Great news from our institutional transcript exchange implementer, Dean Hiebert:

“I am pleased to announce that on Dec 14th, 2010, at precisely 12 PM, the first production XML transcript navigated through the BC campus system from Douglas to Kwantlen. The acknowledgement was immediately generated and gracefully passed back to Douglas College, making the entire transaction complete at 12:01 precisely. We have lift-off!”

This is a big step resulting from many months of hard work from a great team from colleges, universities and related organizations throughout BC. The genesis of this initiative was a request from the BC Registrars Association, dated March 26, 2008, that BCcampus consider the development of a “get transcript” transaction to enhance the application process and to facilitate electronic transcript information flow within the provincial and institutional networks of British Columbia.

Conservatively, there have been at least 50 people from registrar associations and institutions, as well as partner contractors and internal staff at BCcampus, who have contributed to planning, developing, testing, accepting, and finally, putting this capability into production. Accomplishing this step means that electronic transfers of transcripts between these two institutions can now be accomplished without transmitting information outside of BC, using the industry XML-standard Post-Secondary Electronics Standards Council transcript standard.

To continue with the flight analogy, plans for this pilot mission also include extending this capability to Simon Fraser University (receiving by January 31, 2011, sending by May 31, 2011), as well as a proof-of-concept for our 8 BC institutions that use the Datatel Colleague student system.

There’s lots more work (more missions) to be planned over the coming few years, but this is a great milestone.

Thanks everyone!