Modernizing Financial Aid Delivery A Status Report Jim Farmer instructional media + magic, inc. As presented at the 2001 Vermont Financial Aid Conference Thursday, June 21 st 2001 Killington, Vermont

instructional media + magic, inc. Financial aid services In the past, regulations drove practices, limited services Now, information technology drives practices; its implementation limits available services ________________ Using information technology, the U.S. Department of Education is improving its services, setting higher expectations

instructional media + magic, inc. Key initiatives Department of Education OSFA Web enabled applications Common Origination and Disbursements Student Loan Industry Meteor Project ELM Resources College and University Collaboratives JA-SIG (Java in Administration Special Interest Group) Internet 2/Mace and Shibboleth Florida State University “30 minute application to funds”

instructional media + magic, inc. U.S. Department of Education OSFA Performance OSFA Plans An analysis

instructional media + magic, inc. SFA performance objectives  “Raise Our Customer Satisfaction Index From a Level Typical of Government to the Range Enjoyed by America’s Best Financial Service Companies.”  “Reduce Our Unit Cost — the Amount We Spend Administering Per Recipient — by One-fifth”  “[Raise] Our Employee Satisfaction Rating…From Mediocre to the Level of NASA Workers Who Reach for the Stars.” Greg Woods, Interim Performance Objectives Nov 15, 1999

instructional media + magic, inc. Web-enabled applications  FAFSA on the Web  Schools Portal; Release 2.0 with Single Sign-On  Financial Partners Portals – FY 2002  Student On-line Access to Direct Loan Servicing  API to SFA Systems Specifications due 09/30/01

instructional media + magic, inc. Web Application FAFSA on the Web /2000 Web Application FAFSA on the Web

instructional media + magic, inc. FAFSA On The Web FAFSA e-Filers Millions of students

instructional media + magic, inc. Benefits of Web applications SFA $23 million Operating Costs Investment Electronic FAFSA

instructional media + magic, inc. Customer satisfaction Federal Government Student Financial Assistance Patent & Trademark Office Internal Revenue Service (e-filers only) Federal Emergency Management Agency U.S. Mint American Customer Satisfaction Index University of Michigan Business School

instructional media + magic, inc. Reducing unit costs Annual Cost per Recipient $0 $5 $10 $15 $20 $ SFA Goal 2004 Projected Planned Reduction Each dollar reduction represents $14 million annual savings SFA FY2001 Performance Plan

instructional media + magic, inc. CIO Score Card “Year One”  Rational Rose Tools  IBM MQ series - EAI/ Middleware  LDAP Compliance / BI Tools  RSA COTS tools  XML Compliance & Applications  Informatica - ETL tools  Digital Signatures  Published APIs  N-Tier Web Application  Coupled VDC Migration  Designed Data Warehouse  SLA’s in Place  Migrating to Seat Management  OPS Readiness Review  Designed Portal Apps  Internet/VPN  New Management Team  Training  IT Policy Guide Management Operations Technologies B+

instructional media + magic, inc. Electronic identification  Single Sign On for Students and Financial Aid Professionals  Remote Authentication of Students  SFA Pin Via Proprietary Protocol (transitional)  ACES Digital Certificates Via GSA  Plans  Shared Authentication Using SFA PINs, ACES Certificates, School PINs, Bank PINs and Certificates Town Hall Meeting on Electronic Identification December 14, 2000

instructional media + magic, inc. Key OSFA “PBO” victory initiatives Turbo FAFSA Common Origination & Disbursement NSLDS Mad Dog Changes Schools Portal with Single Logon E-Sign & P-Note Consistent Answers for Customers (Contact Centers, CRM, Customer Data)

instructional media + magic, inc. Schools Portal Prototype Friday, October 20

instructional media + magic, inc. Observations  Customers Using Electronic Services Are More Satisfied Than Those That Don’t.  Agencies That Measure Customer Satisfaction  Have Better Customer Satisfaction That the Federal Government As a Whole  In General, Are Improving Customer Satisfaction

instructional media + magic, inc. Expect... SFA Common Origination and Disbursements Batch Processing Pilot - Difficult, limited volunteers, minimal vendor support, “successful” Migration to COD On-line, real-time “and earlier if requested” - Kay Jacks, COD Software Developers Meeting Electronic Signatures Limited use of SFA PIN Replaced by Internet 2/SAML December 2002

instructional media + magic, inc. Expect... Alternative loans will be the largest source of financial aid by 2005 The focal point of financial aid information and transactions will be the college or university “Web services” to be the basis for the new information technology infrastructure New college and university administrative systems based on Web services, component architecture will become available 2003, widely implemented in 2004 and 2005

instructional media + magic, inc. Impact on colleges and universities  Change  From Batch to Real-time Transactions,  From Proprietary File Transfers to Internet XML Messaging Standards  From SFA-defined to Industry Message Content Standards  Integrate Student Experience With SFA Student-oriented Systems  Use SFA-provided Java J2EE shared- components

instructional media + magic, inc. NCHELP-sponsored “convergence” Business messages OSFA Common Record, IFX Forum, CommonLine, PESC, industry XML Data transport OSFA, CommonLine, PESC, industry SOAP and ebXML Authentication (in progress) OSFA Internet 2/Shibboleth, JA-SIG, industry SAML Directory Services (soon) OSFA, Meteor, industry UDDI

instructional media + magic, inc. The Meteor Project An initiative of the student loan industry Collaborative effort of 31 guaranty agencies, lenders, secondary markets, and servicers On-line, real-time information services Separate channels for students and financial aid professionals Aligned with industry, SFA standards ______________________ “Building the IT infrastructure for the next decade”

instructional media + magic, inc. Florida State University On-line in “30 minutes” Apply for admission and be accepted Apply for financial aid, including the FAFSA, receive an award, issue credits and initiate funds transfer Apply for housing and receive a housing assignment Enroll in classes __________________ FSU reports general agreement with OSFA for their design

instructional media + magic, inc. Students expectations shaped by... Their experience applying for federal financial aid Their use of financial services portals Their use of the Internet Their life in a “real-time, information rich” environment

instructional media + magic, inc. Students now expect... Customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Complete information from a single source Delivery by Web, , telephone, and facsimile, and, wireless devices response time of 15 seconds for telephone, 10 seconds for Web, and 2 hours for and facsimile access to a complete customer history

instructional media + magic, inc. College students choose a Web site... Ranked by importance College or university’s portal if adequate Suggestions of other students Print advertisements Web search

instructional media + magic, inc. Is technology important? Technology determines the quality of e- services you offer to Web-savvy prospective students, students, alumni, and public. Technology determines with whom you do e- business how it is done. ___________________ From the institutional perspective, financial aid is not a priority

instructional media + magic, inc. SFA technology choices Announced February 2000  XML - B2B Standard  Business Messages  XML Schema  Java - Transportable Programs  Shared Java Components  Web Implementations – FAFSA  UML - Unified Modeling Language

instructional media + magic, inc. SFA technology under study SOAP for Internet Data Transport  Commercial/Open Source Software available, supported  Recommended by NCHELP’s Electronic Standards Committee “Commonline”  Implemented by the National Student Clearinghouse, Meteor UDDI – Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration  Directory services, possibly PEPS

instructional media + magic, inc. Web services architecture is XML “tagged” data content eXtensible Markup Language SOAP data transport Simple Object Access Protocol XSL transformations for presentation eXtensible stylesheet language and now UDDI/WSDL directory services Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration, and Web Services Description Language

instructional media + magic, inc. Technology standards M - from Meteor installation O - optional

instructional media + magic, inc. Support of Web services Feb OSFA U.S. Department of Education Sep NCHELP CommonLine Electronic Standards Committee Oct NCHELP’s Meteor Project Dec IBM Corporation Feb Sun Microsystems Mar Microsoft Corporation

instructional media + magic, inc. A technology strategy Align student financial aid requirements with institutional information technology standards and practices Align technology choices with industry, SFA standards Monitor collaborative efforts Consider outsourcing financial aid services Specific functions With local integration

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