The Office of the Registrar has launched a new electronic request and tracking system for students and alumni to get UGA transcripts.
The new e-transcript program allows any student or alumnus with an 810 identification number to request a certified PDF of their transcripts sent either to themselves or to a third party—whether to a future employer or another school or college. Students and alumni who have been issued an 810 number can log into the new system.
“Prior to launching the e-transcript service, we required our students and alumni to send us a letter on paper requesting their transcripts be sent, then we would process their request in our office and mail a paper transcript to the recipient,” said Jan Hathcote, UGA registrar. “The entire process took about two weeks, sometimes longer, depending on how much time it took the request to arrive in the mail and for the return mail to get to its destination.”
Last fall, following Hathcote’s appointment as registrar in summer 2011, the office was able to incorporate the first step in the e-transcript process for users to send a request through an online form, and a paper transcript was generated by the registrar’s office and either picked up in office same-day or sent via first-class U.S. mail to the recipient.
“This sped up the process by several days on the front end, but the process still wasn’t as efficient as we -envisioned,” said Hathcote. “We wanted to provide a better service that was much more efficient while maintaining security and reliability.”
Hathcote and her staff were able to take the next step earlier this summer in providing a fully integrated electronic process. Partnering with Avow Systems Inc., an authentic document delivery service company, the new e-transcript system allows the requester to order the transcript online and receive a certified PDF within a matter of minutes, cutting down the turnaround time by several days. The certified PDF allows only authenticated users—those designated by the person requesting the transcript—to log in and access the student transcript.
“We had a student come into our office who needed his transcript for a job interview two days later. We were able to provide him with his transcript electronically within a couple of minutes,” said Hathcote, “and he was able to send his transcript simultaneously in a secure, certified PDF format to the person who was interviewing him as well.”
Avow also provides tracking capabilities so that the user knows the exact location of the transcript and whether records have been sent and received.
