Student Data Interchange Gets Open Source Boost

As part of its OpenEAI Project, the OpenEAI Software Foundation has begun releasing new open source Web services that enable the secure exchange of student data between student applications systems and applications on the Web. The first release, Academic History Web Service, is intended to give students access to their data. Colleges and universities implementing the service will be able to allow authenticated students to import their complete academic history.

The core function of the new service--authenticating students and retrieving their academic histories--is the same for all institutions. However, institutions will have different student information systems and different methods for authenticating students. Contributors have designed pluggable modules to enable the authentication operation and the function of building a standard academic history from the student information systems. This design allows institutions using the service to configure it for their environments or to develop custom authentication and academic history provider modules when needed.

The Academic History Web Service is being developed and released as part of the OpenEAI Project to encourage maximum participation and collaboration among participating campuses. The Web services are free to download and the source code is available under open source licenses. The expectation is that the services will be improved and extended by institutions, with enhancements contributed back to the OpenEAI community to the benefit of subsequent adopters.

AcademyOne will be implementing the new Web services in its Student Passport and Transfer Credit Evaluation System (TCES). Students can use the Passport to create and save a curriculum vitae spanning multiple institutions and then manage it and share it with advisors and others as they evaluate their enrollment options. Advisors and administrators use TCES to evaluate a prospective student's prior learning, track evaluations, and provide a systematic and standard assessment to prospective students.

The OpenEAI Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation organized to develop and promote open source enterprise application integration. The foundation was founded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • person typing on a touch screen schedule plan calendar

    2025 Tech Tactics in Education Conference Agenda Announced

    Registration is free for this fully virtual May 7 event, focused on "Thriving in the Age of AI" in K-12 and higher education.

  • Three cubes of noticeably increasing sizes are arranged in a straight row on a subtle abstract background

    A Sense of Scale

    Gardner Campbell explores the notion of scale in education and shares some of his own experience "playing with scale" — scaling up and/or scaling down — in an English course at VCU.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.

  • laptop and fish hook

    Security Firm Identifies Generative AI 'Vishing' Attack

    A new report from Ontinue's Cyber Defense Center has identified a complex, multi-stage cyber attack that leveraged social engineering, remote access tools, and signed binaries to infiltrate and persist within a target network.