It may be easier for students to send and receive transcripts if two new systems being tested by Sacramento State’s and San Jose State’s admissions and records offices are approved.

Terry Cataline, an information technology consultant for the admissions and records office at Sac State, has been chosen by the California Community College system and the Xap Corp. to test two new Internet delivery systems for student transcripts.

One of the systems is similar to that of CSUMentor, an online program provided by the Xap Corp. that allows students to apply to any of the 22 CSUs by filling out an online application.

If either program is adopted, it could do away with the procedure of sending transcripts by mail.

“The advantage to these systems is timeliness,” Cataline said. “If you were to list all the steps of the process in sending transcripts through the mail, you would see that it’s very lengthy.”

The testing is being primarily run by the CCC system, but the project has also received support from the CSU Chancellor’s Office, which has led to the CSU involvement with program testing.

Colette Horner, an IT consultant at San Jose State, has also been chosen to take part in the project.

Five California community colleges have tested both models prior to Sac State and San Jose State.

Tish McNamara, a project developer for the CCC system, said these five colleges are the sources of the sample transcripts that both CSU’s are testing. The system tests have extended over several weeks, mostly because the systems are new and the staff time devoted to the tests is limited, McNamara said.

Although the testing will be completed soon, it will take several years for all CSU’s, CCC’s and the University of California who exchange transcripts, to change out their systems.

This is not the first attempt at a statewide project to connect public schools in California for the purpose of transcript transfers. Similar projects were launched as early as the 1990.