Modernizing Financial Aid Delivery A Status Report

1
Modernizing Financial Aid DeliveryA Status Report

• Jim Farmer
• instructional media magic, inc.
• As presented at the
• 2001 EAC-EASCI Financial Aid Administrator
  Advisory Board Meeting
• Thursday, June 14th 2001
• Monticello, Minnesota

2
This presentation is based onModernizing
Federal Financial Aida presentation given
byStephen Hawald, CIOOffice of Student
Financial Assistanceat the May 17,
2001Postsecondary Education Standards Council
ConferenceArlington, Virginia
3
The Department of Educations Office of Student
Financial Assistance is the First Performance
Based Organization freedom to innovate
4
Performance Objectives

• Raise Our Customer Satisfaction Index From a
  Level Typical of Government to the Range Enjoyed
  by Americas Best Financial Service Companies.
• Reduce Our Unit Cost the Amount We Spend
  Administering Per Recipient by One-fifth
• Raise Our Employee Satisfaction RatingFrom
  Mediocre to the Level of NASA Workers Who Reach
  for the Stars.
• Greg Woods, Interim Performance Objectives
• Nov 15, 1999

5
Customer Satisfaction

• 1999 2000
• Federal Government 68.6 68.6 0
• Student Financial Assistance 63 70 7
• Patent Trademark Office 57 59 2
• Internal Revenue Service 74 75 1
• (e-filers only)
• Federal Emergency
• Management Agency 73 73 0
• U.S. Mint 86 84 -2
• American Customer Satisfaction Index
• University of Michigan Business School

6
Observations

• Customers Using Electronic Services Are More
  Satisfied Than Those That Dont.
• Agencies That Measure Customer Satisfaction
• Have Better Customer Satisfaction That the
  Federal Government As a Whole
• In General, Are Improving Customer Satisfaction

7
Reducing Unit Costs
SFA FY2001 Performance Plan
Each dollar reduction represents 14 million
annual savings
8
CIO Score Card Year One
B

• New Management Team
• Training
• IT Policy Guide

Management

• Rational Rose Tools
• IBM MQ series - EAI/ Middleware
• LDAP Compliance / BI Tools
• RSA COTS tools
• XML Compliance Applications
• Informatica - ETL tools
• Digital Signatures
• Published APIs

• N-Tier Web Application
• Coupled VDC Migration
• Designed Data Warehouse
• SLAs in Place
• Migrating to Seat Management
• OPS Readiness Review
• Designed Portal Apps
• Internet/VPN

Technologies
Operations
9
Two Development Alternatives

• Integrate the Information Systems ... a
  Transition Strategy for Planning and Managing the
  Simultaneous Replacement of All of the Existing
  Title IV Systems With an Enterprise Data Base and
  Six Application Modules.
• Implementing the Higher Education Amendments of
  1998
• Advisory Committee on Student Financial
  Assistance
• January 1999
• Buy a Little, Test a Little, Fix a Little
• Modernization Blueprint, April 30, 1999

10
Buy a Little, Test a Little, Fix a Little

Harry Feely, Project EASI Has Graduated, Aug 28,
1999
5
11
Why Buy a Little, Fix a Little

• In 2000, High Performance, Reliable Middleware
  available
• Immediate Cost Savings From Customer Self-service
  Via the Web, Voice Response
• Decreasing Communication Costs Make a Virtual
  Data Center Cost-effective
• A Customer Interaction Center Improves
  Satisfaction, Reduces Unit Costs

Integration With Middleware Lowers Risk of
Failure
12
The IT Imperative
In the face of continuous business reinvention,
evolve an infrastructure that provides greater
flexibility and speed of response
13
Key Technology Drivers

• Internet
• Truncated Application Cycle
• Convergence / Voice / Data / Video

14
Integrated Technical Architecture

• Objective of ITA Build Is to Design, Build
  and Integrate the Technical Services,
  Infrastructure, and Components Required to Enable
  the Delivery of Three Enterprise Technical
  Architecture Functions
• Internet/Portals
• Data Warehouse
• Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

15
Path Toward Integration

• Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
• IBMs WebSphere Product
• MQ Messaging, Integrator, Workflow
• Internet Application Integration (IAI)
• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• UDDI Directory

Tested, Demonstrated in Highway 1
Project Aug-Sep 2000
16
Web-Enabled Applications

• FAFSA on the Web
• Schools Portal Release 2.0 with Single Sign-On
• Financial Partners Portals FY 2002
• Student On-line Access to Direct Loan Servicing
• API to SFA Systems
• Specifications 09/30/01

17
PBO Victory Initiatives

• Turbo FAFSA 
• Common Origination Disbursement  
• Financial Management System with E-Business
  Center  
• NSLDS Mad Dog Changes  
• Schools Portal with Single Logon  
• E-Sign P-Note 
• Consistent Answers for Customers (Contact
  Centers, CRM, Customer Data)  
• Human Resources Support Systems 
• Product Support Analysis (FAFSA, DL
  Participation, DL e-Servicing)

18
Web ApplicationFAFSA on the Web - 1999/2000
Web ApplicationFAFSA on the Web - 2001
19
FAFSA On The Web
20
Benefits of Web Applications
23 million
Investment
Operating Costs
SFA
Electronic FAFSA
21
Schools Portal Prototype
Friday, October 20
22
Technology Choices

• Announced February 2000
• XML - B2B Standard
• Business Messages
• XML Schema
• Java - Transportable Programs
• Shared Java Components
• Web Implementations FAFSA
• UML - Unified Modeling Language

23
Technology Under Study

• SOAP for Internet Data Transport
• Commercial/open Source Software Available,
  Supported
• Recommended by NCHELPs Electronic Standards
  Committee Commonline
• Implemented by the National Student
  Clearinghouse, Meteor
• UDDI Universal Discovery, Description, and
  Integration
• Directory services, possibly PEPS

24
Electronic ID Technology Vision
25
Electronic Identification

• Single Sign On for Students and Financial Aid
  Professionals
• Remote Authentication of Students
• SFA Pin Via Proprietary Protocol (transitional)
• ACES Digital Certificates Via GSA
• 2002-2004 Plans
• Shared Authentication Using SFA PINs, ACES
  Certificates, School PINs, Bank PINs and
  Certificates
• Town Hall Meeting on Electronic Identification
• December 14, 2000

26
Partnerships

• Open Book Modernization
• Continuing Dialog With the Community
• Open Software Developers Conferences
• SFA Extranet for Community Feedback
• http//extranet.sfa.ed.gov

27
Impact on Colleges and Universities

• Change
• From Batch to Real-time Transactions,
• From Proprietary File Transfers to Internet XML
  Messaging Standards
• From SFA-defined to Industry Message Content
  Standards
• Integrate Student Experience With SFA
  Student-oriented Systems
• Use Java J2EE Shared-components

28
Lessons Learned

• E-Commerce Solutions Scale to Millions of Users
• Multiple Limited IT Projects
• Can Be Managed Effectively
• Can Be Integrated Through Architecture,
  Middleware
• Provide Immediate Cost Savings
• Talented People Are Available for Interesting
  Projects
• Open Standards and Open Source Software Work

29
And the future
30
Expect...

• SFA Common Origination and Disbursements
• Difficult
• Limited volunteers
• Minimal vendor support
• Electronic Signatures
• Limited use of SFA PIN
• Replaced by Internet 2/SAML December 2002

31
Expect...

• Alternative loans will be the largest source of
  financial aid by 2005
• The focal point of financial aid information and
  transactions will be the college or university
• The Meteor Project will be the basis for the new
  information technology infrastructure
• New college and university administrative systems
  based on Web services, component architecture
  will become available 2003, widely implemented by
  2004

32
Collaboration the new future

• Focus on the student
• the mutual customer
• Implementation of standards-based new
  technologies
• interoperability
• Shared objectives, shared experience

33
The endwww.immagic.com