OCAS Electronic Transcript Management System (eTMS)

OCAS has developed a system to allow boards to monitor and administer applicant high school transcript requests for students. Currently the feature only includes past or inactive students (those that have graduated or left high school). All currently active students should still be sent via the current OCAS/OUAC transmission process. This feature is known as the Electronic Transcript Management System (eTMS). The eTMS file is generated in an XML format, and provides all of the same data that is in the typical OCAS/OUAC extract file, with a few additional fields.

Although the Maplewood application can be run from the school or board level, the Maplewood default is to allow access at the Board level only. If you would like your schools to have direct access to this application, please seek approval from OCAS first, then send a request into Maplewood to have this change made.

Within the Maplewood OCAS/OUAC application, each submission period will only indicate the MONTH that the file is due. This is to ensure that schools are using the latest documentation given to them from the respective parties, and not relying on Maplewood due dates for submission deadlines.

Courses with a Note of A or M (for Alternate or Modified Expectations - i.e. no credit) must have a Course Status of "X". A Course Status of X is defined as Not applicable (N/A) (The student is taking or has completed a non-credit course.)

Changes for the 2013/14 submission cycle: New field called Home school Indicator has been added to the submission file. This field will be populated based on the Main School Holder of the OSR field. If this field has 'This School' selected then Maplewood will send 'Y' (for yes) in the file. Note: As with other areas within this program, Maplewood will only be looking at current status and will not be looking at residency internal transfers. OCAS and Dropped Courses: Previously If a student drops a class, and adds another one where the 7th character of the course code was unique, the course was sent as a drop.

OCAS/OUAC only collects the first 6 characters of the course code - therefore OCAS validation picked the courses up as duplicates (because they have the same 6 character code and same completion date). Maplewood has modified the program to only look at the first 6 characters when determining whether to send a class as a drop or not. Note: If classes have different course types (or class end dates) then the drop will still be sent.

The pilot system allows users to:

• View and action high school transcript requests
• Access summary reports about the status of applicant transcript requests

Advantages of the eTMS system

Advantages to applicants

 –Less time and cost vs. requesting transcripts in person and sending to OCAS or colleges of choice

Advantages to OCAS

–Reduced paper handling and data entry costs

Advantages for colleges

–Faster admission decisions

–Reduced data entry

–Trusted grade information

Advantages to the boards

–New revenue source

–Savings in transcript paper, toner, envelopes, and postage

–Improved security

Advantage to SIS Vendor

–Happy clients

Here is how it works:

• Two files are sent between boards and OCAS to fulfill a transcript request: the request and the transcript
• There is an ability to indicate if a transcript can’t be fulfilled and the reason why
• The process follows an electronic data interchange (EDI) workflow that is has been used by thousands of institutions over the last decade
• Board users can interact with a web application to review transcript requests and upload an electronic transcript to OCAS
• Has been used by Ontario Colleges for over 3 years and follows North American standards for postsecondary electronic data exchange

Peace of mind knowing that eTMS uses the Industry Standard

• OCAS uses the PESC XML High School standard to exchange data
• PESC is supported by numerous institutions and educational software vendors.
• Standards are created with the assistance of colleges, universities, and vendors to ensure acceptability across the educational community
• OCAS was the first Canadian institution to become a member and is active in creating standards for North America.  

Some Background:

The average number of requests that come into the board is approximately 5 to 15 a day (could be as little as 1 a day or 2 a week depending on time of year) - with the highest volume being the month of January and February 1st. So this by no means will occupy the users whole day. Although similar to the OnSIS process, it may require more attention during the peak time (January/February).

The current processing/service fee that the 4 pilot boards are using is $20.00 - but this is determined by each board, and therefore can be changed on a board by board basis. There is a monthly reconciliation with the Board (and OCAS). When responding to a transcript request, Board users are required to select the appropriate action and then click the Submit button.

The list and descriptions of acknowledgements are highlighted below (note: With any action, the board still gets paid).

Upload data file to OCAS: File created via Maplewood is uploaded to the OCAS eTMS system.

Transcript Image Sent to OCAS: Indicates that the transcript is only available in a hard copy format and is being sent to OCAS.

Student Not Found: Indicates that the student for whom the transcript was requested could not be identified On Financial Hold: Indicates that the transcript cannot be produced at the requested time due to a financial or other hold at the board.

No Academic Data: Indicates that the request could not be fulfilled because although the student was found on the institution’s SIS, there was no academic data to send (i.e. Student pre-registered only).

Each Transcript file transmitted to OCAS must contain one Transcript Header (TH) record and at least one transcript grade record (TG). Values will be separated with a pipe | character.

OCAS will accept one single file layout as detailed below. If the file doesn’t match this layout, a “FILE ERROR will be set in the system and the transcript will not be processed. File Format Transcript Header

Grades Data