[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 177 (Tuesday, September 14, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55418-55420]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E4-2185]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION


Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan, 
Federal Work-Study, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, 
Federal Family Education Loan, William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan, 
Federal Pell Grant, and Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership 
Programs

AGENCY: Department of Education.

ACTION: Notice of required electronic processes and related system 
requirements.

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SUMMARY: We give notice that, beginning with the 2005-2006 award year, 
institutions participating in the Federal student aid programs must 
ensure they participate in the designated electronic processes included 
in this notice and satisfy the hardware and software specifications 
described in this notice. The Federal student aid programs are 
authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as 
amended (Title IV, HEA Programs).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Student Assistance General Provisions 
regulations in 34 CFR 668.16(o) provide, in part, that to be 
administratively capable an institution must participate in electronic 
processes designated by the Secretary. These processes were first 
identified in a notice published in the Federal Register on September 
19, 1997 (62 FR 49414). In that notice, we also provided information 
regarding the hardware and software requirements needed for an 
institution to participate in the designated electronic processes. 
Because of advances in technology, we updated those hardware and 
software requirements in a Federal Register notice published on 
December 22, 2000 (65 FR 80841).
    In this notice, we update both the designated electronic processes 
that an institution must participate in and the software and hardware 
requirements (presented as a minimum system configuration and an 
optimal system configuration) that an institution must have to 
participate in these processes. Most of the electronic processes 
included in this notice are the same processes that were included in 
the previous Federal Register notices, although the specific technology 
and/or names of those processes may have changed (for example, the 
Student Aid Information Gateway (SAIG) has replaced the Title IV Wide 
Area Network (TIV WAN)).
    A new process included in this notice is that all institutions must 
send and receive origination and disbursement data for the Federal Pell 
Grant Program and the Federal Direct Loan Program to our Common 
Origination and Disbursement (COD) system using the Extensible Markup 
Language (XML) ``Common Record: COD.'' Beginning with the 2005-2006 
award year, this requirement will apply to all institutions, including 
COD phase-in participants that currently submit and receive information 
using flat-file record formats. Additional information on this 
requirement is provided in item 11 under Designated Electronic 
Processes below.

Designated Electronic Processes

    To be in compliance with 34 CFR 668.16(o), an institution must:
    1. Participate in the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG);
    2. Use our electronic process whenever it is required to submit or 
update its Application for Approval to Participate in the Federal 
Student Aid Programs (for example, when the institution initially 
applies to participate, when it is recertified, or when it reports 
required changes, or seeks to be reinstated);
    3. Use our electronic processes to submit its Fiscal Operations 
Report and Application to Participate (FISAP) and other required 
reports or requests for the campus-based programs (Federal Perkins 
Loan, Federal Work-Study, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity 
Grant);
    4. Electronically receive Institutional Student Information Records 
(ISIRs) from our Central Processing System (CPS) using the Student Aid 
Information Gateway (SAIG);
    5. Use the Student Aid Information Gateway (SAIG) and approved 
electronic processes when submitting a Free Application for Federal 
Student Aid (FAFSA) on behalf of an applicant for Federal student aid 
to our Central Processing System (CPS) or when submitting corrections 
or updates to FAFSA data to CPS for an applicant;
    6. If not already listed, add itself to the Central Processing 
System (CPS) record for a student it wishes to consider for Title IV 
assistance;
    7. Have on-line Internet access to the National Student Loan Data 
System (NSLDS) and submit to NSLDS its Federal Perkins Loan data, its 
student enrollment records, its Title IV program overpayments, and its 
NSLDS Transfer Monitoring records using either the

[[Page 55419]]

offered Student Aid Information Gateway (SAIG) services or the 
Internet, as appropriate;
    8. Access the ``Information for Financial Aid Professionals'' 
(IFAP) Web site;
    9. Electronically submit its annual compliance and financial 
statement audits, and any other required audits;
    10. Receive its draft and official cohort default rate data 
electronically; and
    11. Beginning with the 2005-2006 award year, send and receive 
origination and disbursement data for the Federal Pell Grant Program 
and the Federal Direct Loan Program to the COD system using the Student 
Aid Information Gateway (SAIG) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) 
``Common Record: COD'' that complies with the published schema for each 
award year.

Technical Specifications

    For an institution to effectively and efficiently participate in 
the designated electronic processes listed above, it must obtain 
appropriate software and hardware. While many institutions currently 
participate in these electronic processes, at least partially, using 
mainframe technology, many other institutions, and to some extent many 
of the mainframe schools, use a desktop computing environment for all 
or part of their Title IV student aid processing. Specifically, many 
institutions use our EDCONNECT process for receiving and sending data 
over the SAIG. Also, many institutions use one or more of the processes 
included in our EDExpress suite of products. Accordingly, we are 
providing the following minimum and optimal hardware and software 
configurations as part of this electronic processes notice.
    Although all of the required electronic processes included in this 
notice can be performed using the minimum configuration, we strongly 
recommend the optimal configuration, particularly in cases where an 
institution sends or receives 4,000 or more records in an XML document 
(batch). This is because the new XML file formats used by EDExpress and 
COD (and in the future by CPS) are larger and require greater storage 
and computing power. For the same reason, while we include ``high speed 
Internet connection'' only in the Optimal Configuration, we encourage 
institutions to consider moving away from a ``dial-up'' connection if 
they intend on submitting or receiving large amounts of data. This will 
significantly reduce transmission time and will increase the 
probability of an uninterrupted transmission session.

                          System Configurations
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Minimum               Optimal
                                  configuration         configuration
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBM or Fully IBM-compatible   1.2 GHz Processor...  2.8 GHz/333 MHz
 PC.                                                 Processor.
                              512 MB RAM..........  1 GB RAM.
                              60 GB Hard Drive....  80 GB Hard Drive.
                              48x CD-ROM Drive (CD- 48x CD-ROM Drive (CD-
                               RW recommended).      RW recommended).
                              Windows compatible    Windows compatible
                               keyboard and mouse.   keyboard and mouse.
Monitor and Video Card......  Capable of Super      Capable of Super
                               Video Graphics        Video Graphics
                               Adapter (SVGA)        Adapter (SVGA)
                               resolution (800 x     resolution (800 x
                               600) or higher.       600) or higher.
Internet Connection.........  56 Kbps Modem (meets  High speed Internet
                               or is upgradeable     connection (i.e.,
                               to V.90 standard).    DSL).
Printer.....................  Laser printer         Laser printer
                               capable of printing   capable of printing
                               on standard paper     on standard paper
                               (8.5'' x 11'').       (8.5'' x 11'').
Operating System............  Windows 2000 or       Windows 2000 or
                               Windows XP            Windows XP
                               Professional          Professional
                               recommended (FSA      recommended (FSA
                               will support          will support
                               Windows 98/98SE/ME    Windows 98/98SE/ME
                               only until June 30,   only until June 30,
                               2006).                2006).
------------------------------------------------------------------------


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general questions relating to 
these requirements, contact John Kolotos, U.S. Department of Education, 
400 Maryland Avenue, SW., (UCP room 113F1), Washington, DC 20202. 
Telephone: (202) 377-4027, FAX: (202) 275-4552, or by e-mail: 
[email protected].
    For questions related to the Student Aid Information Gateway (SAIG) 
and to the Central Processing System (CPS), contact CPS/SAIG Technical 
Support at 1-800-330-5947.
    For questions related to the Application To Participate, the 
Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site, and the 
electronic submission of audits, contact the Customer Service Call 
Center for Schools at 1-800-433-7327.
    For questions related to the campus-based programs, contact the 
Campus-Based Call Center at 1-877-801-7168.
    For questions related to the National Student Loan Data System 
(NSLDS), contact NSLDS Customer Service at 1-800-999-8219.
    For questions related to the Common Origination and Disbursement 
(COD) system, contact the COD School Relations Center at 1-800-848-0978 
for the Federal Direct Loan Program or 1-800-474-7268 (1-800-4PGRANT) 
for the Federal Pell Grant Program.
    If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may 
call the Federal Information Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.
    Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an 
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer 
diskette) on request to John Kolotos using the contact information 
listed above.

Electronic Access to This Document

    You may view this document, as well as all other documents of this 
Department published in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe Portable 
Document Format (PDF) on the Internet at the following site: http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister.
    To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available 
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S. 
Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in 
the Washington, DC area at (202) 512-1530.

    Note: The official version of this document is the document 
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the 
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal 
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html.


    Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1070a, 1070b-1070b-4, 1070c-1070c-
4, 1071-1087-2, 1087a-1087j, 1087aa-1087ii, 1094, and 1099c; 42 
U.S.C. 2751-2756b.

(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance numbers: 84.007 Federal 
Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Program; 84.032 
Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Programs; 84.033 Federal Work-
Study (FWS) Program; 84.038 Federal

[[Page 55420]]

Perkins (Perkins) Loans; 84.063) Federal Pell Grant (Pell) Program; 
84.069 Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) 
Programs; and 84.268 William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct 
Loan) Programs)

    Dated: September 8, 2004.
Theresa S. Shaw,
Chief Operating Officer, Federal Student Aid.
 [FR Doc. E4-2185 Filed 9-13-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P