Association for Institutional Research
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AIR Race/Ethnicity Implementation Status of Non-Federal Organizations
The following status reports have been provided by various vendors, ERP organizations, data requesters. This is not an exhaustive list of organizations that impact an institution's race/ethnicity data. We are in the process of contacting others and would welcome input from you. Anyone who would like to identify additional organizations we should contact, provide information for new postings or updates to existing ones, please contact AIR at (air@airweb.org).
Common App (from Rob Killion, Executive Director, The Common Application, Inc): We launched our new Ipeds-compliant race/ethnicity questions on July 1, 2009 with the 2009-10 application for admission. It is available at www.commonapp.org.
The LSAC is working with law school representatives as well as other related organizations, including the American Bar Association, to make changes to our collection and reporting of race/ethnicities in accordance with the new federal guidelines. We will inform our members of plans once they are determined.
Datatel's Colleague Charlie Coe, Manager of Software Development, reported that in September 2008, Datatel delivered, as part of its Colleague product, a set of new fields for the collection of Race and Ethnic information. Users are now able to collect responses to the Ethnic and Race questions in a manner that exceeds the minimum guidelines of the Department of Education.
Colleague users now have separate fields for Race and Ethnicity and are able to store as many race and ethnic codes as they wish. Additionally they may group them into reporting codes to meet their IPEDS reporting needs. Datatel also delivered a mapping tool for users who wish to map their current data into the new fields. In 2009-10 Datatel will update its IPEDS reporting module to reflect the required reporting changes
Oracle/PeopleSoft: Oracle Campus Solutions is delivering support for the IPEDS race/ethnicity data collection and reporting regulations. The data structure changes, the updates to administrative pages where race/ethnicity is maintained, and updates to the TS189 Admissions Application Load process have already been delivered for Campus Solutions releases 8.9 and 9.0. The enhancements to enable customers to re-survey their population via self-service are targeted for delivery in June 2009. The support for reporting the new data values is targeted for the second half of 2009.
Oracle Human Resources Management System (HRMS) is targeting support for the new standards in the second half of 2009.
SunGard's Banner: Since 2005, SunGard Higher Education has supported the entry of multiple race and ethnicity data into the Banner Unified Digital Campus. At that time, Banner also provided an optional mechanism to translate the old values into the new. In November 2008, SunGard Higher Education provided a self-service survey tool that allows institutions to re-survey their constituents for the multiple race and ethnicity information to aid in data collection. In September 2009, SunGard Higher Education plans on updating our IPEDS reports to support the new race and ethnicity reporting changes with releases in both Banner Student and Banner HR.
Common Data Set (CDS): The CDS publishers have decided not to move to the new categories this year. They are aware that causes problems for some of the colleges, but are not changing until next fall (the August 2010 CDS).
The CDS publishers suggest that institutions that have already converted to the new race/ethnicity categories use the crosswalk (mapping table) found in the AIR FAQ’s to convert their data back to the old categories. See the fourth FAQ under Mapping and Re-Surveying at http://www.airweb.org/page.asp?page=1502.
EMT ApplyYourself is ready to assist their clients with the necessary modifications to accommodate the new standards. Clients should contact their Account Manager with their specific requirements.
The NCAA is working on the changes to their collection of race/ethnicities in accordance with the new reporting guidelines. They will do their best to be consistent with the federal reporting/collection; however, due to NCAA legislation, some of their forms may differ. As soon as they have established procedures, they will let us know.