A Standards Based Data Exchange Network

1. A Standards Based Data Exchange Network Jeff Alderson, Director of Pre-Sales Solutions 617-532-3008 jalderson@connectedu.net April 8, 2009

2. Who We Are • Founded in 2002, Privately held corporation • Team of former K12/Post-Secondary education, business and technology experts • First network to integrate with SIS to bridge K12/Post-Secondary, first to deploy PESC XML• Industry leader in secure acquisition and transmission of electronic student records, applications, and financial materials • Largest and fastest growing Going to College/Career Network • Committed to Industry Standards (PESC, SIF)

3. A Call to Action Stated / Visible Market Need • Many proprietary transcript exchange networks exist • Secondary and post secondary schools forced to choose a network • Not all higher education institutions participate on all networks • Statewide transcript exchange systems can’t deliver transcripts out of state, or only on a single vendor network • Existing transcript “hubs” are technologically complex and cost prohibitive for secondary school participation Industry / Non-Profit / Vendor Support • No clear, nationwide, widespread adoption of published standards • Transcript Vendors open to “coopetition” (PESC Panel, April 2008) • SIS Vendors remain committed to standards bodies workgroups and activities but slow to support new standards in products (no APIs)

4. The Proposed Solution A Standards-Based Methodology for Data Exchange • Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach, over the internet • Well documented set of APIs with free, open source examples • A single API for the request, creation, import and export of transcripts and related documents, used by exchange networks or individual SIS vendors • Distributed trading partner registry to manage secondary, postsecondary, industry and other participants (senders and receivers) • All documents are securely routed to their final destination regardless of SIS or transcript exchange vendor used Cooperation Between SIS, Transcript Vendors • Meets stated goals of “coopetition” between established transcript vendors • Reduces development time, costs for participating vendors • Differentiates vendors based on services; not technology or standards used • Supports an ATM-like model for the routing of data and collection of fees

5. The Technology • Potential Trading Partners • Transcript Vendors• ConnectEDU • • Docufide • • National Student Clearinghouse • • National Transcript Center • • Xap • • Others • Post-Secondary SIS Vendors• Oracle • • SunGard • • Datatel • • Mainframe / Open Source / Others • Direct Participants• Individual schools or districts (LEAs) or SIS vendors • • Statewide transcript exchange systems • • Statewide longitudinal data systems (SEAs) • • Customized SIF Agent for Trading Partner API • • Individual post-secondary institutions • • International Organizations (RS3G) • • Others • Supported Standards • Security • • WS-Security or equivalents • • HTTPS-Only Connections • • Trading Partner SSL Certificates required • • Trading Partner SSL Certificates required • Formats • • All transactions are XML, SOA-style messages • • Request, response, acknowledgement handling • • Payload in XML message depends on transaction • • Supports any known standard, file or binary payload • Web Services • • Published WSDL for Trading Partner APIs • • API Endpoint URLs stored in Trading Partner Registry • • OS, Platform, Programming Language Independent • • Example code and documentation available • • Could be Open Sourced under GPL

6. Trading Partner API Documented API using Web Service Methods Open Source Examples and Implementation Guide Non-Profit Sponsorship (Hosting?) of Registry • A common, standardized registry should be established and supported by a single entity (PESC, for example) • Initial, root registry should be hosted at a public URL • Federated registry among trading partners • More to come from PESC regarding a potential business model

7. Supported Document Types in API SIF / SPEEDE / PESC Standards • PESC XML High School, College Transcripts, Admissions Application, etc. • SIF Message, Transcript, Student Record, etc. • SPEEDE ANSI X12/EDI Transcript, Applications, Test Scores, etc. • PESC XML Batch Containers to support multiple documents in one transmission • PESC Acknowledgements to support positive delivery of document(s) Image File Formats • TIFF, JPG, PNG and other binary image file formats • PDF (with and without embedded XML data or attachments) Custom File Formats • Any XML document with an associated DTD and XSD in a public URL space • Any CSV, TXT, delimited or flat-file plain text formats with documented schema • Supports XML Schemas still in development by SIF/PESC working groups • Supports Proprietary Schemas in use by specific trading partners

8. Trading Partner Forum Single Online Location for Exchange Network Activities • Discussion Forums for Developers, End Users and Network Administrators • Documentation Repository and Knowledgebase (Exchange Wiki) • Hosted Root-Level Trading Partner Registry • Free and open source API code examples • Working API test harness and test registry for developers • Account Management console for registered trading partners and end users • Centralized URL for a Trading Partner Portal (e.g. http://www.transcriptexchange.net/) Supported by Participating Standards Bodies, Users • Potentially hosted by PESC, SIFA or other interested entities • Code examples, best practices, guides contributed by vendors, end users • Encourages more widespread adoption of standards by users • Extends reach of standards movement to other entities, internationally

9. Trading Partner Registry Single Registry to Control Partner Authority • Trading partners marked as authoritative for a given sender/receiver • Identifies which document types, versions each partner supports • Proposed schema for registry is platform, database independent • Registry updates protected by secure web services – partners can only update the registry for those institutions for which they are authoritative Registry Replication Amongst Partners • All trading partners replicate the entire contents of the registry • Ensures high availability of the entire network in the event of outages • A common, standardized registry should be established and supported by a single entity (PESC, for example) Non-Profit Sponsorship and Hosting of Registry • A common, standardized registry should be established and supported by a single entity (PESC, for example) • Initial, root registry should be hosted at a public URL