Posted on June 09, 2010
SCRIP-SAFE International, the leader in the higher education sector in the delivery of electronic (PDF) transcripts announced today the successful collaboration with Mississippi State University in building a totally automated transcript processing system that fully integrates transcript ordering and delivery systems with the University’s Student Information System. The importance of this announcement for the higher education community, especially those institutions with SunGard Higher Education Banner student information systems, is that the sector now has a non-proprietary architecture for the integration of electronic transcript ordering, fulfillment, and secure delivery.
Bobby R. (Butch) Stokes, University Registrar and the guiding force behind this project declared, “Universities, like the rest of the world, are facing hard economic times. Rather than focusing on cutbacks, MSU is looking to the future, changing, and embracing new ideas and technology. Whatever the future brings, we can’t afford to shortchange our students on services. This collaboration permitted us to complete the integration with members of our existing Registrar and IT staff. The new process will greatly expand our quality of service to students and alumni while allowing our transcript staff to do more with less.” Jim Wager, Vice President and CIO, SCRIP-SAFE International noted that automating this process has historically been a very expensive proposition for institutions and therefore total automation is not that prevalent in the sector. He stated, “This effort provides a viable and economical process roadmap for Banner institutions and even institutions with other SIS systems to follow in automating the entire process.”
SCRIP-SAFE and the Mississippi State University’s Registrar’s Office are currently working to make this architecture and processes available to anyone interested in automating the total transcript process. The intent is MSU will make available the code and procedures they have developed, along with supporting documentation, to other schools free of charge and without warranty. SCRIP-SAFE will serve as the gateway to provide the code and documentation to interested schools. This collaboration marks a return to the days when institutions took the lead on building processes and shared that information with their colleagues in an ever expanding circle that saw improvement and innovations grow and prosper.
SCRIP-SAFE International is located in Loveland, Ohio, a northern Cincinnati suburb where it owns a modern research, customer service, and printing facility. Founded in 1989, the company offers paper and electronic transcripts, custom diploma papers, secured corporate papers and web-based diploma software for over 1,800 national and international corporations, colleges and universities. Created by former university registrars and vetted by the industry, eSCRIP-SAFE, the global electronic transcript network has emerged as the leader in higher education electronic transcript delivery. Mississippi State University is one of nearly 1,000 schools participating in the eSCRIP-SAFE network.
Mississippi State University is a comprehensive, doctoral-degree-granting university offering to a diverse and capable student body a wide range of opportunities and challenges for learning and growth; to the world of knowledge, vigorous and expanding contributions in research, discovery, and application; and to the State and its people in every region, a variety of expert services. Mississippi State University is designated as a Doctoral/Extensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. It is representative of the American Land-Grant tradition and distinctive in its own character and spirit.