Administration

Higher Ed Policy Portal Coming Next Fall

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/13/20

Two education organizations will be co-launching a policy portal intended to help people in higher education research and compare policies from multiple institutions. The project is the work of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) and CollegeSource, a company that works on online applications related to transfer and degree achievement.

Among the policies to be included in the portal are those covering academia, campus safety, legal aspects and disability, among other operational activities. The portal is expected to be available starting in fall 2020.

The new resource will be free to AACRAO members. They'll get a preview during the AACRAO annual meeting, which takes place in New Orleans in April. The organization's members work in numerous areas on campus, but primarily records and registration, admissions, enrollment management, student affairs, academic advising and transfer and articulation.

CollegeSource, which collects college and university catalogs as part of its normal work, will be developing the policy portal.

"Our members are heavily involved in the development and application of higher education policies and have been clamoring for a searchable, trusted policy repository that can be utilized when developing new or benchmarking existing policies," said Melanie Gottlieb, deputy director of AACRAO, in a statement. "Based on CollegeSource's extensive experience in professionally gathering, collecting, cleansing and organizing college course catalogs, we were thrilled when they volunteered to spearhead this project. This will be an invaluable tool for the greater higher ed universe."

"As academic and institutional policies have historically been an intrinsic part of institutions' course catalogs but now are scattered throughout various print and online resources, we recognized the critical need for a policy research and reporting repository to enable collective best practices across the industry," added CollegeSource President Troy Holaday. "With significant issues such as free speech, gendering and campus safety coming into the forefront more frequently for policy-makers, institutions need access to well-crafted policies that fit tightly with their missions and philosophies."