databases, he says. 

Keeping Closer Track 

Meanwhile, some colleges are pursuing innovative 

strategies to acquire—and disclose—the best data 

they can. Some are using the same LinkedIn and 

Facebook tactics that Colgate does. Others are 

asking students to include reliable e-mail addresses 

on their graduation applications, for easier followup. 

St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minn., has 

established perhaps the most comprehensive 

system to show where its graduates end up. The 

small liberal-arts college offers on its Web site a 

searchable database of what almost every member 

of the Class of 2011 is doing, minus names and 

other identifying information. 

A search of theater majors, for instance, reveals 

that four have moved on to further education, one 

works part-time at Caribou Coffee, and another is 

an assistant director of the nonprofit group Fund 

for the Public Interest. 

St. Olaf created the database to answer the 

question of what a liberal-arts education is worth, 

says Steve Blodgett, director of marketing and 

communications at the college. The data collection 

took much longer than compiling a simple jobplacement 

rate had in previous years. Campus 

officials had to send e-mails and call graduates, 

look them up on LinkedIn and other sites, and talk 




to faculty about where they ended up. With 92 

percent of the class reporting, the college found 

that 70 percent were employed and 28 percent 

were enrolled in further education. 

As consumers and government officials demand 

information on students' outcomes, more colleges 

may take on similar projects, says Mr. Van Horn, of 

Rutgers. Still, he points out a limitation: Most 

colleges get students' responses at one point in 

time, without following up. So even St. Olaf's 

robust database may not tell the entire story. 

For instance, one 2011 graduate with a degree in 

psychology is listed as a clinical research assistant 

at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn., which 

sounds pretty impressive. Ashley Enke is almost 

certain that graduate is her. She started at Mayo in 

July 2011, as an unpaid research assistant. In 

March 2012, the clinic hired her part time, at 

$14.50 an hour. But her last day there was July 6. 

"In what the database shows, that does not come 

across," Ms. Enke says of her listing on St. Olaf's 

site. "It's not a stable position." 

Last week, Ms. Enke moved out of her apartment 

in Rochester and in with her parents, in Omaha, 

where she plans to focus on prerequisite courses 

for medical school at the University of Nebraska. 

Her work at the Mayo Clinic helped her realize she 

wanted to go into medicine, she says, rather than 

pursue a Ph.D in psychology. While studying, she 

may pick up some shifts at her mother's coffee 

shop now and then. 

On a national level, the Obama administration has 

proposed a new scorecard to compare colleges' 

costs and their graduates' earning potential. But 

recent experience suggests there may be snags on 

how earnings data will be collected. 

Last December, the Education Department's 

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System 

set up a review panel to create a system for 

tracking job placement for graduates of certificate 

programs and for-profit colleges. It got stuck. The 

panel could not make any suggestions, its members 

said, without further study of the data's limitations. 

Lisa Severy, president-elect of the National Career 

Development Association, says she is glad to see 

that some colleges have become more rigorous 

about their job-placement data. But Ms. Severy, 

who is also director of career services at the 

University of Colorado at Boulder, is concerned 

that without standards set by accreditors or 

lawmakers, the data will never be meaningful. 

"Until we can come to some consensus on what's 

being collected and how," she says, "progress on 

this issue will continue to be haphazard." 

PESC LEADERSHIP TEAM 

PESC’s cornerstone principle, transparent and 

direct community participation, is never more 

apparent when the entire list of PESC’s leadership 

team is viewed. We thank all representatives and 

organizations that help lead the PESC Community: 

Chair 

Vice Chair 

Treasurer 

Secretary 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

Francisco Valines, Florida International 

University 

Jeffrey Alderson, ConnectEDU 

David Moldoff, AcademyOne 

Brian Allison, USA Funds 

Kristi Blabaum, Great Lakes Educational Loan 

Services, representing NASLA 

Tuan An Do, San Francisco State University, 

representing AACRAO 

Doug Falk, National Student Clearinghouse 

Mark Jones, Ellucian 

Peter Knepper, Xap Corporation 

Charlie Leonhardt, Georgetown University 

Michael Sessa, PESC 

Andrew Wood, Oracle Corporation 




BOARD OF DIRECTORS COMMITTEES 

Executive Committee Chair 

Francisco Valines, Florida International University 

Finance Committee Chair 

David Moldoff, AcademyOne 

TASK FORCES 

E-Authentication/E-Authorization (EA2) (CommIT) 

Co-Chairs 

Charlie Leonhardt, Georgetown University 

Arnie Miles, Georgetown University 

Common Data Services (EDexchange) Co-Chairs 

Rick Blaisdell, ConnectEDU 

Tim Calhoon, California Community College System 

STANDARDS FORUM FOR EDUCATION 

Steering Committee Chair 

Susan McCrackin, College Board 

Change Control Board (CCB) Chair 

Kristi Blabaum, NASLA 

Technical Advisory Board (TAB) Co-Chairs 

Michael Morris, ACT 

Gideon Sanstra, Ellucian 

Seal of Approval Board (SAB) Chair 

Jeffrey Alderson, ConnectEDU 

STANDARDS FORUM DEVELOPMENT WORKGROUPS 

Academic ePortfolio Co-Chairs 

John Ittelson, State of California 

Don Phillips, Xap Corporation 

Course Inventory Co-Chairs 

Rick Skeel, Kuali Foundation 

Anne Valentine, SmartCatalog 

IPEDS Chair 

Christine Rasmussen, IPEDS 

Recruitment & Enrollment Co-Chairs 

Jeff Alderson, ConnectEDU 

Student Loan Data Reporting Co-Chairs 

Brian Allison, USA Funds 

Kristi Blabaum, NASLA 

USER GROUPS 

Canadian PESC User Group Chair 

Bill McKee, OCAS 

CEDS User Group Co-Chairs 

Hans L’Orange, SHEEO 

Tony Romano, National Student Clearinghouse 

Education Record User Group (ERUG) Co-Chairs 

Tuan An Do, San Francisco State University 

Mark Cohen, Parchment 

Student Aid User Group Chair 

Peter Hurley, University of Michigan 

INBLOOM INC. LAUNCHES TO ENABLE 

PERSONALIZED LEARNING THROUGH 

EASIER ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

New nonprofit organization is working with nine 

states representing more than 11 million students, 

with support from a wide range of education 

technology companies. 

The Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) announced 

the launch of inBloom Inc., a nonprofit provider of 

technology services aimed at connecting data, 

applications and people that work together to 

create better opportunities for students and 

educators. 

Currently, school districts are racing to adapt 

materials and assessments for the Common Core 

State Standards, and publishers are working to 

keep up with new academic requirements. At the 

same time, educators are being inundated with an 

escalating amount of data and technology in 

multiple formats, creating a disjointed system that 

makes it extremely hard for teachers to tailor 

instruction, curriculum and learning approaches to 




meet the needs and aspirations of individual 

learners. 

“Education technology and data need to work 

better together to fulfill their potential for students 

and teachers,” said Iwan Streichenberger, CEO of 

inBloom Inc. “Until now, tackling this problem has 

often been too expensive for states and districts, 

but inBloom is easing that burden and ushering in a 

new era of personalized learning.” 

The inBloom data integration and content search 

services enrich learning applications by connecting 

them to systems and information that currently live 

in a variety of different places and formats while 

helping to reduce costs for states and districts. This 

comprehensive view into each student’s history 

can help those involved in education — from 

teachers to administrators to parents — see 

students’ progress, gain insights into how they 

might do better and act quickly to help each 

student succeed. It also helps educators locate 

standards-aligned instructional resources from 

multiple providers and match them with their 

students’ needs. 

“inBloom lets us compile and access assessment 

data from more than a dozen different systems,” 

said Tom Stella, assistant superintendent of 

schools, Everett, Mass. “This information, paired 

with relevant content that maps to a student’s 

individual needs, helps maximize a teacher's time 

and a student's learning potential by letting them 

focus on in-class teaching and learning.” 

In addition, the inBloom framework enables 

technology providers to develop and deploy 

products without having to build custom 

connections to each state and district data source. 

This means more developers will have the 

opportunity to create new and powerful 

applications to benefit students, with lower 

implementation costs and faster time-to-market. 

Twenty-one education technology companies have 

already announced plans to develop applications 

that will work with inBloom through the service’s 

open application programming interface (API). 

Many of these applications will be demonstrated at 

SXSWedu in Austin, Texas, March 4–7. 

Nine states, representing more than 11 million 

students, are participating in the development and 

pilot testing of the inBloom technology services to 

ensure they meet the needs of states, districts, 

teachers and students. They include Colorado, 

Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, 

Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina. Five 

states have already selected districts to be part of 

the pilot testing: Jefferson County Public Schools, 

Colorado; McLean County Unit District No. 5 

(Normal) and Bloomington Public Schools District 

87 (Bloomington), Illinois; Everett Public Schools, 

Massachusetts; New York City Department of 

Education, New York; and Guilford County Schools, 

North Carolina. 

Student data privacy is a top priority for inBloom, 

and protections for student privacy, including 

compliance with the Family Educational Rights and 

Privacy Act (FERPA), have been addressed 

throughout the design and ongoing operations of 

the services. InBloom worked with its pilot states 

and districts and a panel of student privacy and 

security experts to create the policy that governs 

its handling of sensitive data. 

About the Shared Learning Collaborative 

The Shared Learning Collaborative is an alliance of 

states, districts, educators, foundations and 

content and tool providers passionate about using 

technology to improve education. The SLC 

developed all the inBloom software components 

and has worked with education technology 

companies and developers to encourage the 

development of inBloom-compatible applications. 




About inBloom Inc. 

inBloom Inc. is a nonprofit organization established 

to carry forward the mission of the Shared Learning 

Collaborative, which is to work to make 

personalized learning a reality for every U.S. 

student. inBloom provides technology services that 

allow states and public school districts to better 

integrate student data and learning applications to 

support sustainable, cost-effective personalized 

learning. inBloom is funded with initial 

philanthropic support from the Bill & Melinda 

Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of 

New York. For more information about inBloom, 

visit www.inBloom.org. 

EDUCAUSE TOP 10 IT ISSUES 2012 

For 2012, the top IT Issues: 

1. Updating IT professionals’ skills and roles to 

accommodate emerging technologies and 

changing IT management and service delivery 

models 

2. Supporting the trends toward IT 

consumerization and bring-your-own device 

3. Developing an institution‐-‐-wide cloud strategy 

For more information, visit 

http://www.educause.edu/research-andpublications/research/it-issues-panel. 

A BILL OF RIGHTS AND PRINCIPLES FOR 

LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE 

Preamble 

Work on this Bill of Rights & Principles began in 

Palo Alto, California, on December 14, 2012. We 

convened a group of people passionate about 

learning, about serving today's students, and about 

using every tool we could imagine to respond 

better to the needs of students in a global, 

interactive, digitally connected world. 

The Internet has made it possible for anyone on 

the planet to be a student, a teacher, and a 

creative collaborator at virtually no cost. Novel 

technologies that can catalyze learning are 

bubbling up in less time than it takes to read this 

sentence. Some have emerged from universities, 

some from the private sector, some from 

individuals and digital communities. In the past 

year, Massive Online Open Courseware, or MOOCs, 

have become the darling of the moment--lauded 

by the media, embraced by millions--so new, so 

promising in possibility, and yet so ripe for 

exploitation. 

We believe that online learning represents a 

powerful and potentially aweinspiring opportunity 

to make new forms of learning available to all 

students worldwide, whether young or old, 

learning for credit, self-improvement, 

employment, or just pleasure. We believe that 

online courses can create "meaningful" as well as 

"massive" learning opportunities. 

We are aware of how much we don't know: that 

we have yet to explore the full pedagogical 

potential of learning online, of how it can change 

the ways we teach, the ways we learn, and the 

ways we connect. And we worry that this moment 

is fragile, that history frequently and painfully 

repeats itself. Think of television in the 1950s or 

even correspondence courses in the 1920s. As we 

begin to experiment with how novel technologies 

might change learning and teaching, powerful 

forces threaten to neuter or constrain technology, 

propping up outdated educational practices rather 

than unfolding transformative ones. 

All too often, during such wrenching transitions, 

the voice of the learner gets muffled. 

For that reason, we feel compelled to articulate the 

opportunities for students in this brave electronic 

world, to assert their needs and--we dare say-- 

rights. We also recognize some broader hopes and 




aspirations for the best online learning. We include 

those principles as an integral addendum to the Bill 

of Rights below. 

Our broad goal is to inspire an open, learnercentered 

dialogue around the rights, 

responsibilities, and possibilities for education in 

the globally-connected world of the present and 

beyond. 

1. Bill of Rights 

We believe that our culture is increasingly one in 

which learning, unlearning and relearning are as 

fundamental to our survival and prosperity as 

breathing. To that end, we believe that all students 

have inalienable rights which transfer to new 

and emerging digital environments. They include: 

The right to access 

Everyone should have the right to learn: traditional 

students, non-traditional students, adults, children, 

and teachers, independent of age, gender, race, 

social status, sexual orientation, economic status, 

national origin, bodily ability, and environment 

anywhere and everywhere in the world. 

To ensure the right to access, learning should be 

affordable and available, offered in myriad formats, 

to students located in a specific place and students 

working remotely, adapting itself to people's 

different lifestyles, mobility needs, and schedules. 

Online learning has the potential to ensure that 

this right is a reality for a greater percentage of the 

world's population than has ever been realizable 

before. 

The right to privacy 

Student privacy is an inalienable right regardless of 

whether learning takes place in a brick-and-mortar 

institution or online. Students have a right to know 

how data collected about their participation in the 

online system will be used by the organization and 

made available to others. The provider should offer 

clear explanations of the privacy implications of 

students' choices. 

The right to create public knowledge 

Learners within a global, digital commons have the 

right to work, network, and contribute to 

knowledge in public; to share their ideas and their 

learning in visible and connected ways if they so 

choose. Courses should encourage open 

participation and meaningful engagement with real 

audiences where possible, including peers and the 

broader public. 

The right to own one's personal data and 

intellectual property 

Students also have the right to create and own 

intellectual property and data associated with their 

participation in online courses. Online programs 

should encourage openness and sharing, while 

working to educate students about the various 

ways they can protect and license their data and 

creative work. Any changes in terms of service 

should be clearly communicated by the provider, 

and they should never erode the original terms of 

privacy or the intellectual property rights to which 

the student agreed. 

The right to financial transparency 

Students have a right to know how their 

participation supports the financial health of the 

online system in which they are participating. They 

have a right to fairness, honesty, and transparent 

financial accounting. This is also true of courses 

that are "free." The provider should offer clear 

explanations of the financial implications of 

students' choices. 

The right to pedagogical transparency 

Students have the right to understand the intended 

outcomes--educational, vocational, even 

philosophical--of an online program or initiative. If 

a credential or badge or certification is promised by 

the provider, its authenticity, meaning, and 

intended or historical recognition by others (such 




as employers or academic institutions) should be 

clearly established and explained. 

The right to quality and care 

Students have the right to care, diligence, 

commitment, honesty and innovation. They are not 

being sold a product--nor are they the product 

being sold. They are not just consumers. Education 

is also about trust. Learning--not corporate profit-- 

is the principal purpose of all education. 

The right to have great teachers 

All students need thoughtful teachers, facilitators, 

mentors and partners in learning, and learning 

environments that are attentive to their specific 

learning goals and needs. While some of us favor 

peer learning communities, all of us recognize that, 

in formal educational settings, students should 

expect—indeed demand--that the people 

arranging, mentoring and facilitating their learning 

online be financially, intellectually and 

pedagogically valued and supported by institutions 

of higher learning and by society. Teachers' knowhow 

and working conditions are students' learning 

conditions. 

The right to be teachers 

In an online environment, teachers no longer need 

to be sole authority figures but instead should 

share responsibility with learners at almost every 

turn. Students can participate and shape one 

another's learning through peer interaction, new 

content, enhancement of learning materials and by 

forming virtual and real-world networks. Students 

have the right to engaged participation in the 

construction of their own learning. 

Students are makers, doers, thinkers, contributors, 

not just passive recipients of someone else's 

lecture notes or methods. They are critical 

contributors to their disciplines, fields, and to the 

larger enterprise of education. 

II. Principles 

The following are principles to which the best 

online learning should aspire. We believe the merit 

of specific courses, programs, or initiatives can be 

judged on the strength of their adherence to these 

principles and encourage students and professors 

to seek out and create digital learning 

environments that follow and embody them. 

Global contribution 

Online learning should originate from everywhere 

on the globe, not just from the U.S. and other 

technologically advantaged countries. The best 

courses will be global in design and contribution, 

offering multiple and multinational perspectives. 

They should maximize opportunities for students 

from different countries to collaborate with one 

another, to contribute local knowledge and 

histories and to learn one another's methods, 

assumptions, values, knowledge and points of 

view. 

Value 

The function of learning is to allow students to 

equip themselves to address the challenges and 

requirements of life and work. Online learning can 

serve as a vehicle for skills development, retraining, 

marketable expertise. It can also support selfimprovement, 

community engagement, intellectual 

challenge, or play. All of these functions are valid. 

The best programs and initiatives should clearly 

state the potential contexts in which they offer 

value. 

Flexibility 

Students should have many options for online 

learning, not simply a digitized replication of the 

majors, minors, requirements, courses, schedules 

and institutional arrangements of conventional 

universities. The best online learning programs will 

not simply mirror existing forms of university 

teaching but offer students a range of flexible 

learning opportunities that take advantage of new 




digital tools and pedagogies to widen these 

traditional horizons, thereby better addressing 

21st-century learner interests, styles and lifelong 

learning needs. 

Ideally, they will also suggest and support new 

forms of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary 

inquiry that are independent of old gatekeepers 

such as academic institutions or disciplines, 

certification agencies, time-to-degree 

measurements, etc. 

Hybrid learning 

Freed from time and place, online learning should 

nonetheless be connected back to multiple 

locations around the world and not tethered 

exclusively to the digital realm. This can happen by 

building in apprenticeships, internships and 

real-world applications of online problem sets. 

Problem sets might be rooted in real-world 

dilemmas or comparative historical and cultural 

perspectives. (Examples might include: "Organizing 

Disaster Response and Relief for Hurricane Sandy" 

or "Women's Rights, Rape, and Culture" or 

“Designing and Implementing Gun Control: A 

Global Perspective.") 

Persistence 

Learning is emergent, a lifelong pursuit, not 

relegated to the brick walls of an institution or to a 

narrow window of time during life; it has no 

specific end point. The artificial divisions of work, 

play and education cease to be relevant in the 

21st century. Learning begins on a playground and 

continues perpetually in other playgrounds, 

individual and shared workspaces, communities 

and more. Learning can be assessed but doesn't 

aim itself exclusively toward assessment. 

Innovation 

Both technical and pedagogical innovation should 

be hallmarks of the best learning environments. A 

wide variety of pedagogical approaches, learning 

tools, methods and practices should support 

students' diverse learning modes. Online learning 

should be flexible, dynamic, and individualized 

rather than canned or standardized. One size or 

approach does not fit all. 

Formative assessment 

Students should have the opportunity to revise and 

relearn until they achieve the level of mastery they 

desire in a subject or a skill. Online learning 

programs or initiatives should strive to transform 

assessment into a rich, learner-oriented feedback 

system where students are constantly receiving 

information aimed at guiding their learning paths. 

In pedagogical terms, this means emphasizing 

individualized and timely (formative) rather than 

end-of-learning (summative) assessment. Similarly, 

instructors should use such feedback to improve 

their teaching practices. Assessment is only useful 

insofar as it helps to foster a culture of success and 

enjoyment in learning. 

Experimentation 

Experimentation should be an acknowledged 

affordance and benefit of online learning. Students 

should be able to try a course and drop it without 

incurring derogatory labels such as failure (for 

either the student or the institution offering the 

course). Through open discussion of the strengths 

and weaknesses of programs, the industry should 

develop crowd-sourced evaluative guides to help 

learners choose the online learning that best fits 

their needs. 

Civility 

Courses should encourage interaction and 

collaboration between students wherever it 

enhances the learning experience. Such programs 

should encourage student contributions of content, 

perspectives, methods, reflecting their own 

cultural and individual perspectives. Online 

learning programs or initiatives have a 

responsibility to share those contributions in an 

atmosphere of integrity and respect. Students have 

the right and responsibility to promote and 




participate in generous, kind, constructive 

communication within their learning environment. 

Play 

Open online education should inspire the 

unexpected, experimentation, and questioning--in 

other words, encourage play. Play allows us to 

make new things familiar, to perfect new skills, to 

experiment with moves and crucially to embrace 

change--a key disposition for succeeding in the 21st 

century. We must cultivate the imagination and the 

dispositions of questing, tinkering and connecting. 

We must remember that the best learning, above 

all, imparts the gift of curiosity, the wonder of 

accomplishment, and the passion to know and 

learn even more. 

DATE: January 25, 2013 

SIGNATURES: 

John Seely Brown, University of Southern California 

and Deloitte Center for the Edge 

Betsy Corcoran, Co-founder, CEO, EdSurge 

Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor of 

English and Interdisciplinary Studies, Co-Director 

PhD Lab in Digital Knowledge, Duke University, and 

cofounder Humanities, Arts, Science, and 

Technology Advanced Collaboratory 

Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Lecturer in Comparative 

Literature, Stanford University 

Todd Edebohls, CEO of careers and education 

service Inside Jobs 

Mark J. Gierl, Professor of Educational Psychology, 

Canada Research Chair in Educational 

Measurement, and Director, Centre for Research in 

Applied Measurement and Evaluation, University of 

Alberta, Canada 

Sean Michael Morris, Educational Outreach for 

Hybrid Pedagogy and Part-time Faculty in the 

English and Digital Humanities Program at 

Marylhurst University in Portland, OR 

(Jan) Philipp Schmidt, Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) 

and MIT Media Lab Director's Fellow Bonnie 

Stewart, Ph.D candidate and Sessional Lecturer, 

Faculty of Education, University of Prince Edward 

Island, Canada 

Jesse Stommel, Director of Hybrid Pedagogy and 

Director of English and Digital Humanities at 

Marylhurst University in Portland, OR 

Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Udacity, Google Fellow 

and Research Professor in Computer Science, 

Stanford University 

Audrey Watters, Writer, Hack Education 

Invitation: 

To join the discussion, visit one of the many 

platforms where this Bill of Rights and Principles is 

being published and blogged about (each of us, and 

each of the platforms, will likely create a different 

sort of engagement). We invite further discussion, 

hacking, and forking of this document. On Twitter, 

please use the hashtag #learnersrights when you 

share your versions and responses. Finally, and 

most importantly, this document can't be complete 

(can never be complete) without continuous and 

dynamic contributions and revising by students. 

We invite students everywhere to read this 

beginning, to talk about it, to add to it. 

Additional resources: We have not included 

reading resources here but invite you to add the 

ones most meaningful to you in the public, crowdsourced 

version of the Bill of Rights and Principles 

for Learning in the Digital Age. Collective 

contribution is the principle we espouse in this 

document. We look forward to 

your participation. 




At PESC’s Fall 2012 Data Summit in Vancouver October 17, 2012, Parchment’s 

Mark Cohen announced the release of a compelling white paper 

Eduventures White Paper: 

Postsecondary Benefits of Electronic Transcripts 

Decision-makers looking to migrate to electronic processing need 

quantifiable data from a variety of sources, including from their 

peers and stakeholders, on its value and benefits. 

This paper produced in collaboration with PESC illustrates the value 

& benefits and therefore compels leaders to embrace electronic 

processing. Parchment and PESC are pleased to make this white 

paper available to the public free of charge. 

http://info.docufide.com/HE.Eduvent_dwnld.html 



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

February 1, 2013 

Contact: 

Michael Sessa 


+1.202.261.6516 

SHEEO PRESIDENT PAUL E. LINGENFELTER PH.D. 

TO KEYNOTE PESC SPRING 2013 DATA SUMMIT 

DATA SUMMIT: “CONNECTING KIDS TO COLLEGE AND CAREER” 

SIGNIFIES PESC P20W PERSPECTIVE AND NAME CHANGE 

(Washington DC) – PESC is pleased to announce Paul E. Lingenfelter Ph.D. as keynote 

speaker for its Spring 2013 Data Summit being held May 1-3, 2013 in San Diego at the OMNI 

Hotel. Dr. Lingenfelter serves as President of the State Higher Education Executive Officers 

(SHEEO) association, a position he’s held since 2000. 

Dr. Lingenfelter’s work as President of SHEEO has focused on 

increasing successful participation in higher education; 

accountability for improving learning; finance; and building 

more effective relationships between K-12 and postsecondary 

educators. Under his leadership, SHEEO organized the National 

Commission on Accountability in Higher Education, created the 

annual study State Higher Education Finance, published More 

Student Success: A Systemic Solution and substantially 

expanded SHEEO collaborations with the Council of Chief State 

School Officers (CCSSO). 

From 1985 to 2000, he served at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 

where in 1996 he was appointed Vice President to establish and lead the MacArthur 

Foundation Program on Human and Community Development. Earlier, he was involved in 

the full range of the Foundation’s international and domestic programs as Associate Vice 

President for Planning and Evaluation & Director of Program Related Investments. 

Dr. Lingenfelter was Deputy Director for Fiscal Affairs for the Illinois Board of Higher 

Education (IBHE) from 1980 to 1985 and held several other positions with the IBHE and the 

University of Michigan from 1968-80. His educational background includes an A.B. from 

Wheaton College in Literature, an M.A. from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. from 

the University of Michigan in higher education with an emphasis in public policy. He is the 

author of numerous studies and articles related to his work in higher education and 

philanthropy, and he currently serves on the boards of the National Student Clearinghouse 

and the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability. 

1250 Connecticut Avenue NW – Suite 200 – Washington, D.C. 20036 

+1.202.261.6516 

www.PESC.org

Dr. Lingenfelter’s keynote address State Perspectives on Higher Education for the 21 st Century will 

be held over lunch Wednesday May 1, 2013 at PESC’s Spring 2013 Data Summit in San Diego at the 

OMNI Hotel. His address will discuss the funding, management and administration of public 

education and the challenges states face in a 21 st century learning environment. 

Joining Dr. Lingenfelter as Featured Speakers (check the PESC website for updates and additional speakers): 

‣ SCOTT GILLIE, Executive Director, Encouragement Services, Inc. & President, Alliance of 

Career Resource Professionals (ACRP) – Introducing ACRP 

‣ MAUREEN MATTHEWS WENTWORTH, Program Director, Education Data and Information 

Systems, Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) – National Data Initiatives 

‣ JOHN C. ITTELSON, PH.D., Director of Communication, Collaboration, and Outreach, 

California Virtual Campus; Professor Emeritus California State University Monterey Bay – 

Student eDentity: ePortfolios and Beyond! 

‣ BILL MCKEE, Director of Operations, Ontario College Application Service (OCAS) & Chair, 

PESC Canadian User Group – Canadian Transcript Exchange Network 

‣ TIM CALHOON, Technology Center Director, Office of the Chancellor, California Community 

Colleges – EdExchange: Enabling Common Data Exchange for California in the 21 st Century 

‣ JEFFREY ALDERSON, Senior Director of Product Innovation, ConnectEDU - MyData 

As PESC’s XML High School Transcript standard is now supported across the United States of 

America and Canada, coupled with additional PESC Approved Standards that are attracting labor and 

workforce stakeholders, the PESC Board of Directors and Members agreed in 2012 that a name 

change to the organization was necessary. 

Now with a new name, P20W Education Standards Council, PESC will continue on its collaborative 

mission which includes continued development and support of common data standards, 

establishment and support of common data networks and infrastructure, common authentication 

and web services protocols enterprise-wide, seamless connections bridging postsecondary 

education systems to secondary and labor and workforce systems, and an eye on emerging 

technologies like social networking. For more information including Data Summit registration, 

please visit www.PESC.org. 

Diamond Sponsors for the 

Spring 2013 Data Summit: 

Common Application, 

ConnectEDU, National 

Student Clearinghouse, 

Oracle, Parchment, SCRIP- 

SAFE, USA Funds & XAP. 

ABOUT PESC 

Established in 1997 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., PESC is a non-profit, community-based, 501 (c)(3) umbrella association of 

data, software and service providers; non-profit organizations and associations; local, state and federal government agencies; colleges 

and universities; college and university systems; and, professional and commercial organizations. Through open and transparent 

community participation, PESC enables cost-effective connectivity between data systems to accelerate performance and service, to 

simplify data access and research, and to improve data quality along the education lifecycle. 

PESC envisions national and international interoperability within the Education domain, supported by a trustworthy, inter-connected 

network called EdUnify built by and between communities of interest in which data flows seamlessly from one system to another and 

throughout the entire eco-system when and where needed without compatibility barriers but in a safe, secure, reliable, and efficient 

manner. To achieve its mission & vision, PESC organizes activities to: accelerate performance and service, reduce cost, lead 

collaborative development, set & maintain common data standards, promote best practices, link public and private sectors, and serve as 

data experts. 

# # # 


+1.202.261.6516 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 


Contact: 

Michael Sessa 


+1.202.261.6516 


PESC ANNOUNCES 14 TH ANNUAL BEST PRACTICES COMPETITION 

(Washington DC) – Entries for PESC’s Annual Best Practices Competition are now being 

accepted. Now in its 14th year, the Best Practices Competition is held to highlight and 

promote innovation and ingenuity in the application and implementation of 

interoperable data standards for business needs. 

First held in 1999, the Competition is open to institutions, associations, organizations, 

government agencies and departments, districts, consortia, non-profit and commercial 

service providers and other education stakeholders that have collaborated to design 

and/or adopt an electronic standardization initiative via a specific implementation, 

and/or other medium such as, but not limited to, published articles and white papers. 

The Best Practices Competition for 2012 is open for submissions until close of business 

Monday April 1, 2013. Documents detailing the scope of a project, participants, type of 

standards employed, relevant dates of project milestones, copies of articles (if an article 

submission), outline of mission/objectives and any related statistics (number of 

transactions transmitted, estimated cost savings, etc.) should be included in the 

submission. All entries should be submitted by April 1, 2013 to 

Michael.Sessa@PESC.org or at: 

Michael Sessa 

President & CEO 

Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council 

1250 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 200 

Washington, D.C. 20036 

All entries will be judged by the PESC Board of Directors. First place and those receiving 

special recognition will be notified immediately by PESC, an official public 

announcement will be made immediately before PESC’s Spring 2013 Data Summit being 

held May 1-3, 2013 in San Diego at the OMNI Hotel, and the award presentation will be 

made during the general session of the Data Summit on May 1, 2013. 

(continued) 


+1.202.261.6516 


Past winners of PESC’s Annual Best Practices Competition include: 

2011 

US Department of Education, NCES 

Common Education Data Standards – CEDS 

2010 

South Carolina 

Transfer & Articulation Center – SC TRAC 

2009 

College Foundation of North Carolina 

Electronic High School Transcript System 

2008 

California Community College System 

e-Transcript California and 

University System of Georgia Board of Regents 

High School & Postsecondary XML Transcript 

Implementation 

2007 

Sinclair Community College & Wright State University 

Exchange of E-Transcripts via Ohio Board of Regents 

Articulation & Transfer Clearinghouse 

2006 

Data Quality Campaign – DQC 

Using Data to Improve Student Achievement 


2005 

NCHELP Electronic standards committee 

CRC Beta Test 

2004 

US Department of Education, FSA 

XML Registry & Repository for the Education Community 

2003 

SIF Association 

SIF Specification 

2002 

ELM Resources 

ELMnet and 

NCHELP Meteor Advisory Team 

Meteor 

2001 

NCHELP Electronic Standards Committee 

Common Account Maintenance – CAM 

2000 

University of Northern Iowa 

EDI Bridge 

1999 

Ontario Universities’ Application Centre – OUAC 

Model of Electronic Standardization Initiative 

About PESC 

Established in 1997 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., PESC is a non-profit, community-based, 501 (c)(3) 

umbrella association of colleges and universities; college and university systems; professional and commercial 

organizations; data, software and service providers; non-profit organizations and associations; and state and federal 

government agencies. Through open and transparent community participation, PESC enables cost-effective 

connectivity between data systems to accelerate performance and service, to simplify data access and research, and 

to improve data quality along the higher education lifecycle. 

PESC envisions national and international interoperability, that is a trustworthy, inter-connected environment built by 

and between communities of interest in which data flows seamlessly from one system to another and throughout the 

entire eco-system when and where needed without compatibility barriers but in a safe, secure, reliable, and efficient 

manner. To achieve the mission and the vision, PESC organizes activities to: accelerate performance and service, 

reduce cost, lead collaborative development, set and maintain common data standards, promote best practices, link 

public and private sectors, and serve as data experts. 

While PESC promotes the implementation and usage of data exchange standards, PESC does not set (create or 

establish) policies related to privacy and security. Organizations and entities using PESC standards and services 

should ensure they comply with FERPA and all local, state, federal and international rules on privacy and security as 

applicable. 

More information about PESC can be found at http://www.PESC.org. 

# # # 


+1.202.261.6516 


Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 19 / Tuesday, January 29, 2013 / Notices 

6081 

srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with 

Department’s information collection 

requirements and provide the requested 

data in the desired format. ED is 

soliciting comments on the proposed 

information collection request (ICR) that 

is described below. The Department of 

Education is especially interested in 

public comment addressing the 

following issues: (1) Is this collection 

necessary to the proper functions of the 

Department; (2) will this information be 

processed and used in a timely manner; 

(3) is the estimate of burden accurate; 

(4) how might the Department enhance 

the quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and (5) how 

might the Department minimize the 

burden of this collection on the 

respondents, including through the use 

of information technology. Please note 

that written comments received in 

response to this notice will be 

considered public records. 

Title of Collection: Mathematics and 

Science Partnerships Program: Annual 

Performance Report. 

OMB Control Number: 1810–0669. 

Type of Review: Revision of an 

existing collection of information. 

Respondents/Affected Public: State, 

Local, or Tribal Governments. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Responses: 600. 


Burden Hours: 7,800. 

Abstract: The Mathematics and 

Science Partnerships program is a 

formula grant program to the States in 

which states make competitive awards 

to projects. The authorizing legislation, 

Title II, Part B, Section 2202 (f) of the 

Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act of 1965 as amended by the No Child 

Left Behind Act of 2001, requires all 

locally funded projects to report 

annually to the Secretary documenting 

progress towards goals and objectives. 

The Annual Performance Report (APR) 

is an online reporting tool. Annual 

reporting requirements include impact 

on increasing teacher learning and 

student achievement; standard 

descriptive information on the MSP 

projects; the professional development 

participants; the professional 

development models, content, and 

processes; the evaluation plans; and 

lessons learned. By structuring the 

reporting so that all MSPs are required 

to provide standardized data, the 

program office is better able to examine 

outcomes across funded partnerships. 

The primary objective of the proposed 

revision is to reduce burden on 

reporting entities while ensuring that 

needed data continue to be collected. 

Proposed revisions include removing 

items that duplicate information, 

condensing sections of the APR that 

require substantial project burden to 

complete, and clarifying reporting 

instructions to improve quality of 

responses. 

Dated: January 23, 2013. 

Tomakie Washington, 

Acting Director, Information Collection 

Clearance Division, Privacy, Information and 

Records Management Services, Office of 

Management. 

[FR Doc. 2013–01755 Filed 1–28–13; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

[Docket No. ED–2013–ICCD–0007] 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Comment Request; National 

Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) 

AGENCY: Federal Student Aid (FSA), 

Department of Education (ED). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 

U.S.C. chapter 3501 et seq.), ED is 

proposing a revision of a previously 

approved information collection. 

DATES: Interested persons are invited to 

submit comments on or before April 1, 

2013. 

ADDRESSES: Comments submitted in 

response to this notice should be 

submitted electronically through the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal at http:// 

www.regulations.gov by selecting 

Docket ID number ED–2013–ICCD–0007 

or via postal mail, commercial delivery, 

or hand delivery. Please note that 

comments submitted by fax or email 

and those submitted after the comment 

period will not be accepted. Written 

requests for information or comments 

submitted by postal mail or delivery 

should be addressed to the Director of 

the Information Collection Clearance 

Division, U.S. Department of Education, 

400 Maryland Avenue SW., LBJ, Room 

2E117, Washington, DC 20202–4537. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Electronically mail 

ICDocketMgr@ed.gov. Please do not 

send comments here. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

Department of Education (ED), in 

accordance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 

3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general 

public and Federal agencies with an 

opportunity to comment on proposed, 

revised, and continuing collections of 

information. This helps the Department 

assess the impact of its information 

collection requirements and minimize 

the public’s reporting burden. It also 

helps the public understand the 

Department’s information collection 

requirements and provide the requested 

data in the desired format. ED is 

soliciting comments on the proposed 

information collection request (ICR) that 

is described below. The Department of 

Education is especially interested in 

public comment addressing the 

following issues: (1) Is this collection 

necessary to the proper functions of the 

Department; (2) will this information be 

processed and used in a timely manner; 

(3) is the estimate of burden accurate; 

(4) how might the Department enhance 

the quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and (5) how 

might the Department minimize the 

burden of this collection on the 

respondents, including through the use 

of information technology. Please note 

that written comments received in 

response to this notice will be 

considered public records. 

Title of Collection: National Student 

Loan Data System (NSLDS). 

OMB Control Number: 1845–0035. 

Type of Review: a revision of a 

previously approved information 

collection. 

Respondents/Affected Public: Private 

Sector; State Local, or Tribal 

Governments. 


Responses: 40,872. 


Burden Hours: 157,456. 

Abstract: The U.S. Department of 

Education will collect data through the 

National Student Loan Data System 

(NSLDS) system from postsecondary 

schools, Perkins Loan holders (or their 

servicers) and Guaranty Agencies about 

Federal Perkins, Federal Family 

Education, and William D. Ford Direct 

Student Loans to be used to manage 

federal student loan programs, develop 

policy and determine eligibility for Title 

IV student financial aid. 

Dated: January 23, 2013. 

Kate Mullan, 

Acting Director, Information Collection 

Clearance Division, Privacy, Information and 

Records Management Services, Office of 

Management. 

[FR Doc. 2013–01763 Filed 1–28–13; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

VerDate Mar2010 16:47 Jan 28, 2013 Jkt 229001 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 9990 E:\FR\FM\29JAN1.SGM 29JAN1

Summary of Activities, Meetings and Conference Calls 

of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee 

Months of September and October 2012 

This is an update for interested members of the AACRAO membership about 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 

actively meets and works year round with a focus on the creation, maintenance, and 

promotion of standards for the electronic exchange of student transcripts and other 

student education records. The AACRAO SPEEDE committee reports to the 

AACRAO Vice President for Information Technology (Group VI), Jim Bouse. 

Face to Face Meetings of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Held: One meeting 

was held during the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) Data 

Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia on October 18, 2012 with six of the ten 

members attending. 

The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee currently meets at the AACRAO Annual 

Meeting, at the AACRAO Technology Conference and at the two PESC Data 

Summits each year. Discussions are under way for holding one meeting each year 

in conjunction with an AACRAO regional meeting, such as PACRAO, SACRAO, 

Middle States, etc. This would be in lieu of one of the PESC annual summits. 

AACRAO SPEEDE Committee conference calls held (with number of 

participants): 9/16/12 (8), 10/4/12 (6), 10/11/12 (8) and 10/25/12 (7). 

AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Changes: 

New Member: Susan Reyes, Analyst/Programmer at San Diego State 

University has been appointed to the committee. Susan has worked at SDSU 

for ten years. For most of that time she has been involved with the receipt of 

EDI Transcripts via the UT Austin SPEEDE Server. SDSU has recently 

implemented the electronic exchange of PDF transcripts and is now working 

on the implementation of the sending of EDI transcripts via the Texas Server. 

Resignation of Tim Tashjian: Tim is leaving the U of Texas at Austin to join 

the IT shop at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and has resigned from 

the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee. Tim was acting as the liaison between 

the SPEEDE Committee and the SPEEDE Server at the University of Texas 

at Austin. 

November 8, 2012 Page 1 of 9 pages by Tom Stewart

September and October 2012 Report from the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee 

Retirement of Rick Skeel: Rick retired from the University of Oklahoma at 

the end of October 2012 and may no longer be able to serve on the SPEEDE 

Committee after April 2013. He is now a member of the Kuali Student Project. 

We are working with AACRAO to see if Rick can remain on the committee in 

another role. 

Activities Related to PESC: AACRAO is a founding member of, and an active 

supporter and participant in the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council. PESC 

is the standards setting organization for the electronic exchange of student records 

in higher education in North America. 

! Rick Skeel represents AACRAO on the PESC Board of Directors. Rick was 

also appointed to the Technical Work Group (TWG), a part of the Common 

Education Data Standards Task Force organized by the US Department of 

Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 

! Tuan Anh Do and Tom Stewart serve on the Change Control Board (CCB). 

! Tuan Anh Do also serves on the Technical Advisory Board (TAB). 

! Robin Greene and Monterey Sims serve with the Seal of Approval Program. 



Approved PESC XML Standards of Interest to AACRAO Members Include: 

Schema Version Date Approved 

College Transcript 

High School Transcript 

Transcript 

Acknowledgment 

Batch Submission 

Request for Student 

Transcript 

Response to a Request 

for Student Transcript 

Application for Admission 

Education Test Score 

Reporting 

1.0 May 2004 

1.1 October 2007 

1.2 January 2010 

1.3 June 2011 

1.4 June 2012 

1.0 June 2006 


1.2 June 2011 

1.3 June 2012 

1.0 July 2007 

1.1 June 2011 

1.0 July 2007 

2.0 February 2008 


1.1 June 2011 

1.2 June 2012 


1.1 June 2011 

1.2 June 2012 

1.0 August 2009 

1.1 June 2011 

1.0 August 2009 

IPEDS Graduation Rates 1.0 March 2010 

IPEDS Fall Enrollment 1.0 August 2009 

IPEDS 12 Month 

Enrollment and 

Completions 


PDF Attachments 1.0 January 2011 

Functional 


1.0 December 2010 



It is recommended that all users update to the latest version of each schema. All users who 

have updated to the latest version can accept all documents created with all earlier versions as 

long as the first digit of the Version Number is the same. All users of an earlier version can also 

receive documents created in later versions as long as the first digit of the Version is the same, 

provided that no data were included that use the new data elements, or new values of old 

data elements. 

PESC Workgroups and User Groups of Interest to AACRAO Members include: 

SM 

EdUnify : This web services group was launched to automate electronic lookup, reporting and 

exchange, PK12 and workforce linkages, and transfer of credit. 

Academic e-Portfolio: This workgroup holds regular conference calls and welcomes 

participation from anyone whose school or company is a member of PESC or AACRAO. 

Education Record User Group (ERUG) for Approved PESC XML and EDI Standards: 

PESC formed this user group that deals with maintenance of all of the approved XML schemas 

in the admissions and student records area, as well as all of the ANSI ASC X12 EDI Standards 

for the admissions and student records area. Tuan Anh Do of the AACRAO SPEEDE 

Committee currently co-chairs the User Group, with Mark Cohen from Parchment (formerly 

Docufide). 

ERUG currently holds hourly conference calls every other Tuesday at noon Eastern Time 

whenever there are agenda items to discuss. Anyone whose school or company is a member 

of PESC is welcome and encouraged to join ERUG and participate in discussion of proposed 

changes to existing schemas. 

Commit: This newly renamed workgroup will build upon earlier work done by other PESC 

groups to allow a person to create a secure valid log-on ID that can be used for future log-ons 

to multiple web sites (such as admission test sites or college admissions web sites). 

Canadian User Group: There is extensive volume production use of PESC XML schemas in 

the province of Alberta and a great deal of interest in the same in Ontario and British Columbia. 

There is also extensive use of the EDI Transcript Suite of Standards in Ontario and BC. This 

new group will explore issues of special interest to Canadian users (and potential users) of 

PESC XML schemas and EDI transaction sets. 

The group is now exploring the possibility of a nationwide electronic exchange of high school 

transcripts throughout Canada using the PESC XML High School Transcript as the standard. 

PESC XML Course Inventory Schema: This PESC Workgroup has submitted its first draft of 

this new schema that will allow the electronic exchange of detailed information about an 

education course. It would also facilitate the exchange of these data between a school and its 

course catalog vendor. 



Other Activities of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee: 

Crosswalks for EDI Transaction Sets to PESC XML Schemas, and vice-versa: Most schools that 

are just beginning to implement the electronic data exchange of postsecondary student transcripts are 

expected to implement the PESC XML format. However, almost all of the current production exchanges 

via the University of Texas SPEEDE Server are using the ANSI ASC X12 EDI format. To allow new 

users access to the established EDI exchanges, and to allow established EDI users to exchange with 

the new XML users, crosswalk rules are being developed from one format to the other. 

These rules were developed by the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee and approved by the PESC ERUG 

and are now posted on the PESC.org web site at http://www.pesc.org/interior.php?page_id=219 . 

Those approved to date are 

Crosswalk Rules Between Electronic Formats 

Document From Version To Version Date Approved 

PESC XML Version 1.0 EDI TS130 V 4010 March 2007 

College 

Transcript 

High School 

Transcript 

Transcript 


Transcript 

Request 

Response to 

Request for 

Transcript 

EDI TS130 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 March 2007 

PESC XML Version 1.1 EDI TS130 V 4010 November 2010 


PESC XML Version 1.3 EDI TS130 V 4010 April 2012 

PESC XML Version 1.0 EDI TS130 V 4010 July 2010 

PESC XML Version 1.1 EDI TS130 V 4010 September 2010 


EDI TS131 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 July 2010 

EDI TS146 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 November 2009 


PESC XML Version 1.0 EDI TS147 V 4010 May 2011 



Work is in progress for the crosswalk rules from the High School Transcript - EDI TS 130 Version 4010 

to PESC XML Version 1.0 and also for the PESC XML Response to a Request for a Student Transcript 

Version 1.0 to the EDI TS 147. 

In addition, the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) announced that it is working on a 

process that will convert PESC XML Transcript Schemas to EDI Transcripts, and vice versa, for the 

electronic exchange of student transcripts within the province of Ontario. 

State and Province Electronic Transmission Initiatives and Mandates: The AACRAO SPEEDE 

Committee now updates, every two or three months, a spreadsheet of the activities, mandates and 

initiatives of which we are aware in each US State and Canadian Province. We encourage you to 

review the spreadsheet to insure it is up to date for your state or province. 

We know there is a great deal of activity among AACRAO members in the secure exchange of PDF 

Student Transcripts. Since a large portion of these PDF documents do not go to postsecondary 

schools, we need you to report this PDF activity so it can be included in this document on the AACRAO 

web site. Please send any updates and corrections to stewartj@aol.com. It is now posted on the 

S P E E D E p a g e o n t h e A A C R A O w e b s i t e a t 

http://www.aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede/statestat.aspx . 

State EDI, XML, and PDF Contacts: The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee also recently updated the 

contacts l i s t . I t i s n o w p o s t e d o n t h e A A C R A O we b si t e at 

http://www.aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede/statecont.aspx . Please send updates and 

corrections to wbemis@usc.edu . 

Common Education Data Standards (CEDS): The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee, primarily through 

PESC, is involved in defining the data elements now being included in this national project. Version 2.0 

of this standard is now available at http://ceds.ed.gov and the proposed Version 3.0 is also available 

there. The review of Version 3.0 has begun and we hope that it will include even more data elements 

that are used in high school and college student transcripts. 

University of Texas at Austin Free SPEEDE Internet Server Operation: In October 2012, AACRAO 

made an announcement about a one year trial project for the National Student Clearinghouse to 

assume operation of the Texas Server. During this trial period, the use of the Texas SPEEDE Server 

will continue to be free for the electronic exchange of EDI and XML student records that utilize the 

PESC EDI and XML standards. 



University of Texas at Austin SPEEDE Internet Server: Shelby Stanfield, Vice Provost and University 

Registrar at UT Austin has provided us with the following information about the use of the Free Server. 

Cumulative 12 month stats are as of the end of October 2012: 

Description Last Year This Year Percent 

Change 

Number of TS130 Transcripts for October 105,432 104,926 0% 

Number of TS130 Transcripts for past 12 months 1,082,095 1,293,120 20% 

Number of TS131 Transcript Acknowledgments for 

October 


past 12 months 

Number of TS189 Applications for Admission for 

October 



87,698 146,892 67% 

1,036,251 1,447,019 40% 

172,628 207,581 20% 

1,418,558 1,538,981 8% 

Number of Total Transactions for October ** 324,552 550,652 14% 

Number of Total Transactions for past 12 months 

** 

4,197,650 5,046,549 20% 

Number of TS130 Sending Schools in October*** 163 182 12% 

Average Number of TS130 Sending Schools per 

month for past 12 months *** 

163 174 7% 

Number of TS130 Receiving Schools in October*** 271 294 8% 

Average Number of TS130 Receiving Schools per 


279 287 3% 

** Total Transactions include TS130 Transcripts, TS131 Acknowledgments, TS997 Functional 

Acknowledgments, TS 189 Applications for Admission, and TS138 Test Scores. 

*** In addition to this number of schools, there are other entities, such as Parchment, Florida K-12, 

Florida Postsecondary, Pearson, Texas Education Agency, Triand, and Xap Corporation, that distribute 

transcripts through the Server on behalf of multiple schools. 

XML Transcripts: In October 2012, 9 schools in 4 states (Arizona, Iowa, New Mexico, and Tennessee) 

exchanged 1,003 PESC XML Transcripts via the UT Austin SPEEDE Internet Server. 

Server Milestones: In October 2012, the UT Austin Server exchanged its 8 millionth TS130 transcript 

as well as its 33 millionth document via the SPEEDE Server at the University of Texas at Austin. 



Other Electronic Transmission Activity Not Using the Texas Server: North Carolina sends 

electronic high school transcripts within the statewide college access web portal, CFNC.org. Within this 

NC network, there are 528 high schools (representing all NC Local Education Agencies) sending 

electronic transcripts to 110 participating colleges and universities. For the months of September and 

October 2012, a total of 88,762 electronic high school transcripts were securely delivered. The 

breakdown is as follows: EDI TS130 – 209 and PESC XML – 88,583. On September 11, 2012, this 

system underwent major enhancements and is now fully converted to PESC XML. 

Other states and provinces that exchange PESC XML or EDI transcripts without the use of the Texas 

SPEEDE Server include Florida, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. 

For example, as of August 2012,a total of 320,152 PESC XML Admission Applications have been 

submitted by applicants since ApplyAlberta came online in October 2009. In addition, 78,488 PESC 

XML Postsecondary (College) Transcripts have been processed through the system. 

In August 2012, 3 schools in British Columbia sent 334 TS130 transcripts via the UT Austin SPEEDE 

Server. Langara College sent 279, Kwantlen Polytech U sent 33 and Douglas College sent 22. 

In addition, in August 2012, the following BC schools exchanged PESC XML transcripts with a BC 

Server: Douglas College sent 27 XML transcripts to Kwantlen Poly U; Kwantlen Polytechnic U sent 15 

XML transcripts to Douglas College and Simon Fraser U sent 51 XML transcripts to Douglas College 

and 15 to Kwantlen. 

And several vendors exchange many electronic high school and/or college transcripts using their own 

networks. These include Pearson (formerly National Transcript Center), Parchment (formerly Docufide), 

ConnectEDU and the several other vendors who distribute PDF transcripts. 

Future Meetings: The following are future events at which the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee is 

planning to participate: 

AACRAO Annual Meeting April 14 - 17, 2013 (Sunday through Wednesday) at the Moscone 

Conference Center West in San Francisco, CA 

PESC Spring Data Summit May 1 - 3, 2013 (Wednesday through Friday) at the Omni Hotel 

in San Diego, CA 

AACRAO Technology Conference July 14 -16, 2013 (Sunday through Tuesday) at the JW 

Marriott Starr Pass in Tucson, AZ 



AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Members for 2012-2013: 

W. Matt Bemis Associate Registrar, University of 

Southern California 

wbemis@usc.edu 

Jerry Bracken 

Tuan Anh Do 

Robin S. Greene, 

Chair 

Software Engineer, Core Services, 

Brigham Young University (UT) 

Assistant Director, Systems Support 

Group, Undergraduate Admissions, 

San Francisco State University (CA) 

Senior Associate Director of 

Technology and Internet Services, 

College Foundation of North Carolina, 

University of North Carolina General 

Administration 

jeraldbracken@gmail.com 

doey@sfsu.edu 

greeners@northcarolina.edu 

Doug Holmes, 

Scribe 

Susan Reyes 

Monterey E. Sims, 

Conferences 

Program 

Coordinator and 

Vice-Chair 

Rick Skeel 

John T. “Tom” 

Stewart 

Tim Tashjian 

Programmer Analyst III, Ontario 

Universities’ Application Centre, and 

Representative to the AACRAO 

SPEEDE Committee from the 

Association of Registrars of the 

Universities and Colleges of Canada 

(ARUCC) 

Analyst Programmer, San Diego State 

University (CA) 

Director of Operations/University 

Services Document Processing 

University of Phoenix (AZ) 

Director of Academic Records, 

University of Oklahoma 

Retired College Registrar, 

Miami Dade College (FL) 

Associate Director, Student 

Information Systems, Office of the 

Registrar, University of Texas at 

Austin 

doug@ouac.on.ca 

susan.reyes@sdsu.edu 

monterey.sims@phoenix.edu 

rskeel@ou.edu 

stewartj@aol.com 

tim.tashjian@austin.utexas.edu 

And that’s the update for the past two months from the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee. 


Summary of Activities, Meetings and Conference Calls 

of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee 

Months of November and December 2012 

This is an update for interested members of the AACRAO membership about 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 actively meets 

and works year round with a focus on the creation, maintenance, and promotion of 

standards for the electronic exchange of student transcripts and other student education 

records. The AACRAO SPEEDE committee reports to the AACRAO Vice President for 

Information Technology (Group VI), Jim Bouse. 

The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee currently meets at the AACRAO Annual Meeting, 

at the AACRAO Technology Conference and at the two PESC Data Summits each year. 

Discussions are under way for holding one meeting each year in conjunction with an 

AACRAO regional meeting, such as PACRAO, SACRAO, Middle States, etc. This would 

be in lieu of one of the PESC annual summits. 

Face to Face Meetings of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Held: None 

AACRAO SPEEDE Committee conference calls held (with number of participants): 

11/8/12 (6), 11/15/12 (7), 12/6/12 (7) and 12/13/12 (8). 

AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Changes: 

Rick Skeel: Rick retired from the University of Oklahoma at the end of October 

2012 and is now working with the Kuali Student project. 

Activities Related to PESC: AACRAO is a founding member of, and an active 

supporter and participant in the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council. PESC is 

the standards setting organization for the electronic exchange of student records in 

higher education in North America. 

! Rick Skeel officially stepped down from his position as AACRAO’s representative 

on the PESC Board of Directors in mid-November. We are waiting on the 

AACRAO Board to make a decision on his replacement. 

! Tuan Anh Do and Tom Stewart serve on the Change Control Board (CCB). 

! Tuan Anh Do also serves on the Technical Advisory Board (TAB). 

! Robin Greene and Monterey Sims serve with the Seal of Approval Program. 

January 16, 2013 Page 1 of 8 pages by Tom Stewart

November and December 2012 Report from AACRAO SPEEDE Committee 

Approved PESC XML Standards of Interest to AACRAO Members Include: 

Schema Version Date Approved 

College Transcript 

High School Transcript 

Transcript 


Batch Submission 

Request for Student 

Transcript 

Response to a Request 

for Student Transcript 

Application for Admission 

Education Test Score 

Reporting 

1.0 May 2004 



1.3 June 2011 

1.4 June 2012 

1.0 June 2006 


1.2 June 2011 

1.3 June 2012 

1.0 July 2007 

1.1 June 2011 

1.0 July 2007 

2.0 February 2008 


1.1 June 2011 

1.2 June 2012 


1.1 June 2011 

1.2 June 2012 

1.0 August 2009 

1.1 June 2011 

1.0 August 2009 

IPEDS Graduation Rates 1.0 March 2010 

IPEDS Fall Enrollment 1.0 August 2009 

IPEDS 12 Month 

Enrollment and 

Completions 


PDF Attachments 1.0 January 2011 

Functional 

Acknowledgment 1.0 December 2010 



It is recommended that all users update to the latest version of each schema. All users who 

have updated to the latest version can accept all documents created with all earlier versions as 

long as the first digit of the Version Number is the same. All users of an earlier version can also 

receive documents created in later versions as long as the first digit of the Version is the same, 

provided that no data were included that use the new data elements, or new values of old 

data elements. 

PESC Workgroups and User Groups of Interest to AACRAO Members include: 

SM 

EdUnify : This web services group was launched to automate electronic lookup, reporting and 

exchange, PK12 and workforce linkages, and transfer of credit. 

Academic e-Portfolio: This workgroup holds regular conference calls and welcomes 

participation from anyone whose school or company is a member of PESC or AACRAO. 

Education Record User Group (ERUG) for Approved PESC XML and EDI Standards: PESC 

formed this user group that deals with maintenance of all of the approved XML schemas in the 

admissions and student records area, as well as all of the ANSI ASC X12 EDI Standards for the 

admissions and student records area. Tuan Anh Do of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee 

currently co-chairs the User Group, with Mark Cohen from Parchment (formerly Docufide). 

In November 2012, ERUG approved a request from the province of Alberta, Canada, to modify 

the complex data element “AgencyIdentifier” as defined in the XML Admissions sector library 

to make the instance documents it produces, compatible with those produced in the XML 

transcript schemas. 

ERUG currently holds hourly conference calls every Tuesday at noon Eastern Time whenever 

there are agenda items to discuss. Anyone whose school or company is a member of PESC 

is welcome and encouraged to join ERUG and participate in discussion of proposed changes 

to existing schemas. 

Commit: This newly renamed workgroup will build upon earlier work done by other PESC 

groups to allow a person to create a secure valid log-on ID that can be used for future log-ons 

to multiple web sites (such as admission test sites or college admissions web sites). 

Canadian User Group: There is extensive volume production use of PESC XML schemas in 

the province of Alberta and a great deal of interest in the same in Ontario and British Columbia. 

There is also extensive use of the EDI Transcript Suite of Standards in Ontario and BC. This new 

group will explore issues of special interest to Canadian users (and potential users) of PESC 

XML schemas and EDI transaction sets. 

The group is now exploring the possibility of a nationwide electronic exchange of high school 

transcripts throughout Canada using the PESC XML High School Transcript as the standard. 

PESC XML Course Inventory Schema: This PESC Workgroup has submitted its first draft of 

this new schema that will allow the electronic exchange of detailed information about an 

education course. It would also facilitate the exchange of these data between a school and its 

course catalog vendor. 



Other Activities of the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee: 

Crosswalks for EDI Transaction Sets to PESC XML Schemas, and vice-versa: Most schools that 

are just beginning to implement the electronic data exchange of postsecondary student transcripts are 

expected to implement the PESC XML format. However, almost all of the current production exchanges 

via the University of Texas SPEEDE Server are using the ANSI ASC X12 EDI format. To allow new 

users access to the established EDI exchanges, and to allow established EDI users to exchange with 

the new XML users, crosswalk rules are being developed from one format to the other. 

These rules were developed by the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee and approved by the PESC ERUG 

and are now posted on the PESC.org web site at http://www.pesc.org/interior.php?page_id=219 . 

Those approved to date are 

Crosswalk Rules Between Electronic Formats 

Document From Version To Version Date Approved 

PESC XML Version 1.0 EDI TS130 V 4010 March 2007 

College 

Transcript 

High School 

Transcript 

Transcript 


Transcript 

Request 

Response to 

Request for 

Transcript 

EDI TS130 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 March 2007 



PESC XML Version 1.3 EDI TS130 V 4010 April 2012 


PESC XML Version 1.1 EDI TS130 V 4010 September 2010 


EDI TS131 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 July 2010 

EDI TS146 Version 4010 PESC XML V 1.0 November 2009 


PESC XML Version 1.0 EDI TS147 V 4010 May 2011 



Work is in progress for the crosswalk rules from the High School Transcript - EDI TS 130 Version 4010 

to PESC XML Version 1.0 and also for the PESC XML Response to a Request for a Student Transcript 

Version 1.0 to the EDI TS 147. 

In addition, the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) announced that it is working on a 

process that will convert PESC XML Transcript Schemas to EDI Transcripts, and vice versa, for the 

electronic exchange of student transcripts within the province of Ontario. 

State and Province Electronic Transmission Initiatives and Mandates: The AACRAO SPEEDE 

Committee now updates, every two or three months, a spreadsheet of the activities, mandates and 

initiatives of which we are aware in each US State and Canadian Province. We encourage you to review 

the spreadsheet to insure it is up to date for your state or province. If not, please let us know. 

We know there is a great deal of activity among AACRAO members in the secure exchange of PDF 

Student Transcripts. Since a large portion of these PDF documents do not go to postsecondary schools, 

we need you to report this PDF activity so it can be included in this document on the AACRAO web site. 

Please send any updates and corrections to stewartj@aol.com. It is now posted on the SPEEDE page 

on the AACRAO web site at http://www.aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede/statestat.aspx 

. 

State EDI, XML, and PDF Contacts: The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee also recently updated the 

c ont ac t s l i s t . I t i s now p os t ed on t he AACRAO w eb s i t e at 

http://www.aacrao.org/About-AACRAO/committees/speede/statecont.aspx . Please send updates and 

corrections to wbemis@usc.edu . 

Common Education Data Standards (CEDS): The AACRAO SPEEDE Committee, primarily through 

PESC, is involved in defining the data elements now being included in this national project. Version 2.0 

of this standard is now available at http://ceds.ed.gov and the proposed Version 3.0 is also available 

there. The review of Version 3.0 has begun and we hope that it will include even more data elements 

that are used in high school and college student transcripts. 

University of Texas at Austin Free SPEEDE Internet Server Operation: In October 2012, AACRAO 

made an announcement about a one year trial project for the National Student Clearinghouse to assume 

operation of the Texas SPEEDE Server. During this trial period, the use of the Texas SPEEDE Server 

will continue to be free for the electronic exchange of EDI and XML student records that utilize the PESC 

EDI and XML standards. 

NASDTEC Presentation about UT Austin SPEEDE Server at the NASDTEC conference in June 

2013: Shelby Stanfield will present a program session at the June 2013 annual conference in Austin, 

Texas of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. 



University of Texas at Austin SPEEDE Internet Server: Shelby Stanfield, the Vice Provost and 

University Registrar at UT Austin has provided us with the following information about the use of the 

Free SPEEDE Server. Cumulative 12 month stats are as of the end of November 2012: 

Description Last Year This Year Percent 

Change 

Number of TS130 Transcripts for November 107,322 116,047 8% 

Number of TS130 Transcripts for past 12 months 1,100,863 1,301,845 18% 


November 




November 



118,121 172,977 46% 

1,059,856 1,501,875 42% 

246,504 266,215 8% 

1,443,399 1,558,692 8% 

Number of Total Transactions for November ** 576,981 660,187 14% 

Number of Total Transactions for past 12 months ** 4,283,462 5,129,755 20% 

Number of TS130 Sending Schools in November*** 166 183 10% 

Average Number of TS130 Sending Schools per 


Number of TS130 Receiving Schools in 

November*** 

Average Number of TS130 Receiving Schools per 


164 176 7% 

282 298 6% 

278 289 4% 

** Total Transactions include TS130 Transcripts, TS131 Acknowledgments, TS997 Functional 

Acknowledgments, TS 189 Applications for Admission, and TS138 Test Scores. 

*** In addition to this number of schools, there are other entities, such as Parchment, Florida K-12, 

Florida Postsecondary, Pearson, Texas Education Agency, Triand, and Xap Corporation, that distribute 

transcripts through the Server on behalf of multiple schools. 

XML Transcripts: In December 2012, 14 schools in 3 states (Arizona, New Mexico, and Tennessee) 

exchanged 1,387 PESC XML Transcripts via the UT Austin SPEEDE Internet Server. 

Server Milestones: In November 2012, the UT Austin Server exchanged its 9 millionth TS189 

application for admission, as well as its 34 millionth document via the SPEEDE Server at the University 

of Texas at Austin. 



Other Electronic Transmission Activity Not Using the Texas Server: North Carolina sends 

electronic high school transcripts within the statewide college access web portal, CFNC.org. Within this 

NC network, there are 524 high schools (representing all NC Local Education Agencies) sending 

electronic transcripts to 110 participating colleges and universities. For the months of November and 

December 2012, a total of 82,581 electronic high school transcripts were securely delivered in the PESC 

XML format. On September 11, 2012, this system underwent major enhancements and is now fully 

converted to PESC XML. 

Other states and provinces that exchange PESC XML or EDI transcripts without the use of the Texas 

SPEEDE Server include Florida, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. 

For example, in Canada, as of August 2012, a total of 320,152 PESC XML Admission Applications have 

been submitted by applicants since ApplyAlberta came online in October 2009. In addition, 78,488 PESC 

XML Postsecondary (College) Transcripts have been processed through the Alberta system. 

In August 2012, 3 schools in British Columbia sent 334 TS130 transcripts via the UT Austin SPEEDE 

Server. Langara College sent 279, Kwantlen Polytech U sent 33 and Douglas College sent 22. 

In addition, in August 2012, the following BC schools exchanged PESC XML transcripts with a BC 

Server: Douglas College sent 27 XML transcripts to Kwantlen Poly U; Kwantlen Polytechnic U sent 15 

XML transcripts to Douglas College and Simon Fraser U sent 51 XML transcripts to Douglas College 

and 15 to Kwantlen. 

And several vendors exchange many electronic high school and/or college transcripts using their own 

networks. These include Pearson (formerly National Transcript Center), Parchment (formerly Docufide), 

ConnectEDU and the several other vendors who distribute PDF transcripts. 

Future Meetings: The following are future events at which the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee is 

planning to participate: 

AACRAO Annual Meeting April 14 - 17, 2013 (Sunday through Wednesday) at the Moscone 

Conference Center West in San Francisco, CA 

PESC Spring Data Summit May 1 - 3, 2013 (Wednesday through Friday) at the Omni Hotel in 

San Diego, CA 

AACRAO Technology Conference July 14 -16, 2013 (Sunday through Tuesday) at the JW 

Marriott Starr Pass in Tucson, AZ 



AACRAO SPEEDE Committee Members for 2012-2013: 

W. Matt Bemis Associate Registrar, University of 

Southern California 

Jerry Bracken 

Tuan Anh Do 

Robin S. Greene, 

Chair 

Software Engineer, Core Services, 

Brigham Young University (UT) 

Assistant Director, Systems Support 

Group, Undergraduate Admissions, 

San Francisco State University (CA) 

Senior Associate Director of 

Technology and Internet Services, 

College Foundation of North Carolina, 

University of North Carolina General 

Administration 

wbemis@usc.edu 

jeraldbracken@gmail.com 

doey@sfsu.edu 

greeners@northcarolina.edu 

Doug Holmes, 

Scribe 

Susan Reyes 

Monterey E. Sims, 

Conferences 

Program 

Coordinator and 

Vice-Chair 

Rick Skeel 

John T. “Tom” 

Stewart 

Programmer Analyst III, Ontario 

Universities’ Application Centre, and 

Representative to the AACRAO 

SPEEDE Committee from the 

Association of Registrars of the 

Universities and Colleges of Canada 

(ARUCC) 

Analyst Programmer, San Diego State 

University (CA) 

Director of Operations/University 

Services Document Processing 

University of Phoenix (AZ) 

Director of Academic Records, 

University of Oklahoma 

Retired College Registrar, 

Miami Dade College (FL) 

doug@ouac.on.ca 

susan.reyes@sdsu.edu 

monterey.sims@phoenix.edu 

rskeel@ou.edu 

stewartj@aol.com 

And that’s the update for the past two months from the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee. 


Information 

Technology in 

Higher Education: 

2012 Survey of Chief 

Information Officers 

Executive Summary 

Dr. Ed Aractingi, Marshall University 

Len De Botton, Berkeley College 

Dr. Jerome P. DeSanto, University of Scranton 

Dr. Jan Fox, Marshall University 

Doyle Friskney, University of Kentucky 

Dr. Vince Kellen, University of Kentucky 

Dr. James Lyall, Metropolitan State University of Denver 

Dr. David Rotman, Cedarville University 

Dr. Tina Stuchell, University of Mount Union 

Dr. Michael Zastrocky, LBCIO 

Sponsored by:

2 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Table of contents 

Introduction 

Overview of Results..........................................................4 

Financial and Budget Planning...........................................4 

IT Organization and Governance........................................5 

Consumerization of IT.......................................................8 

Administrative Computing...............................................10 

Academic Computing......................................................13 

Infrastructure and Networking.........................................16 

Cloud Computing and New and Emerging Technologies......18 

Summary and Methodology.............................................22

The entire content in this report, including but not 

limited to text, design, graphics, and the selection and 

arrangements thereof, is copyrighted as a collective work 

under the United States and other copyright laws, and is 

the property of The Leadership Board for CIO’s 

Copyright © 2012. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

1271 Cedar Street Broomfield, CO 80020. 

Telephone: (303) 807-9408. 

You may electronically copy, download, and print 

hard copy portions of the report solely for your own, 

noncommercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, 

transmit, display, reproduce, publish, license, create 

derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information 

obtained from this report without the express, written 

authorization of The LBCIO.

INTRODUCTION 

Chief information officers (CIOs) in higher 

education face a daunting task today as 

they must manage tight budgets, increasing 

demand for services and support, and a loss 

of experienced people in the face of retirement 

or attrition with no replacements. Although 

information technology (IT) leaders must 

understand new and emerging technologies, 

CIOs don’t want to get caught making a decision 

that could be the next “NeXT” computer. (NeXT 

was the failed computing paradigm promoted by 

Steve Jobs in 1988, which cost the jobs of a few 

CIOs who bought into the paradigm.) However, 

they can’t stand still and sit on current and 

past performances and applications. They are 

responsible for IT assets that are increasing in 

value and that support all faculty, staff, students, 

trustees, alumni, and other constituents. Knowing 

what peers are doing and thinking about can 

help CIOs sleep better at night, which is the main 

purpose for the 2012 LBCIO CIO Survey 

for Higher Education. 

This survey was developed as a global survey 

to provide CIOs with key metrics to help them 

do the work of managing and planning IT for 

their institutions. Results from the survey are 

shared only in the aggregate, with no cost to 

members and CIOs who complete the survey. 

Numbers reported are not meant to provide 

market research but simply tell the story of 

what CIOs are currently doing and thinking 

about for the future. 

To get a complete picture of IT on campuses 

today, the Leadership Board for CIOs surveyed a 

broad range of colleges and universities in May 

2012 to collect strategic and tactical information 

on major issues that higher education CIOs face. 

Survey questions included financial and budget 

information for IT; organizational and governance 

questions; personnel and staffing questions; 

infrastructure and networking questions 

(including security issues); and questions about 

consumerization, administrative computing 

plans, strategic planning for IT, academic uses 

of information technologies, and plans for new 

and emerging technology. Dr. Michael Zastrocky, 

Executive Director of LBCIO, was assisted by the 

following LBCIO board members: Dr. Ed Aractingi, 

Assistant Director, Marshall University; Len 

De Botton, CIO, Berkeley College; Dr. Jerome P. 

DeSanto, CIO, University of Scranton; Dr. Jan Fox, 

CIO, Marshall University; Doyle Friskney, Chief 

Technology Officer (CTO), University of Kentucky; 

Dr. Vince Kellen, CIO, University of Kentucky; Dr. 

James Lyall, CIO, Metropolitan State University 

of Denver; Dr David Rotman, CIO, Cedarville 

University; and Dr. Tina Stuchell, Director of IT, 

University of Mount Union in the analysis of this 

year’s survey results. 

The 2012 LBCIO survey added a few questions 

about CIO demographics and others that were 

ranked high on the LBCIO list of top issues facing 

CIOs in higher education in 2012. These include 

questions concerning the administration and 

use of student computing fees, more questions 

on consumerization and BYOD (Bring Your Own 

Device), and more attention on IT organization, 

governance, and security. 

About the LBCIO 

The Leadership Board for CIOs in Higher Education (LBCIO) Survey is a project of 

the LBCIO, lead independently by Dr. Michael Zastrocky. When first fielded in 2010, 

the survey was a joint effort by Dr. Zastrocky and The Chronicle of Higher Education, 

Inc. Dr. Zastrocky publishes this global survey to provide CIOs with key metrics to 

help them do the work of managing and planning IT for their institutions.

4 

Overview of Results 

Knowing what other CIOs are doing and thinking about 

brings some degree of comfort and assurance to CIOs as 

they plan for the future. In this year’s survey, we continue 

to find CIOs grappling with difficult budgets and limited 

strategies for increasing available resources. We also 

find that even though CIOs are concerned about “new 

and emerging technologies,” most of what they list are 

not really new and emerging technologies but rather 

where they need to invest in the future. 

Budgets continue to remain tight as more than 60% of 

institutions report their institutional budgets decreasing 

or staying the same. Staffing continues to be an issue 

for many institutions, as increased numbers of CIOs 

reported that their IT staff size decreased from last year. 

Many CIOs are cautiously optimistic about the use of 

shared services and collaboration to improve life and 

budgets on some campuses, and movement to the cloud 

continues to grow, but with caution on the administrative 

application side. The consumerization movement or 

BYOD continues to grow, and 98% of CIOs report that 

consumerization is significantly or moderately affecting 

their institution. Network expansion continues to plague 

many institutions, as fewer institutions reported spending 

money and time on a security audit than in the prior year: 

37% in 2012 vs. 41% in 2011. The growth in the use 

of cloud computing continues, but more with academic 

resources and applications than financial applications. 

Overall, the data shows that CIOs face major challenges 

but seem to be continuing to provide service and support 

for an increasing number and variety of applications 

and constituents. 

Financial and 

Budget Planning 

The days of cyclical roller coaster budgets in higher 

education, with several years of budget increases 

followed by a few years of decreased budgets, appear 

to be over. In the past five years, CIOs are consistently 

reporting tight budgets, with fewer reporting overall 

institutional budget increases; more report decreases or 

budgets staying flat. At the same time, as institutional 

budgets remain tight, IT budgets often lag behind the 

institutional budget even as many CIOs find demand 

for IT services and new technologies increasing. In 

2012, CIOs at research universities seem to be doing 

better, with 48.1% reporting IT budget increases while 

only 28.6% of two-year institutions reported IT budget 

increases. 

• This year, 23% of institutions reported that their 

institutional budget stayed the same as their 

prior year budget, while 34% indicated that their 

institutional budget decreased. In 2011, almost 31% 

reported that their budgets stayed the same and 29% 

indicated that their institutional budget decreased. 

• Slightly more than 43% of institutions said that their 

institutional budget increased, which is up almost 3% 

over 2011 figures. 

• Cautious optimism continues, as 70% of institutions 

expect institutional budgets to either grow (39%) or 

stay the same (31%) in the year ahead. 

• Optimistically, slightly more than 41% of institutions 

said that institutional budgets grew in 2012, a 7% 

increase from 2011. 

Budgets for Information Technology 

IT spending is tracking closely with overall institutional 

budgets. In 2012, almost 59% of the institutions 

reported that their IT budgets decreased or stayed the 

same. This represents a 5% reduction from 2011 figures. 

• This year, 30% of institutions reported that their 

IT budgets stayed the same as their prior year’s IT 

budget. In 2011, 42% reported that their budgets 

stayed the same. 

• However, 4% more institutions in 2012 reported a 

decrease from their prior year budget. In 2012, 29% 

reported a decrease, compared with 25% in 2011. 

• The good news is that since 2010, institutions 

showing growth in their IT budgets improved from 24% 

reporting increases in IT budgets in 2010 to 34% in 

2011, and 41% in 2012. 

Pessimism about IT budgets for the future seems to 

be greatest at two-year institutions. Only 4.8% expect 

IT budget increases next year, compared with 39% at 

four-year institutions, 32% at four-year institutions with 

master’s degree programs, 42% at doctoral-granting 

institutions, and 46% at research universities.

2012 Survey of Chief Information Officers 

5 

Stretching IT Funding 

Among the new questions on the survey this year was, 

“What strategies are being considered for stretching 

IT funding?” Institutions were asked to select all the 

strategies that applied. On the top of the list was 

delayed maintenance or replacement selected by 80% 

of respondents, while 73% selected shared services/ 

collaboration with other institutions as a means of 

stretching IT funding. Next on the list was a greater 

use of open source selected by 52% of institutions, 

followed by cutting services (41%), and other new 

revenue selected by 35%. 

Delayed maintenance and replacements are still being 

utilized to stretch available budgets, but this strategy will 

hit home in the next few years as the backlog of work 

and failure of old technologies come home to roost. 

This problem was highlighted in the book The Decaying 

American Campus: A Ticking Time Bomb, published by 

APPA (The Association for Leadership in Educational 

Facilities) and NACUBO (the National Association of 

College and University Business Officers) in 1989. At 

some point, the cost for deferred maintenance exceeds 

the cost of continual renewal and replacements. CIOs 

must be careful not to press too hard on short-term 

budget savings, which will ultimately cost the institution 

more in the long run while increasing customer 

frustrations. 

Strategies Being Considered to Stretch IT Funding 

Other new revenue streams including increased fees, 

selling services 

35.3% 

Cutting services 

Greater use of Open Source 

Shared services/collaboration with other institutions 

72.9% 

No new strategies 

40.6% 

51.2% 

7.2% 

IT Organization 

and Governance 

CIOs face unique challenges created in part by the 

institutional governance structures and the unpredictable 

financial environments of the past few years. Recent 

budget fluctuations are influencing the workforce 

as well as decisions to outsource certain services. 

Institutions are not increasing their use of student 

workers and have been less consistent in retaining or 

growing full-time staffing levels. Outsourcing and cloud 

computing continue to grow, but there is a dichotomy 

in the type and level of institution that is satisfied with 

these options. Those institutions—which were already 

outsourcing networking, administrative applications, 

and lab maintenance/support or project management— 

were also very likely to consider moving their e-mail and 

social networking to the cloud. University CIOs regularly 

find themselves at the nexus of numerous institutional 

discussions and decisions, many of which are becoming 

more strategic in nature and include topics that are not 

normally seen in the CIO purview. 

University leaders increasingly look to CIOs to provide 

leadership and expertise in IT services, but the CIO 

also must be savvy in a larger spectrum of institutional 

knowledge and skills reserved for other business units. 

Business process improvement and strategic planning at 

the institutional level lead the way for the CIO to provide 

the most value. The level of educational attainment and 

the business maturity of the person in the CIO role often 

influence the reporting hierarchy. CIOs are relying more 

on IT governance models to aid in the decision making 

and to involve business unit leaders in best applying 

IT solutions to business problems. These governance 

committees are tending to include higher-level university 

leaders, board members, and even external advisers. 

Although CIOs consider this input to be very important, 

the majority still say that the final IT decision should 

be theirs. 

Staffing 

CIO staffing patterns have changed since the 2010 

survey. For the past two years, the CIOs reported full-time 

staff numbers moving from flat to the more extremes. 

Depending on the institution, almost one-third either 

reduced or added to their staffs. This differs from 2010,

6 

when the majority of IT staffs were the same from the 

previous year (56%). 

In the upcoming year, most CIOs predict their staffs 

to stay the same (53.4%). Though finances have been 

difficult for the past few years, more than a quarter 

(26.7%) of university CIOs reported projecting an 

increase in their staffs, with only 19.9% predicting a 

decrease; this was consistent with last year’s figure. 

Just two years ago, only 15% predicted a staff increase, 

with the vast majority reporting flat (56.4%) projections. 

In nearly 60% of IT departments, student workers 

compose up to 10% of their workforce. Only a small 

percentage (9.3%) of institutions utilize students for 

20% or more of the workload. 

Our survey does not show a major shift occurring in 

IT student workers. For the past three years, most 

institutions (more than 60%) have predicted zero growth 

in their student worker population. This trend continues 

Has your full-time IT staff: 

Stayed the same 

Decreased in the past 12 months 

Increased in the past 12 months 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 

2010 2011 2012 

Do you expect IT staff to: 

Stay the same 

Decrease in the next year 

Increase in the next year 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 

for next year, with an even larger percentage (67%) 

predicting the same level of student workers. 

Outsourcing 

More than 81% of the CIOs expect to outsource some 

form of IT services or support. E-mail/social networking 

communications lead the way at 84.1%, followed by 

academic applications (57.4%), web development 

(38.5%), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) (35.9%). 

University CIOs are least likely to outsource the university 

network (6.2%) or security (5.6%). 

For those who outsource their central help desk, 52.1% 

were pleased but 21.7% were dissatisfied. Outsourcing 

for smaller institutions (up to 3,000 full-time employees 

[FTE]) was more positive (75%). This statistic may be due 

to a lack of depth or breadth of expertise normally found 

at larger institutions. Yet more than a third of institutions, 

both in the middle and large ranges (5,001 to 10,000, 

and more than 10,000 but fewer than 25,000 FTE) of 

students were displeased with outsourcing their central 

help desk. 

Those institutions already comfortable with outsourcing 

one or more services were likewise comfortable in 

progressing with plans to move their e-mail/social 

networking communications to the cloud. A similar 

association appeared for those who had outsourced 

their lab maintenance and support (PCs). They were also 

more likely to progress with plans to outsource their Web 

development.


7 

What’s being considered for moving to the cloud 

Administrative applications (ERP) 35.9% 

Academic applications including 

course management systems/learning 

management systems 

57.4% 

Web development/applications 38.5% 

E-mail/social networking/communications 84.1% 

Networking 6.2% 

Security 5.6% 

Where does the CIO report? 

More than 2 levels from CEO 

2 Levels from CEO 

Organization 

CIOs more often report to the chief executive officer 

(CEO, who may be a president, rector, or vice chancellor) 

of the institution than to any other level (33.7%). This 

is consistent with the previous two years, but slightly 

fewer than last year. There was some growth in CIOs 

reporting to the chief financial officer (22.9%). CIOs are 

finding themselves in more strategic roles and less in 

operational roles over last year’s figures. Those indicating 

more strategic roles reported to the CEO (79.7%) or chief 

operating officer (COO) (80%), while the reverse was true 

(57.1%) for those reporting two levels from the CEO. 

In general, university CIOs have a high degree of 

confidence in their knowledge of a wide range of 

university operations but feel they need additional 

understanding of the university competitors. This is 

more likely to occur for CIOs with the most experience 

in their current roles, those who hold terminal degrees 

(86% of CIOs with terminal degrees are satisfied with 

their familiarity with and understanding of competitors, 

compared with 64% of those with bachelor’s degrees and 

68% with master’s degrees), and those who report at the 

highest level. 

Virtually all reporting institutions indicated the need 

for some form of IT governance. Governance models 

are moving to include higher-level institutional decision 

makers, board members, and external advisers. The 

increasing strategic nature and importance of technology 

across traditional and nontraditional IT areas has 

spurred a new level of interest in all sectors of the 

campus community. All desire to provide input to the IT 

priorities and policies. 

Chief Operating Officer 

Chief Financial Officer 

Chief Academic Officer 

Directly to the CEO (Pres., Rector, Vice-Chancellor) 

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 

2010 2011 2012

8 

In 2012, CIOs most often reported (57.4%) that they 

rely upon IT governance to aid in decision making, but 

ultimately the decisions are theirs. Almost one-third 

of CIOs reported low or no reliance on a governance 

structure. CIOs consistently report the importance of 

governance structures as very high or high (73% in 2011 

and 2012). More than 80% use high-level committees 

that set the IT institutional priorities; this is a 10% rise 

over last year’s reported numbers. Twenty-two percent 

included boards of trustees/directors/governors, and 

14.4% included external advisory boards. 

Business process and strategic planning were the 

leading areas in which CIOs reported adding the most 

value to the institution, 93.6% and 89.7% respectively. 

The other two critical areas were teaching and 

learning innovation, and modeling and leading projectmanagement 

initiatives (74.5% and 71.6%, respectively). 

As CIOs add value to their institutions, the vast majority 

(more than 84%) felt very comfortable with their 

knowledge of the higher-education industry, customers, 

business processes, and financial issues. Only 71.9% 

felt comfortable with their knowledge of the institution’s 

competitors. 

Consumerization 

of IT 

The consumerization of IT is defined as the introduction 

and integration of consumer-grade devices and services 

into the institutional enterprise. Consumerization is 

becoming more evident with each passing month. It is 

evidenced by the BYOD movement as well as workers 

and students extending their consumer experiences 

and preferences into the typical college campus. 

Consumerization is synonymous for many with the idea 

of personalization, where the individual has a strong, 

unwavering desire to customize or personalize their IT 

work or learning experience. 

Clearly illustrating this upswing in IT consumerization 

recognition or impact is the first table, which shows that 

98% of CIOs believe that IT consumerization is having 

a significant or moderate impact on their campus. 

This is as close to unanimous consent as one gets. In 

comparison, last year’s reported number was 95%, so 

the issue is not going away; it remains a significant issue 

for CIOs. 

How is the consumerization of IT 

affecting your campus? 

2012 2011 

Significantly 43.6% 38% 

Moderately 54.4% 57% 

Not at all 2% 5.1% 

When asked how the effects of consumerization were 

manifesting themselves, CIOs agreed that mobility and 

security issues topped their list, with consistent ratings 

between about 75% and 85%. Thus, CIOs are focused on 

the fact that consumerization is affecting their planning 

for wireless services and their security posture. We are 

hearing much more of late about enhancements being 

needed for campus wireless networks and for launching 

mobile-device management applications. 

Interestingly, when CIOs think about those customers 

who are most embracing consumerization, students rise 

to the top of the list, at an average just exceeding 90%. 

Faculty numbers follow at around 64%, with staff coming 

in at approximately 50%. This supports the notion that 

students are introducing a degree of uncertainty to the 

mix for the CIO, while faculty and staff are somewhat 

more predictable in their behaviors. 

CIO Responses on Areas Affected 

by Consumerization 

Networking and security 

Mobility issues for administrative applications/services 

75.1% 

Mobility issues for academic applications/services 

88.3% 

Other (please specify) 

83.8% 

6.1%


9 

Potential Benefits of Consumerization 

Impact on IT Staff Training and Development 

None 

5.0% 

No, it is not having any IT staff impact 

18.0% 

Less need for community labs 

43.5% 

Yes, we need to hire new people with different skills 

29.5% 

More competitive positioning for your institutions 

48.5% 6.1% 

Less IT staff needed 

Freedom of choice 

Financial Savings 

Top 5 Potential Problems with Consumerization 

Integration with existing systems 

Data integrity consistency 

Greater security issues/problems 

More bandwidth needed 

More staff needed for support 

Early in the onset of the consumerization movement, 

some thought that consumerization might drive 

cost savings on the college campus by triggering 

11.5% 

78.0% 

40.0% 

77.1% 

52.2% 

94.5% 

73.6% 

56.7% 6.1% 

Yes, more training/professional development needed 

with curent staff 

69.0% 

the incremental removal or reduction of IT-provided 

devices. However, to date CIOs are not seeing this 

as an advantage. Rather, CIOs see the advantages of 

consumerization residing in intangibles, such as freedom 

of choice at 78% and competitive positioning for their 

respective institutions at 48.5%. These numbers track 

close to 2011 numbers illustrating this point well. 

CIOs are quick to cite numerous challenges associated 

with the consumerization movement. Heightened security 

issues are cited first at 95%, followed by integration 

issues at 77%. Listed third are bandwidth issues at 

73%. Thus, it follows that IT planning is crucial when 

it comes to consumerization. For the most part, these 

percentages track closely to 2011 numbers. However, it 

is worth noting that bandwidth concerns saw a jump from 

62% to almost 74%, which underscores the pressure 

that CIOs are feeling with respect to their network 

infrastructure. 

CIOs weighed in on how IT consumerization was affecting 

their staff. The most revealing evidence of this seems to 

be in the escalating need for staff development to learn 

how to support the plethora of new devices appearing 

on campus. The survey shows that almost 70% of 

CIOs believe that more staff training and development 

is needed to cope with all of the new devices and 

applications that consumerization brings. In addition, 

almost 30% of the CIOs participating in the study assert 

that they need to recruit new staff with different skill sets 

to support this new generation of users and devices. 

This indication begins to illustrate the shift away from the 

typical desktop support staffing models to more diverse 

support paradigms that are focused on mobile devices.

10 

New to the study in 2012 is a question regarding the 

CIOs’ commitment to mobile development. Almost 

two-thirds of the CIOs indicated that their staff is 

developing mobile applications as part of their mobiledevelopment 

portfolio. Fifty percent of the CIOs have 

opted to outsource part of this same portfolio, 25% are 

purchasing an entire mobile suite of applications, and 

approximately another 25% are currently working with a 

development partner. From these responses, it is clear 

that many CIOs are doing a combination of things with 

respect to applications, with some insourcing and some 

outsourcing in this relatively new area of development. 

In summary, this section of the survey shows a growing 

acknowledgment that consumerization is a significant 

issue that needs to become a key part of a campus 

IT plan. As with many new IT developments, CIOs 

see consumerization as a blessing and a curse. It is 

undoubtedly an unstoppable force to be embraced, with 

implications that stretch across the entire campus IT 

enterprise. It is also here to stay. 

Concerning Mobile Development... 

We are working with a development partner 

We are purchasing a mobile system/suite 

We are outsourcing or buying apps for mobile devices 

51.1% 

We are developing in-house applications for 

specific devices 

26.7% 

25.6% 

65.6% 

Administrative 

Computing 

Colleges and universities continue to make substantial 

investments in administrative systems. They are 

important to any higher-education institution because 

they are responsible for managing institutional business 

processes and transactions as well as student systems 

to support enrollment, grading and transcripting, and 

student accounts receivables. Today, it accounts for the 

largest segment of the IT budget, and every student, 

faculty, and staff member on campus uses these 

systems in some way. 

Have universities changed their thinking on 

administrative systems in the past few years? What are 

they thinking about for the future? With topics such as 

cloud computing, BYOD, risk assessment, and security 

facing today’s CIOs, we look at what CIOs consider to 

be important about administrative systems. This year’s 

LBCIO survey asked questions to gauge what CIOs are 

thinking about and planning for administrative systems. 

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) 

ERP systems have been available to institutions for 

more than 35 years. They were first put in place to help 

address problems of running separate systems and 

maintaining separate databases. Some institutions 

continue to use these types of applications. A vast 

majority of those who responded to the survey (86%) 

use ERP vendor-supplied solutions today for their 

core administrative applications. Core administrative 

applications include financials, student systems, human 

resources, and advancement. According to the survey, 

only 7% use best-of-breed solutions (which can be a 

mix of vendor applications and home-grown and/or 

open-source applications), while 4% use home-grown 

solutions. 

Of those surveyed, 94% use vendor-supplied financial 

systems, 91% use vendor-supplied student systems, 

89% use vendor-supplied human resource systems, and 

91% use vendor-supplied advancement systems. Only 

3% use home-grown financial systems, 8% use homegrown 

student systems, 6% use home-grown human 

resource systems, and 4% use home-grown advancement 

systems. The data also show that the majority of the


11 

Core Administrative Applications Are 

institutions had their administrative systems tightly 

integrated. Of those surveyed, 75% responded that their 

solutions where tightly integrated, compared with 23% 

responding that their systems were loosely integrated 

and 2% responding with no integration. 

From the survey result, one can overwhelmingly conclude 

that higher-education institutions prefer tightly integrated, 

vendor-supplied systems for their business needs. 

Grants Management 

2010 2011 2012 

Best-of-breed 7.9% 10.5% 7.5% 

Home-grown 7.4% 5.9% 5.5% 

Outsourced 0.5% 0.7% 1.5% 

Open-source 0.5% 0.0% 0.0% 

Vendor-supplied 80.2% 80.4% 85.6% 

Percentage of Modules Supplied by Vendors 

72.3% 

In-house or outsourced 

Some institutions choose to outsource business 

processes. The results of the LBCIO survey show that 

when it comes to administrative systems, very few 

institutions outsource their administrative applications. 

Fewer than 2% of those who responded to the survey 

indicated that they outsource core administrative 

systems. Only 2% outsource financial systems, 3.5% 

outsource advancement systems, and 4% outsource 

human resource systems. 

We continue to see more institutions moving certain 

applications to the cloud. E-mail and learningmanagement 

systems seem to be the most popular. Will 

the future of administrative systems take these core 

business systems to the cloud as well? From our survey 

responses over the past three years, it appears that this 

movement of administrative applications to the cloud is 

slower than the hype about such movement. In 2012, 

only 6% indicated that they have either placed or are 

working on placing financial applications in the cloud. 

One trend that we may begin to see more is that of 

shared services and partnerships when it comes to 

administrative systems. As institutions continue to seek 

to lower their costs, more institutions find themselves 

needing to consider shared services or collaboration. 

This year’s survey indicated that 72% were looking at 

shared services and collaboration models as a way to 

save money. 

Advancement 

Payroll 

Human Resources 

Financial Aid 

Student Registration, Grading, Transcripting 

Financials (GL, AP, AR...) 

91.3% 

87.1% 6.1% 

89.1% 

92.8% 

90.6% 

94.6% 

Upgrade Planning 

Administrative systems take a considerable amount 

of money, time, and effort to implement and maintain. 

No university can really exist without them. Once these 

systems are in place, most institutions do not want to 

go through the process of changing them again for a 

considerable amount of time. So, what are institutions 

planning for replacements or major upgrades to their 

administrative systems? 

Most institutions are currently implementing new 

systems, upgrading current systems, or planning 

replacements or major upgrades to their financial, 

student system, human resources, or advancement 

systems within the next six years. 

Over the past 30 years of using IT to support the 

management of higher-education institutions, we 

have found that in any given year, about 10% to 15%

12 

of institutions either are planning the replacement 

or upgrade phase or are actually changing systems. 

This year’s data are similar. Almost 14% are currently 

replacing financial systems, 16% are replacing student 

systems, 15% are replacing human resources systems, 

and 9% are replacing advancement systems. 

According to the 2012 survey responses, in two to 

three years 22% of responding institutions will replace 

their financial systems, 27% will replace their student 

systems, 25% will replace their human resource systems, 

and 29% will replace their advancement application. In 

the four- to six-year window, 22% will replace financial 

systems, 18% will replace student systems, 20% will 

replace human resource systems, and 23% will replace 

advancement systems. 

The survey also shows that the majority of respondents 

see fewer shadow systems at their institutions than they 

did a few years ago. In fact, 51% responded that shadow 

systems were discouraged, and only 27% indicated that 

their institutions use them. 

In summary, ERP solutions are still the most commonly 

used solution. Although open-source solutions are often 

touted at conferences, only 6.5% of research universities 

report the use of open source for financial systems; no 

other type of institution reported the use of open-source 

solutions for their core applications. Most institutions 

When Will Institutions Replace or Upgrade Current Systems? 

Grants Management 

29.7% 

Financial Aid 

41.4% 

19.2% 

19.9% 

37.8% 

27.4% 

13.4% 

11.3% 

Advancement 

36.9% 

Student Registration, grading, transcripting 

40.3% 

22.9% 

18.4% 

30.7% 

23.5% 

9.5% 

17.9% 

Payroll 

38.5% 

Financials(GL, AP, AR) 

40.2% 

20.8% 

22.2% 

25.0% 

22.7% 

15.6% 

14.9% 

Human Resources 

38.5% 

20.8% 

25.0% 

15.6% 

More than 6 years 

4-6 years 

Next 2-3 years 

In process

2012 Survey of Chief Information Officers 13 

prefer ERP vendor-provided systems that are tightly 

integrated and under the control of their institution 

as opposed to outsourced solutions. The majority of 

institutions will be planning for and/or implementing new 

systems in the next six years. This is to be expected 

as a follow-up wave to the pre-Y2K surge that caused 

many institutions to acquire new systems from 1995 to 

2000. Partnering with other institutions through shared 

services or collaboration agreements may provide some 

institutions with a cost-saving strategy. Although many 

institutions are interested in pursuing such strategies, 

few are actually doing so at this time. We also see 

a need to invest in mobile applications that are tied 

directly to administrative system data, such as student 

schedules, bill payments, and course grades. For 

students, these tools have already become a necessity 

as the mobile world continues to grow. 

Academic Computing 

This survey confirmed a number of trends dealing with 

teaching and learning, including the following: 

• Vendor dominance in the learning management or 

course-management system (CMS) market is being 

challenged by open-source applications such as 

Moodle and Sakai. 

• Central IT continued to provide the primary support 

for the CMS, though the number of respondents using 

shared services has increased. 

• The Office of the CIO or the Office of the Provost/ 

Chief Academic Officer remained the primary source 

for instructional design, course design, and onlinelearning 

management (69%). 

• Most respondents continued to outsource student 

e-mail services (75%). 

• Institutions have strongly adopted desktop 

virtualization with a concomitant curtailing of 

the growth of student community labs; 25% of 

respondents use desktop virtualization to replace 

student community labs. 

A majority of institutions (59%) use a vendor-supplied 

CMS as the standard, while 30% use open-source 

solutions, 8% have an outsourced solution, and just 2% 

utilize a home-grown solution. Blackboard remains the 

dominant CMS vendor, with 45% of respondents using 

it as the institutional standard. Moodle was reported as 

the standard by 26%, and Desire2Learn was third with 

12%. Sakai and Angel (now owned by Blackboard) were 

reported as standards by 7% and 4% of respondents, 

respectively, and Instructure’s Canvas product was used 

by a few institutions (3%). However, the use of opensource 

solutions has been increasing since 2010 at the 

expense of vendor solutions. 

(Please note that our data are not intended to be used as 

marketing data for the use of CMS in higher education. 

Our sample size is global and large, but it is only meant to 

provide useful trend information and strategic and tactical 

support for CIOs in higher education.) 

CMS currently used as the institutional 

standard 

Just over half of the respondents (54%) have used their 

current CMS for longer than five years. Six percent of 

respondents are in the process of implementing their 

CMS, with the remainder (40%) having had their CMS for 

less than five years. 

The CMS market space is likely to be dynamic over 

the next several years, with approximately a third of 

the respondents falling into one of three categories: 

changing now or in two to three years; committing 

to their CMS for three years or more; or uncertain 

when they would consider a replacement. Only 37% of 

respondents planned to stay with their current CMS for 

more than 3 years (37%), 30% were not sure when they 

would replace their CMS, 19% were currently changing 

their CMS, and 17% were considering a switch in two to 

three years. 

A majority of respondents (63%) assign responsibility 

for the CMS and related infrastructure maintenance 

to the central IT unit, whereas 16% of the institutions 

outsource maintenance and 10% had a separate unit for 

online education maintaining the CMS. Finally, a small 

number of institutions had an academic computing group 

maintaining the CMS. 

Shared services appear to be gaining in the role of 

supporting a CMS. Of the respondents, 32% were 

considering establishing a service center and 16% 

have already implemented shared services to support 

a CMS. A similar number of institutions (46%) were not 

considering shared services. Seven percent were 

not sure.

14 

Course Management Systems Reported for 2010 - 2012 

Blackboard 

61.0% 

Angel 

7.0% 

49.7% 

6.9% 

45.5% 

4.0% 

Moodle 

16.5% 7.9% 

10.5% 19.6% 

26.3% 

Canvas 

0.0% 

1.0% 

3.0% 

Desire2Learn 

5.0% 

7.8% 

11.6% 

Other 

6.0% 

6.5% 

2.5% 

Sakai 

4.5% 

2010 2011 2012 

9.2% 

7.1% 

Reporting instructions varied for instructional design, 

course design, and management of online learning. 

In two-thirds of the cases, these functions report to 

the CIO (35%) or the provost or chief academic officer 

(33%). In 17% of respondents, these functions report to 

a separate unit for online education, and in 10% of the 

cases, they report to a dean-level executive. 

Concerning outsourcing and e-mail, institutions are 

more likely to outsource student e-mail than faculty 

and staff e-mail. Student e-mail is outsourced by 76% 

of respondents. Google is the choice for student e-mail 

(reported by 39%), while Microsoft was reported as 

the standard by 34%. A majority of institutions do not 

outsource e-mail for faculty and staff (68%). However, 

when institutions do outsource this service, Google was 

reported as the standard by 19% and Microsoft was next 

with 10%. Smaller institutions (up to 10,000 students) 

were much more likely to outsource to Google than were 

How long have you used your CMS? 


2-5 years 

Less than 2 years 

Currently implementing 

53.5% 

27.8% 

12.6% 

6.1% 

large institutions (more than 10,000 students). Among 

smaller institutions, 24% outsourced to Google and 7%


When will you consider replacing your CMS? 


Don’t know 

Currently considering 

2-3 years 

36.5% 

27.9% 

18.8% 

16.8% 

Where does instructional design, course design, and 

the management for online learning report? 

CIO 

Provost or Academic Officer 

Separate unit for online education 

Dean level 

35.4% 

33.3% 

17.4% 

10.3% 

Who is responsible for maintaining your CMS and 

related infrastructure? 

Other 

3.6% 

Central IT 

Outsourced 

Separate unit for online education 

Academic computing 


62.6% 

15.7% 

10.1% 

6.1% 

5.6% 

Do you outsource e-mail for students, and if so, to 

whom? 

Google 

Microsoft 

Don’t outsource 

Other 

39.1% 

34.0% 

24.4% 

5.0% 

to Microsoft. Larger institutions outsourced to Google 

9% of the time and to Microsoft 11% of the time. Overall, 

smaller institutions were more likely than were larger 

institutions to outsource faculty and staff e-mail. 

CIOs are reporting an increased adoption of desktop 

virtualization (VDI) solutions. Just over 38% of the 

institutions have deployed a VDI solution, compared with 

32% in 2011, and 37% were in the planning stages of a 

VDI implementation, compared with 37.3% in 2011. Only 

24% of the institutions reported that they had neither 

planned nor deployed a VDI solution, down from 30.7% 

in 2011. Adoption is robust despite some differences 

based on institutional size. In small institutions with 

3,000 or fewer students, 64% said they have or plan 

to implement VDI, compared with 85% of the very large 

institutions (25,000 or more students). The majority 

(71%) of respondents were considering or already using 

VDI as a solution for students. Only 29% were not

16 

Do you outsource e-mail for faculty and staff and if so, 

to whom? 

Don’t outsource 

Google 

Microsoft 

Other 

Which best describes your plans for desktop 

virtualization? 

Used to replace student labs 

67.7% 

18.8% 

9.9% 

3.6% 

Used as a thin-client solution for staff/faculty 

23.5% 

Used as a “bring your own” device solution 

Used to support distance education students 

13.3% 3.6% 

Used mostly by students 

Used as a security strategy 

24.7% 

16.7% 

11.2% 

10.6% 

considering or using VDI as a solution for students. For 

both students and faculty/staff uses, institutions cited 

replacing student labs (25%) and using it as a thin client 

for faculty and staff (24%) as the top two reasons for 

VDI. In terms of the goal for VDI, approximately 17% of 

the respondents indicated support for BYOD strategies, 

and 13% of the reasons cited were to support distance 

education for students. About 10% of respondents cited 

security as the goal for VDI. VMWare is the VDI tool 

deployed by 49% of the respondents, while Citrix was 

listed by 29%, Microsoft by 9%, Xen by 3%, and a variety 

of others by 11%. 

With the broad adoption for VDI, it is helpful to look at 

what our respondents said about the future of desktop 

installations and community labs. As expected, these 

two areas are seeing slower growth. Just 50% of the 

institutions expect desktop installations to stay about 

the same or decrease. Forty-seven percent expect 

desktop installations to grow. Community labs are much 

more likely to shrink in the coming years. Only 15% of 

the institutions expect community labs to grow, with 85% 

seeing a decrease or no growth. A sizeable number of 

institutions (37%) expect student use of WiFi and local 

area network ports to augment the use of community 

labs, thus curtailing any growth. 

Institutions would like to decrease the number of 

community labs being supported, but about as many are 

increasing their number of community labs (15.2%) as 

are decreasing their number of supported labs (17.4). 

However, VDI and BYOD may have a greater effect on 

those numbers in the future. 

Infrastructure 

and Networking 

Infrastructure in the Perfect Storm 

Buzzwords and topics like “cloud storage,” “BYOD,” and 

“security breach” have caught the attention of CIOs 

in the industry. Do these concepts have any particular 

implications for infrastructure and networking on 

university campuses? The LBCIO survey focused on 

three primary areas that might be affected by current 

technology trends: 

• Security 

• Disaster recovery and business continuity 

• Networking infrastructure


This section of the survey was relatively brief, but 

the results do provide some insights on how higher 

education institutions are responding to the rapidly 

changing technology landscape. 

Security 

Computer and network security breaches have garnered 

significant attention in the popular press. CNN Money, 

for example, highlighted nine of the worst security 

highlighted nine of the worst security breaches ever in 

June 2012 (http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/ 

technology/1206/gallery.9-worst-security-breaches. 

fortune/index.html). 

Organizations that suffered breaches ranged from 

professional social-networking sites to dating sites, to 

ecommerce sites. One of the compromised environments 

belonged to a firm that provides two-factor secure 

authentication. If major corporations are suffering these 

kinds of breaches, what must institutions of higher 

education do to protect themselves, and how are they 

planning for the future? 

Effective leadership is required to implement an 

appropriate security plan. More than half (56%) of the 

institutions surveyed indicated that they had a specific 

person designated as chief security officer (CSO). This 

percentage has not changed significantly in the past 

three years. More than 90% of the CSOs report through 

the IT organization, so it would be reasonable to assume 

that (for those organizations without a designated CSO) 

the security function is a component of one or more 

IT positions. 

Security plans often include protection strategies, 

educational efforts, and measurement techniques. 

Our survey results show that 50% of institutions 

have a formal security plan and another 21% are in 

the process of developing such a plan. The security 

plans are formulated against a backdrop of a security 

audit: identifying security resources that are already 

in place. More than three-fourths of the institutions 

have completed at least one security audit. One 

interesting change in the survey data is that the number 

of institutions that conduct a security audit at least 

annually dropped from 44% in 2011 to 37% in 2012. 

Although auditing activity decreased, security spending 

increased in 72% of the institutions. Only 2% reported a 

decrease in security spending. 

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity 

In a real sense, security planning is an exercise in 

providing insurance against undesirable outcomes. 

Disaster recovery and business continuity reflect that 

same philosophical basis: determining an appropriate 

amount of effort and expense to be applied against 

risks that are somewhat difficult to quantify. Recent 

natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Ike 

have prompted IT professionals to consider the impact of 

severe disruptions in computing and networking. 

The percentage of institutions with a formal business 

continuity plan (77%) is higher than the percentage that 

have a formal security plan (50%). This difference might 

be due to the relative familiarity with the risks (we all 

know what it is like to encounter bad weather or a fire), 

or it could be that higher-education institutions have a 

longer history of protecting physical assets than they 

have with protecting electronic assets. 

One of the ironies of planning within higher education 

is the tendency to avoid rehearsing the plan. More 

than one-third of the respondents indicated that their 

business continuity plan had never been tested. 

A participant at a recent conference observed that IT 

professionals spend a lot of time planning for the “100- 

year flood” when they should be more concerned about 

the routine thunderstorm. Those who don’t have any plan 

may believe that plans for the extreme disaster are so 

daunting that IT professionals cannot muster the energy 

to build the plan and test it. Others are convinced that a 

modest plan that is tested might be more effective than 

an untested elaborate plan. In practice, it may be that 

institutions are taking this latter approach: 56% have 

a secondary data center that provides some level of 

recovery potential in the event of a catastrophe affecting 

the primary data center. 

Networking 

While coping with security concerns and potential 

disasters, institutions still need to provide a robust 

network for their constituents. Increasingly, this means 

ubiquitous wireless access and high-speed wired access. 

Over the past three years, 69% to 79% of the survey 

respondents have indicated that wireless access is 

“available on all campuses to everybody.” The most 

recent figure was 69%. The drop may be reflective of

18 

respondents hesitating on the “all” and “everybody” 

words, as some students do when answering true-false 

questions. 

Wired networking remains an important service on many 

campuses: 42% of the respondents provide some level 

of gigabit service to the desktop. Of those respondents, 

35% and 19% indicated that gigabit service was provided 

to all faculty/staff and students, respectively. Why would 

wired connectivity remain important in a wireless world? 

LBCIO board members have offered two reasons from 

their own institutions: Faculty researchers often need to 

transfer large data sets that would be cumbersome on a 

wireless network. For students, life in the residence halls 

includes the use of video game consoles that function 

best (or perhaps only) in a wired environment. The 

proliferation of wireless devices can saturate a particular 

spectrum to the point where a wired connection is 

preferred for some activities. 

Cloud Computing and 

New and Emerging 

Technologies 

Most institutions reported using cloud computing, 

with no significant difference in usage percentages 

reported by Carnegie classification. The majority of 

doctoral-granting institutions are either currently using or 

considering using the cloud in the future (96.8%), while 

only 88.4% of research institutions reported using or 

considering usage. There is no significant difference in 

usage between public and private nonprofit institutions 

(73.2% and 76.7%, respectively). Furthermore, larger 

institutions (more than 25,000 students) reported 

a lower usage rate (62.5%), but 25% of those large 

institutions are considering using cloud computing in 

the future. 

Use of cloud computing by size of institution: 

More than 25,000 students 

25.0% 

12.5% 

62.5% 

More than 10,000 but fewer than 25,000 students 

7.3% 

9.1% 

83.6% 

5,001-10,000 students 

27.3% 

3.0% 

69.7% 

3,001-5,000 students 

15.0% 

5.0% 

80.0% 

3,000 students or less 

8.0% 

16.0% 

76.0% 

Considering for the future 

No 

Yes 

Cloud Computing Activities 

Higher-education institutions that are using cloud 

computing reported different types of activities. Most 

institutions reported using cloud computing for a mix of 

academic, administrative, and community services. If 

you are using cloud computing, which best describes the 

cloud-computing activities? 

Cloud Computing Influencing Factors 

Institutions reported many factors influencing their usage 

of cloud computing. Most reported saving money as 

the top influencer. Many institutions, especially two-year 

institutions, reported the ability to bring new activities 

online quickly as the factor with lowest influence


over using cloud computing. Most public and private 

institutions were more interested in saving money. 

Security, privacy concerns, ownership protection, and 

access to data are also very important to most CIOs. 

Cloud Computing Impact on Budget 

Most institutions reported expectations for a moderately 

positive impact on the budget when using cloud 

computing; however, 68% of research institutions expect 

moderately positive to very positive results utilizing cloud 

computing. Interestingly, doctoral-granting institutions 

expect higher negative impact than others (11.1%), 

even though the majority of doctoral-granting institutions 

expect positive or very positive impact (46% and 9.5%, 

respectively). Two-year institutions expect some negative 

impact (somewhat negative, 9.5%; and very negative, 

4.8%) and the lowest overall moderately or very positive 

impact (only 47.7% total). 

Cloud- computing Activities 

Not sure 

Mix of academic and administrative and community 

55.3% 

Community service or outreach 

Mostly management needs (administrative information) 

20.1% 3.6% 

Mostly academic (teaching and learning) 

3.8% 

1.3% 

19.5% 

Applications in the cloud 

Most institutions are cautiously moving ahead in 

implementing cloud applications on campus. Mail is 

the primary application that all institutions, regardless 

of size, type, and classification, have moved to the 

cloud. This is not surprising because vendors have 

supplied and created e-mail applications for the general 

population, which increased both interest and personal 

use of e-mail. Vendors have also assisted in moving 

the on-campus service to the cloud at no cost to the 

institution, which eased many IT budgets. The second 

leading application reported in the cloud is social 

networking; again, the application existed in the cloud, 

and the user community encouraged the adoption of 

the application as a campus service. It is noteworthy 

that most CIOs do not consider campus enterprise 

applications (e.g., ERP, CMS, library systems) as good 

candidates to move to the cloud. 

Applications Currently in the Cloud 

Other (please specify) 23.5% 

Student applications 

(enrollment management) 

19.6% 

Financial applications 6.1% 

Library applications 27.9% 

Desktop tools (i.e. MS Office) 26.3% 

Data center 12.3% 

Portal 13.4% 

Social Networking 43.6% 

E-Mail 83.2% 

Applications expected to move to the cloud 

All institutions are planning to move similar applications 

to the cloud. The primary growth will be experienced 

in moving mail/social applications and learningmanagement 

systems to the cloud. More than 80% of 

two-year institutions are planning to move the learningmanagement 

system to the cloud, compared with 50% 

of all other institutions. Many new learning-management 

systems are offered only as a cloud application, which 

encourages institutions to consider the migration. One 

interesting service being considered for cloud adoption 

is storage, with more than 50% of all institutions 

considering storage in the cloud.

20 

Cloud Computing Influencers by Size 

Ability to bring new activities on-line quickly 

68.4% 

62.3% 

63.6% 

75.0% 

54.3% 

Concern about privacy 

68.4% 

66.0% 

72.7% 

60.0% 

56.5% 

Access to data/information in the cloud 

63.2% 

60.4% 

69.7% 

80.0% 

63.0% 

Concern about security 

78.9% 

69.8% 

81.8% 

70.0% 

67.4% 

Protection of sensitive data/information 

78.9% 

69.8% 

75.8% 

70.0% 

65.2% 

Saving money through the use of cloud computing 

76.3% 

81.1% 

84.8% 

75.0% 

73.9% 

Ownership of data 

68.4% 

62.3% 

69.7% 

50.0% 

67.4% 


5.3% 

1.9% 

3.0% 

0.0% 

10.9% 

More than 25,000 students 

More than 10,000 students but 

fewer than 25,000 students 

5,001-10,000 students 

3,001-5,000 students 

3,000 students or less


Which of the following areas are you either 

currently placing in the cloud or are in the process 

of placing in the cloud? 

Administrative applications (ERP) 38.9% 

Academic applications including 

course management systems/ 

learning management systems 

Standards-setting 

60.0% 

Web development/applications 37.3% 

E-mail/social networking/ 

communications 

75.7% 

Portal 27.0% 

Primary data center 6.5% 

Back up data center 49.2% 

Storage/Networking 69.2% 

University technology communities have changing 

standards. All institutions of any size or type have 

standards for notebooks, desktop computers, and 

servers. Nonprofit institutions led with 100% having 

standards in all three categories, followed closely by 

public universities (85%) and private colleges (95%). 

Standards adoption is not common with smartphones 

and tablet computers in public (48%) or private 

universities (43%), but was significantly more common 

at two-year institutions (70%). As personal ownership 

continues to control the mobile-device market, 

universities will have a difficult time enforcing standards. 

A more likely scenario is that the market will determine 

the standard that universities will be required to support, 

as seen in the survey responses for smartphones 

and tablets. 

Central IT Provides selection criterion and/or 

standards for... 

Servers 

Desktop Computers 

Tablets 

Smartphones 

What are CIOs defining as emerging 

technologies? 

There are no surprises in the emerging technologies 

that CIOs are planning to explore and/or implement on 

campus. The two technologies that universities are most 

interested in are BYOD services and virtual desktops. 

BYOD interest is a result of students, faculty, and staff 

purchasing their own mobile devices and requiring IT 

departments to provide access to university enterprise 

resources. Virtual desktops are gaining interest as 

personal ownership of computers increases and it 

becomes impractical to offer university computing labs to 

provide access to specialized software. Virtual desktops 

complement the BYOD movement. Other areas of 

interest in emerging technologies are cloud computing, 

data management, networking, and teaching tools. 

List of the top 3 new and emerging 

technologies CIO’s are considering 

Mobile Devices/BYOD 23.1% 

Virtual Desktops 17.7% 

Cloud 15.8% 

87.0% 

97.9% 

48.4% 

40.6% 3.6%

22 

Summary and 

Methodology 

Although budgets are still tight and many institutions 

are in cutback mode, CIOs continue to plan for changes 

in IT to ensure that the institutions’ information needs 

are securely met. Some positive results indicate the 

following: 

1. VDI shows great promise in providing expanded 

services while cutting back on institutionally owned 

labs. 

2. The use of shared services is expanding and will be 

worth watching in the future. 

3. IT governance is not a passing fad, and more 

institutions rely upon their governance model when 

making major IT decisions. 

4. The use of cloud and open-source computing 

continues to grow on campus, but growth is slower in 

the administrative applications area. 

5. The need for more bandwidth continues, and gigabitto-the-desktop 

service is no longer just for the large 

research institutions. 

The 2012 survey was sent to almost 1,100 CIOs 

globally, and the response rate was more than 20%. The 

survey was conducted the last week of April 2012 and 

completed the second week of May 2012. More than 

63% of respondents were from public institutions, while 

36% were from private institutions and less than 1% 

were from proprietary institutions. Research universities 

comprised 25.2% of respondents, four year institutions 

with master’s degree programs 32.6%, doctoral-granting 

institutions 15.1%, two-year institutions 10.1%, and fouryear 

institutions with no graduate programs 17%. The 

proportion of respondents by institution size, based on 

full-time enrollment, is as follows: 

Fewer than 3,000 students 24.8% 

3,000 to 4,999 students 10.1% 

5,000 to 9,999 students 17.4% 

10,000 to 24,999 students 28.0% 

More than 25,000 students 19.7% 

If you would like more information about the survey or 

The Leadership Board for CIOs in Higher Education, 

or would like to become a member of LBCIO, please 

contact— 

Dr. Michael Zastrocky, Executive Director 

1271 Cedar Street Broomfield, CO 80020 

+1 720 242 5150 

Mobile +1 303 807 9408 

mzastrocky@lbcio.org 

Or visit the LBCIO Web site at: www.lbcio.org


Current Members of The Leadership 

Board for CIOs in Higher Education 

Brian Cohen 

Associate Vice Chancellor for Technology and 

University CIO 

City University of New York 

Reid Christenberry 

Assistant Vice President and CIO 

Georgia Perimeter College 

Leonard De Botton 

Vice President of Information Systems/CIO 

Berkeley College 

Jerome DeSanto 

Vice President for Planning and CIO 

University of Scranton 

Elias G. Eldayrie 

Vice President and Chief Information Officer 

University of Florida 

Tim Ferguson 

CIO 

Northern Kentucky University 

Jan I. Fox 

Senior Vice President for Information 

Technology/CIO 

Marshall University 

Peter Greco 

CIO 

Saint Mary’s College 

Naveed Husain 

CIO 

Queens College, CUNY 

Vince Kellen 

CIO 

University of Kentucky 

Mark Legg 

CIO Emeritus 

Flinders University (Australia) 

David E. Lewis 

Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer 

University of Rochester 

James Lyall 

CIO/Associate Vice President 

Metropolitan State University of Denver 

Kathy Monday 

Vice President for Information Services and CIO 

University of Richmond 

Allan Morris 

CIO 

Southern Cross University (Australia) 

John Mullin 

CIO Emeritus 

The Georgia Institute of Technology 

Lígia Maria Ribeiro 

Pró-Reitora para a Universidade Digital (CIO) 

Universidade do Porto (Portugal) 

David Rotman 

CIO and Associate Vice President 

Cedarville University 

Tina Stuchell 

Director of IT 

University of Mount Union 

M. Lewis Temares 

VP/CIO, Dean of Engineering, Emeritus 

University of Miami 

Rodney Tosten 

Vice President for Information Technology 

Gettysburg College 

Nelson Vincent 

Chief Information Officer 

University of Cincinatti

Dr. Michael Zastrocky, Executive Director 

1271 Cedar Street Broomfield, CO 80020 

+1 720 242 5150 

Mobile +1 303 807 9408 

mzastrocky@lbcio.org 

Sponsored by: 

Workday provides the only unified, global Human 

Capital Management, Payroll, and Financial 

Management solution delivered in the cloud and 

uniquely designed for the needs of higher education. 

www.workday.com

Page 1 of 1 

http://mail.pesc.org/exchange/michael.s 

1/22/2013 

Michael Sessa 

From: IES Newsflash Subscription Service [IESWebmaster@ed.gov] Sent: Tue 1/22/2013 09:26 

To: 

Cc: 

Subject: 

Attachments: 

Michael Sessa 

NCES releases report on Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 

2009–10 presenting the latest release of the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) and the Event Dropout 

Rate disaggregated by year, race/ethnicity, gender, and, grade. 

NCES releases report on Public School Graduates and Dropouts 

from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009–10 presenting 

the latest release of the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate 

(AFGR) and the Event Dropout Rate disaggregated by year, 

race/ethnicity, gender, and, grade. 

Seventy-eight percent of high school students, nationwide, 

graduated on time; an increase of 2 percentage points from the 

previous year. This graduation rate is based on the Averaged 

Freshman Graduation Rate calculated from enrollment and 

graduation counts reported to the National Center for Education 

Statistics at the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the U.S. 

Department of Education. 

This report presents the latest release of the Averaged 

Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) and the Event Dropout Rate. 

These rates are disaggregated by year, race/ethnicity, gender, 

and, where applicable, grade. 

To view the full report please visit 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013309 

...CONNECTING RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE 

You have received this message because you subscribed to a newsflash service through IES or one of its centers. 

Change your options or unsubscribe from this service. 

By visiting Newsflash you may also sign up to receive information from IES and its four Centers NCES, NCER, NCEE, & 

NCSER to stay abreast of all activities within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). 

To obtain hard copy of many IES products as well as hard copy and electronic versions of hundreds of other U.S. 

Department of Education products please visit http://www.edpubs.org or call 1-877-433-7827 (877-4-EDPUBS).

Page 1 of 1 



Michael Sessa 

From: IES Newsflash Subscription Service [IESWebmaster@ed.gov] Sent: Wed 1/23/2013 09:18 

To: 

Michael Sessa 

Cc: 

Subject: IES Newsletter now available featuring research highlights, upcoming events, and new resources 

Attachments: 

IES Newsletter now available featuring research highlights, 

upcoming events, and new resources 

Take a look at the latest issue of our newsletter for a variety of articles on the activities 

supported by the Institute of Education Sciences. The news includes articles about: 

l 

l 

l 

l 

l 

l 

l 

Thomas Brock, the new Commissioner of the National Center for Education Research 

Research findings on reclassification policies for English Learners 

Regional Educational Laboratory partnership with historically black colleges and 

universities 

Results of U.S. student participation in international mathematics, science, and reading 

assessments 

Report to help researchers make research findings more understandable and useful 

Summer research training institute on cluster-randomized trials 

NAEP Results App 

Click here to read the newsletter, http://ies.ed.gov/whatsnew/newsletters/ 








Page 1 of 2 



Michael Sessa 

From: IES Newsflash Subscription Service [IESWebmaster@ed.gov] Sent: Thu 11/8/2012 09:44 

To: 

Cc: 

Subject: 

Attachments: 

Michael Sessa 

Undergraduate Coursetaking, Characteristics of New K-12 Teachers, and Experiences of First-Time BA Recipients 

Detailed in Recent NCES Web Tables 

Undergraduate Coursetaking, Characteristics of New K-12 

Teachers, and Experiences of First-Time BA Recipients Detailed 

in Recent NCES Web Tables 

In October, NCES released four publications of special interest to 

researchers and policymakers on postsecondary education 

issues. They included: 

l 

STEM in Postsecondary Education: Entrance, 

Attrition, and Coursetaking Among 2003-2004 

Beginning Postsecondary Students and An 

Overview of Classes Taken and Credits Earned by 

Beginning Postsecondary Students. Based on transcripts collected as part of the 

2004/2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09), these 

Web Tables detail transcript-derived data on: 

¡ the timing of first-time undergraduates’ entrance to and attrition from science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors; demographic and 

academic characteristics of students who leave STEM majors; STEM coursetaking 

patterns; and performance in STEM coursework (available at 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013152); and 

¡ pre-college credits earned; remedial coursetaking; withdrawals and repeated 

courses; and credits earned each year of enrollment (available at 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013151). 

l 

l 

Beginning K–12 Teacher Characteristics and Preparation by School Type, 

2009. Based on data collected via the 2008/2009 Baccalaureate and Beyond 

Longitudinal Study (BB:08/09), the first follow-up of a nationally representative cohort 

of 2007-08 baccalaureate graduates, these Web Tables focus on the experiences of 

recent graduates who entered K-12 teaching. Data include graduates’ demographic, 

educational, and employment characteristics, as well as the characteristics of the 

schools in which they are teaching. Available at 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013153. 

Profile of 2007–08 First-Time Bachelor’s Degree Recipients in 2009. Also 

based on data collected via the 2008/2009 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal 

Study (BB:08/09), these Web Tables focus on recent graduates’ employment 

outcomes; participation in community service; post-baccalaureate enrollment; and 

student loan debt one year after completion. Available at 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013150.

Page 2 of 2 










Page 1 of1 

http://m ail .pesc.org/exchange/m 2/4/2013 ichael .s 

Michael Sessa 

From: IES Newsflash Subscription Service [IESWebmaster@ed.gov] Sent: Thu 12/6/2012 11:12 

To: 

Michael Sessa 

Cc: 

Subject: The Nation’s Report Card: Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 2011 NAEP Reading Assessments Are Now Available! 

Attachments: 

The Nation’s Report Card: Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 

2011 NAEP Reading Assessments Are Now Available! 

The Nation’s Report Card: Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 

2011 NAEP Reading Assessments presents results for student 

performance on the systematic measure of vocabulary included 

in the 2009 and 2011 NAEP reading assessments. While 

previous NAEP assessments had included some vocabulary 

questions, the new framework for the 2009 assessment 

provided criteria for developing vocabulary questions as well as 

prescribing the number of questions to be included in each 

comprehension section of the assessment. This systematic 

assessment of vocabulary allows for NAEP to more fully assess 

the impact of vocabulary knowledge on students’ comprehension 

and makes it possible to report on students’ vocabulary 

performance. Vocabulary questions are designed to assess how 

well students are able to use words to gain meaning from the 

passages they read. NAEP vocabulary questions assess whether readers know a word well 

enough to use it to comprehend the sentence or paragraph in which the word occurs. 

Vocabulary results from the 2009 reading assessment are based on nationally 

representative samples of 116,600 fourth-graders, 103,400 eighth-graders, 

and 44,500 twelfth-graders. Results from the 2011 assessment are based on 

samples of 213,100 students at grade 4 and 168,200 students at grade 8. The 

reading assessment was not administered at grade 12 in 2011. 

Click here to find complete 2011 results for the nation, as well as findings from the student, 

teacher, and school surveys. Download the print report and find additional resources and 

information from the Reading website. 

NAEP is a product of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Institute of Education 

Sciences, part of the U.S. Department of Education. The National Assessment Governing 

Board sets policy for NAEP. 

To view the full Vocabulary 2009 and 2011 report please visit 

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013452 








Page 1 of 2 



Michael Sessa 

From: LuciaAnderson[l anderson@l uminafoundation.org] Sent: Fri1/11/201315:09 

To: 

Michael Sessa 

Cc: 

Subject: LuminaStrategicPl an2013-2016 

Attachments: 

To view this email as a web page, click here. 

l uminafoundation.org |Forwardtoafriend 


Lumina Strategic Plan 2013-2016 

In 2009, Lumina Foundation released its first four-year strategic 

plan. That plan was based on achieving Goal 2025 –a national 

endeavor to increase the percentage of Americans with highquality 

degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 

the year 2025. Progress toward that Goal is increasing, but the 

pace of attainment must improve. 

In order to reach Goal 2025, the nation must produce 62 million 

high-quality degrees and credentials over the next 12 years. At 

current rates, we will fall 23 million degrees and credentials short. 

To close that gap, we must expand access and success in education beyond high 

school, particularly among low-income and first-generation students, racial and 

ethnic minorities, immigrants, veterans, and adults with some college, but no degree. 

That’s why Lumina has unveiled its new Strategic Plan covering 2013-2016. The 

Plan reflects key lessons learned over the last four years and includes compelling 

new strategies. 

The Plan includes strategies designed to help mobilize the nation around Goal 2025. 

These strategies focus on engagement with employers, higher education institutions 

and systems, state and federal policymakers, and a variety of key stakeholders. 

The Plan also includes strategies geared toward building a 21st Century higher 

education system. Those strategies focus on creating: new higher education 

business models; new models of student financial support, and a new national 

system of credentials and credits that is based on learning and competencies rather 

than time. 

As the nation’s largest private foundation focused exclusively on getting more 

Americans into and through higher education, Lumina hopes to drive a national 

sense of urgency so as to stimulate action in higher education and public policy to 

achieve Goal 2025. 

We need significantly more skilled workers to help grow the economy and create 

jobs for the future. Increasing the nation's postsecondary attainment is the solution.

Page 2 of 2 



A series of 8 strategy videos and 2 strategic imperative videos expand on Lumina's 

vision for its 2013 - 2016strategic plan. 

More strategic plan details at luminafoundation.org. 

MOREFROMLUMINA: 

This email was sent to: Michael.Sessa@PESC.org 

This email was sent by: Lumina Foundation 

30 South Meridian Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46204-3503 USA 

We respect your right to privacy - view our policy 

Manage Subscriptions | Update Profile | One-Click Unsubscribe

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i 

i

USA 

224 Clarendon Street, Suite 41 

Boston, MA 02116-3729 

P: 617.266.4333 

F: 781.735.0562 

E: info@bostonsearchgroup.com 

UK 

Library House, Station Road 

Cambridge, UK CB1 2JK 

P: 44(0) 1223.472720 

F: 44(0) 1223.472721 

E: info@teamventures.com 

Chief Financial Officer 

Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

In January of 2013, Sterling Partners (Laureate Education, Walden University, Ashworth College, 

Educate Inc., Educate Online, School of Rock, Progressus Therapy, Meritas, and InfiLaw) announced 

its acquisition of Spartan College-- 

Sterling Partners Acquires Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology 

Among its very first decisions is that of hiring a new CFO to help drive the growth of this industry-leading 

school. 

POSITION OVERVIEW 

Reporting to the CEO and working out of corporate offices in Nashville TN, the new CFO 

will be responsible for managing all finance, accounting and reporting functions for this 

industry leader in training for the aviation industry. 

He or she will (1) work closely with the CEO and others to gather and leverage financial 

and other data to make critical decisions around programs, enrollment, expansion, financial 

aid, technology, partnerships, and other aspects of the school’s operations; (2) provide 

leadership and coordination of all company financial practices, including accounting, 

budgeting, financial reports, taxes, and audit functions; (3) assure compliance with all 

regulatory agencies, including working with outside auditors in preparation of annual financial 

and compliance audits; and (4) work with the VP of Administration and head of 

Financial Aid to oversee financial aid programs and all associated transfers of funds between 

the company and the federal government’s Title IV and other programs.

THE COMPANY 

Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology is a for-profit postsecondary education institution 

that provides certificates, associate degrees and bachelor degrees in Aviation 

Maintenance Technology (“AMT”), Avionics, Professional Pilot Training and Quality Control 

/ Non-destructive Testing (“QC” and “NDT”). The Company also has contracts in 

place with the United States Air Force and private companies to provide aviation technician 

and pilot training. Spartan is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma where its campus footprint 

spans 247,000 square feet of physical space. Corporate offices are in Nashville TN. 

Spartan is accredited by Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (“AC- 

CSC”) and is eligible for Title IV funding. The Company was founded in 1929, has graduated 

90,000 aviation technicians and pilots, is the oldest school of its kind in the country 

and is one of the best recognized brands in the sector known for its quality of instruction 

and positive outcomes for its students. 

The mission of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology is to provide a supportive 

educational environment for students to actively participate in learning and to provide 

quality career-oriented higher education programs to a diverse student population. 

Key differentiated aspects of the institution include: 

• Strong Student Value Proposition: Best in class student outcomes 

• Academic Rigor: Employer recognized unique, rigorous and hands-on programs. 

• Unique Non-Destructive Testing Program: Despite rapid growth of the NDT industry, 

Spartan is the largest and one of the only postsecondary institutions offering 

training for non-destructive technicians 

• Outstanding Regulatory Compliance: Spartan has maintained strong regulatory 

compliance historically and is well positioned in light of recent changes in regulation 

• Strong Brand and Large Alumni Base: Longest running aviation program in the 

U.S. with over 90,000 alumni 

Spartan provides hands-on training in aviation maintenance, avionics, nondestructive 

testing and quality control. Students can graduate from Spartan's programs in anywhere 

from 12 to 23 months with high-demand skills. They also gain the professional training 

and credentials necessary to work in some of the most exciting industries and in many 

parts of the world. 

Chief Financial Officer, Spartan College

History 

More than 80 years ago, Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology began as a place 

for individuals to learn how to take their passion for aviation and turn it into a career they 

loved. Founder W.G. Skelly was convinced that air transportation would come of age and 

bring with it a need for skilled aircraft technicians and pilots. He was right, and as a result, 

the Spartan aviation school, with its learn-by-doing teaching philosophy, quickly became 

a leader in aviation education, standing out from other aviation schools and programs. 

The school motto, “Knowledge and Skill Overcome Superstition and Luck,” is exemplified 

by the Spartan Black Cat and the number 13. This insignia dates back to 1929 and the beginning 

of the Dawn Patrol. The Dawn Patrol name came about as a result of Spartan 

flight schedules that began at the crack of dawn. It was during these early morning flights 

that members of the aviation programs performed precision formation flying. Students 

knew that relying on superstition and luck was not an option and that the skill and 

knowledge gained at Spartan was paramount to their success. 

Not only do Spartan College of Aeronautics graduates have the skills and knowledge necessary 

to pursue a career in their chosen field of study, they have a respected worldwide 

reputation, a rich history that has helped shape the field of aviation and the success of 

thousands of its aviation school alumni who came before them. As the torch is passed on, 

it is the alumni of the school’s aeronautical school who can continue to influence the aviation 

industry and aviation colleges and help contribute to the success of Spartan’s future 

graduates. There is only one Spartan and its history truly lives on in the success of its 

alumni. 

Programs 

Spartan offers programs at its Tulsa campus in the following areas— 

Aviation Maintenance 

Avionics Technology 

Nondestructive Testing / Quality Control 

Aviation Management Technology 

Pilot Training 

Continuing Education 

Spartan also offers select Associate Degree courses on-line. 


Completion and Placement Rates 

Accreditation 

Spartan is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges 

(ACCSC) and is authorized to offer Associate of Applied Science Degrees with Majors in 

Aviation Maintenance Technology, Avionics Maintenance Technology, Quality Control 

and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aviation Technology Management. 

It is also licensed by the Oklahoma Board of Private Vocational Schools. Programs are approved 

by the Oklahoma State Accrediting Agency for Veterans (GI Bill). The Aviation 

Maintenance Technology Program is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Spartan is authorized under federal law to enroll eligible international students. 

About the Investors: 

Sterling Partners is a private equity firm with a distinct point of view on how to build 

great companies. Founded in 1983, Sterling has invested billions of dollars, guided by the 

company’s stated purpose: INSPIRED GROWTH, which describes Sterling’s approach 

to buying differentiated businesses and growing them in inspired ways. Sterling focuses 

on investing growth capital in small and mid-market companies in industries with positive, 

long-term trends – education, healthcare, and business services. Sterling provides 

valuable support to the management teams of the companies in which the firm invests 

through a deep and dedicated team of operations and functional experts based in the 

firm’s offices in Chicago, Baltimore, and Miami. 

Included among its portfolio of investments in the Education sector are Laureate Education, 

Ashworth College, Educate, Educate Online, School of Rock, Progressus Therapy, 

Meritas, and InfiLaw. 

THE POSITION 

Reporting to the CEO and working with the CEO and company’s investors out of corporate 

offices in Nashville TN, the new CFO will drive all financial management decisions 

for Spartan College as it achieves healthy growth. He or she will also play an important 

operational role in support of the CEO. 


This new CFO will be responsible for managing all finance, accounting and reporting 

functions for the college. He or she will (1) work closely with the CEO to gather and leverage 

financial and other data to make critical decisions around programs, enrollment, financial 

aid, technology, partnerships, and other aspects of the school’s operations; (2) 

provide leadership and coordination of all company financial practices, including accounting, 

budgeting, financial reports, taxes and audit functions; (3) assure compliance with all 

regulatory agencies, including working with outside auditors in preparation of annual financial 

and compliance audits; (4) work with the VP of Financial Aid to oversee financial 

aid programs and all associated transfers of funds between the company and the federal 

government’s Title IV and other programs; and (5) work with the CEO and investors to 

assess and, if and when appropriate, open new campuses and/or acquire other schools. 

Specific responsibilities and expectations include the following: 

• Oversee all company accounting practices, including accounting, budgeting, financial 

reports, taxes and audit functions for all campus locations. 

• Assist the CEO in managing school operations. 

• Provide consultative support to internal department leaders and their initiatives by 

providing reporting, sound financial analysis and thoughtful, well-reasoned, balanced 

recommendations. 

• Assure compliance with all regulatory agencies, including working with outside 

auditors in preparation of annual financial and compliance audits. 

• Develop and utilize forward-looking, predictive models and activity-based financial 

analysis to provide insight into the organization’s operations and business 

plans. 

• Create, coordinate, and evaluate changes and improvements in automated financial 

management information systems for the company. Work with the VP Administration 

and head of Financial Aid to oversee financial aid programs and all associated 

transfers of funds between the company and the federal government’s Title 

IV and other programs. 

• On an ongoing basis, gather financial and other data that can be used to run the 

school more efficiently and profitably. 

• Assist with financial strategy, planning and forecasting. 

• Synthesize and generate financial reporting for outside accounting firm(s), ownership, 

CEO, and department heads. 

• Prepare financial analysis for contract negotiations and corporate investment decisions; 

manage procurement process for meaningful equipment acquisition or major 

contracts. 


• Assist in refining and/or establishing policies, procedures, internal controls, and 

analytical processes to ensure timely and efficient execution of finance, accounting 

and financial aid related objectives. 

• Refine and execute expense monitoring and control procedures. 

• Assemble the right financial team; supervise a Controller and other junior accounting 

staff members; constantly evaluate staff 

THE CAREER OPPORTUNITY 

To an experienced CFO with relevant for-profit higher education experience and a strong 

operations background, this opportunity offers several attractive features: 

The opportunity to join a small executive team and have “a seat at the table” as the college 

and investors chart its future 

The opportunity to work with the current investors in evaluating growth options, including 

new campuses, joint ventures and potential acquisitions 

The opportunity to be the principal financial decision maker in a niche school capable of 

growing to $60+MM or more within 3-5 years 

The opportunity to attain equity in the company 

The opportunity to work in an attractive Nashville TN location 

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE 

The ideal candidate is working as Chief Financial Officer or Vice President of Finance for an accredited 

for-profit college that enrolls students eligible for federal financial aid funds under Title IV legislation. 

He or she has worked with the CEO, COO, and other corporate executives, as well as 

Campus Presidents, to oversee all company accounting practices, including accounting, budgeting, 

financial reports, taxes and audit functions for the school. S/he has also helped to maintain accreditation 

and Title IV compliance, and together with a CEO and investors to secure additional funding 

and/or in an M&A capacity as opportunity presents. Importantly, this individual has a strong 

operational background—not just a “bean counter.” 

This individual is a “player/coach”—strategic enough to handle critical financial management 

issues but also hands-on enough to manage day-to-day cash flow at the campus 

level. 

Specifically, he or she has – 


High energy, financial and operational skills, work ethic, and integrity 

An extensive background in financial management with particular strengths in the 

areas of financial statement preparation, budgeting/forecasting and planning, financial 

analysis, internal controls, process improvement, and cash management 

A strong operations management foundation—capable of working with the CEO in 

a variety of functional areas to build a powerful operational foundation to the school 

Facility with data—its sources, aggregation, and application to allow the CEO and 

others to make enlightened decisions in a variety of functional areas, including new 

campus rollouts and program development and marketing 

A management style that is decisive and entrepreneurial; strong conceptual, creative, 

and problem-solving skills; a self-starter who is capable of managing his/her time 

and priorities effectively while successfully accomplishing planned objectives 

A track record of exerting strong fiscal control (appropriately managing/conserving 

cash) and driving EBIT bottom-line growth 

Specific experience with Title IV and other financial aid programs, regulatory compliance, 

revenue recognition, reviewing account reconciliations, and pro-forma analyses 

Experience developing and implementing financial processes and procedures that 

are scalable as an organization grows; experience managing finances for a multilocation 

school 

Experience bringing a strategic level of leadership to the finance function, serving as 

financial strategist while managing the day-to-day requirements of a finance department 

Superior business and financial analytical skills--success with timely monthly financial 

reporting, detailed financial analysis, and the preparation of ad-hoc reports and 

analyses, cash flow planning, and management 

Experience working with external parties, e.g. private equity investors, bankers, consultants, 

and independent accountants; experience reporting on, and monitoring 

compliance with, bank covenants; M&A and/or IPO experience would be valuable 

A bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or a related field; a Master of Business 

Administration degree and/or designation as a Certified Public Accountant would 

be a plus 

Culturally and temperamentally, the ideal candidate is a team player who believes that 

individual success flows from the overall success of the organization. 

This involves a range of personal attributes-- flexibility and adaptability; a great work ethic; 

leadership with minimal supervision; an ability to analyze and evaluate one’s own (and 


other’s) performance and to develop plans to improve performance; excellent presentation 

skills; willingness to take responsibility for both success and failure—a thick skin; selfconfidence 

and a positive attitude about self, company, and marketplace; consistent, effective 

prospecting skills—knowing how to reach decision maker; effective listening and 

questioning; sincerity, trust, believability and warmth; and a strong desire for success. 

COMPENSATION 

Compensation will include salary, bonus, and equity in line with the individual’s experience. 

TRAVEL 

Travel is unlikely to be more than 10%. 

CONTACT 

Resume should be sent as a Word document to Ralph Protsik (ralph@bsgtv.com) and Dan 

Martell (dan@bsgtv.com), and also posted on the BSG website, www.bsgtv.com. No phone 

calls please.

February 2013 - PESC

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