College Transcript Interface

What is the College Transcript interface?

The College Transcript interface is an interface where students request that their school transmit their course work to Transferology.

This interface is also referred to as the Course Import and SIS Import. The remainder of this page uses the Transferology term Course Import regarding the interface and the exchange process and College Transcript when referring to the PESC schema.

Supported Schemas

Transferology supports several schemas for the content of the XML document.

PESC CollegeTranscript 1.0.0

Ohio Schemas 0.5 and 0.6

The Ohio schemas are predecessors to the PESC schema. The Ohio schemas are only supported for backward compatibility of existing interfaces, therefore, no new interfaces should be created from them. For support purposes they can be found here: http://www.transfer.org/xsd/SISv05.xsd http://www.transfer.org/xsd/SISv06.xsd

Course Import Exchange Process

The Course Import Exchange process is triggered by a Transferology user requesting to import courses from a school. Users can only request the import from schools that have a defined SIS Import Remote URL in Transferology. 

The exchange of information between Transferology and the school system occurs in the following event sequence:

1. Transferology redirects user to school's Student Information System
2. User authenticates with school's Student Information System
3. School's Student Information System builds College Transcript XML document
4. School's Student Information System sends College Transcript XML document to Transferology
5. Transferology replies with status

#1 Transferology redirects user to school's Student Information System

Transferology opens a new browser window and redirects the user to the Course Import URL defined for the school. The Course Import URL is normally a school provided web application. Transferology appends the following query parameters to the URL.

key

This parameter contains the unique identifier of the course import request and must be supplied in the XML document sent to Transferology.

uid

This parameter contains the unique identifier of the user and must be supplied in the XML document sent to Transferology.

return

This parameter contains the Transferology URL where XML document should be returned to.

Example URL With Parameters

https://www.someschool.edu/sis/collegeTranscript?key=201120416394062&uid=publicjq@MIAMI&return=https://www.transfer.org/uselect/service/xml

#2 User authenticates with school's Student Information System

The school's Student Information System needs to force the the user to authenticate with the proper credentials for the school since Transferology user credentials are different than the schools and cannot be used here.

#3 School's Student Information System builds College Transcript XML document

If the student successfully authenticates with the school's Student Information System, the school can create an XML document with the student's course work.

#4 School's Student Information System sends College Transcript XML document to Transferology

The School's Student Information System posts the XML document to Transferology. The school system needs to follow the XML Document Handling guidelines for exchanging information.

• The XML document must be sent to the URL that Transferology provided in the query parameter named return
• The DocumentID must contain the value that Transferology provided in the query parameter named key
• The RecipientAssignedID must contain the value that Transferology provided in the query parameter named uid

#5 Transferology replies with status

Transferology immediately responds with status XML in the HTTP response body of the open connection.

Success

If Transferology successfully finds the student and request, the XML document is well-formed, and the content is valid and saved in the student's Transferology courses, then Transferology replies with the following:

   <response status="0">success</response>

The coursework is immediately available for viewing by the Transferology user.

Failure

If Transferology encounters an error (i.e., parsing, validation, or finding), a failure result (non-zero status) is provided. Below is an example failure result:

   <response status="1">Non existent or empty, userid or PersonIdCode element for jobId=2007091014514555</response>

Example CollegeTranscript XML Document

The CollegeTranscript XML document must be well-formed and must contain the minimum elements that Transferology requires. Transferology does not strictly validate the XML document against the schema due to the number of unused elements in the PESC schema. The following XML shows the minimum information that must exist in the document. The example data shows the key and uid values from the earlier example Course Import URL:

  <CollegeTranscript>
      <TransmissionData>
         <DocumentID>201120416394062</DocumentID>
      </TransmissionData>
      <Student>
         <Person>
            <RecipientAssignedID>publicjq@MIAMI</RecipientAssignedID>
         </Person>
        <AcademicRecord> 
           <School>
             <OrganizationName>Miami</OrganizationName>
             <FICE>007104</FICE>
           </School>
           <Course> 
             <CourseSubjectAbbreviation>ENG</CourseSubjectAbbreviation>
             <CourseNumber>111</CourseNumber>
             <CourseTitle>English Composition</CourseTitle>
             <CourseAcademicGrade>A</CourseAcademicGrade>
             <CourseCreditEarned>3.0</CourseCreditEarned>
             <CourseBeginDate>2007-08-26</CourseBeginDate>
           </Course>
        </AcademicRecord>
      </Student>
  </CollegeTranscript>

DocumentID

The DocumentID must be the value Transferology provided in the key query parameter.

RecipientAssignedID

The RecipientAssignedID must be the value Transferology provided in the uid query parameter.

School

The school's identifier must be in one of the following elements with the correct value:

<FICE></FICE>
<ATP></ATP>
<ACT></ACT>
<IPEDS></IPEDS>

AcademicRecord

Multiple AcademicRecord elements are allowed.

Course

One or more Course elements can be provided.