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SACRAMENTO – Today Chancellor Diane Woodruff announced the launch of CCCTran, an Internet-based student transcript system, by the California Community Colleges System Office for dealing with the increased challenges of student records security and data integrity.
“This electronic transcript exchange service enables all community colleges to transfer student transcripts within the state’s 109 colleges and between the University of California and California State University (CSU) systems, as well as other in and out-of-state higher educational institutions,” said Chancellor Woodruff. The CCCTran transcript exchange system is unique in its ability to request transcripts and fulfill transcript requests automatically, extracting student data from a community college’s student information system and delivering the data into the requesting college’s system, without human interaction. Chancellor Woodruff said CCCTran will directly benefit community college students. “Paper transcript delivery can take up to two to three weeks to complete and lost transcripts can extend the process,” she said. “The electronic delivery and tracking of transcripts leads to a faster and more streamlined admissions process for students. These closely tracked transactions are encrypted and secure, eliminating errors and reducing the possibility of fraud inherent in accepting and re-entering paper transcripts.” CCCTran can provide transcript status emails to the student from request through fulfillment and delivery. This helps students keep track of their requests through the entire process. Besides eliminating many of the problems associated with paper transcripts, participating community colleges will see a significant reduction in the costs involved in exchanging transcripts. The System Office estimates costs will drop from an average of $7 per transcript to less than fifty cents per transcript. “We encourage all community colleges to utilize this important and valuable service,” added Chancellor Woodruff. “It’s more efficient and saves time, as well as money.” The System Office began exploring the idea in 1999 with a study conducted at the Contra Costa Community College District and Yuba College to establish feasibility. In 2003- 2004, a requirements and competitive bid process led to the selection of Xap Corporation to develop the transcript exchange to System Office specifications. Work began in 2005 and extensive pilot testing took place between eight community colleges and six CSU campuses. “We are very pleased with the results,” said Patrick Perry, Vice Chancellor of Technology, Research and Information Systems of the System Office. “The leadership and hard work put into this project by our pilot community colleges and those of the CSU system have resulted in the most advanced and secure transcript exchange system available today. As more community colleges go online with CCCTran, we will see significant cost savings across the system.” Sacramento City College is now actively using CCCTran, and California State University Sacramento, as well as California State University Northridge, has some transcript requests waiting to be processed, confirms Kris Backus. She is the Information Technology Analyst for the Los Rios Community College District’s Information Technology Department. “Our current schedule downloads up to 500 requests from CCCTran, and can upload up to 500 transcripts every 15 minutes,” Backus said. “This schedule runs from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day and from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays.” CCCTran is the California Community Colleges new statewide Internet-based system for requesting, transmitting, tracking, downloading and viewing academic transcripts among authorized educational institutions and their trading partners. For more information about CCCTran, please visit the project website at www.ccc-tran.org . The California Community Colleges is the largest higher educational system in the nation comprised of 72 districts and 109 colleges with more than 2.5 million students per year. Community colleges supply workforce training and basic skills education, prepare students for transfer to four-year institutions and offer opportunities for personal enrichment and lifelong learning. The System Office provides leadership, advocacy and support under the direction of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges. For more information about the community colleges system, please visit http://www.cccco.edu.
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