SPEEDE Server Moves to National Student Clearinghouse

• By Leila Meyer
• 11/01/12

The University of Texas at Austin is transferring operations of its electronic student record exchange services to the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization for higher education enrollment and degree verifications.

The National Student Clearinghouse will assume operations of the Standardization of Postsecondary Electronic Education Data Exchange (SPEEDE) Server, which was created by the university in 1995. The SPEEDE Server delivers electronic transcripts, electronic admissions applications for all public Texas universities through ApplyTexas, transcript acknowledgements, test scores, and other educational records. In the last year, the SPEEDE Server processed more than 4.3 million documents for nearly 300 institutions.

Under the partnership, "the university and the Clearinghouse will work together to expand the use of electronic data exchange among institutions of higher education as well as to achieve the benefits that automation can bring to address institutional goals," according to the National Student Clearinghouse. The university's role in the partnership will be to continue to promote national standards for electronic data exchange and improve higher education services and operations.

The partnership "will allow the University of Texas and SPEEDE users to evolve their use of the platform to incorporate new services, such as the future establishment of an education record repository at the Clearinghouse," said Rick Torres, president and CEO of the Clearinghouse, in a prepared statement. "This repository will enable greater research capabilities and, therefore, will facilitate greater understanding of enrollment trends and performance in line with the Clearinghouse's mission."

The university chose the National Student Clearinghouse as its partner "because of the Clearinghouse's ongoing commitment to improving efficiency for higher education with low-cost solutions, its deep research capabilities, and its commitment to information security," according to information released by the Clearinghouse.

"UT Austin has devoted close to two decades developing and supporting a national model for the electronic transfer of educational records. This partnership with the National Student Clearinghouse will allow for the expansion of the technology and services developed at The University of Texas at Austin into a truly national platform," said Shelby Stanfield, vice provost and registrar of the university, in a prepared statement. "Expanded electronic data exchange based on national standards as well as services available through the Clearinghouse will permit comprehensive research about higher education enrollment trends and improve efficiency at institutions across the country."

The Clearinghouse plans to continue to provide the SPEEDE service to colleges and universities for free.

Other services from the National Student Clearinghouse include educational reporting, verification, and transcription services, most of which are available for free, as well as a StudentTracker, a research service that enables educational institutions and researchers to study postsecondary enrollment and success.

More information is available at studentclearinghouse.org.