Data exchange standards and user-created content were just two of the topics addressed at the recent 4th Annual Conference on Technology & Standards held in Washington, DC, April 23-25, 2007, and sponsored by the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) with partners the Consumer Bankers Association, Education Finance Council, and the National Association of Higher Education Loan Programs. As a founding member of PESC, NASFAA was an active supporter of this conference and is represented on the PESC Board of Directors by Francisco Valines, Director of Financial Aid at Florida International University.
Since the main focus of PESC is developing standards for data exchange within the education community, much of the discussion at the conference was about important standards setting activities, within the U.S. Department of Education, among state policymakers, the IPEDS reporting system, new data security standards for NSLDS, and all along the student lifecycle. Just to name a few, standards currently under development across education include Data Transport, Admission Application, Student Aid Inquiry, Education Test Score, Course Inventory, Taxonomy, and Commonline. The Online Loan Counseling Standard just adopted by PESC provides an excellent example of how data exchange standards can establish the data requirements and formats that enable all loan counseling providers to exchange data and not be reliant on proprietary formats and codes.
Beyond the more grounded business of standards and data integrity, conferees also considered how Web 2.0 tools can improve customer service through the use of blogs, wikis, flickr, facebook, RSS and syndicated feeds, allowing people to create their own content. On the topic of Privacy and Security, some conferees were surprised to learn that 30-40% of employee Internet activity is non-work related, and half of respondents in a recent survey reported that they spent 10% or more of their time surfing the Web during work hours.
For access to several of the slide show presentations from the conference, be sure to visit http://www.pesc.org/events/techstandards/fourth/#details.
By Ellen Blackmun
NASFAA Director of Technology Initiatives and Distance Learning
Posted 05/11/07 to www.NASFAA.org. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited. Please submit Web Site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.
