PESC—the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council—was founded in 1997 by 30 leading organizations (EDUCAUSE among them) to help coordinate and support data-related projects in higher education and to serve as a community-based standards-setting body. Since then, PESC and its membership have focused primarily on standardizing student-related data and on accessing and exchanging that data. With the establishment of critically needed standards such as XML transcripts, slated for adoption by more than half of the states, PESC continues to add to its catalog. PESC's suite of existing standards (including admissions application, education test score report, and financial aid) is complemented by development of new standards in areas such as recruitment and enrollment, academic e-portfolios, and many others. Join PESC CEO Michael Sessa in a discussion about interoperability and about future initiatives related to authentication, role-based authorization, web services, and service-oriented architecture.
