Posted Date:June 1, 2016
| Author: | Pamela Eliadis, Service Director, System Operations & Aid Delivery Management, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #79 - GE Completers List Viewer Tool and Import Tool Now Available
Today, June 1, 2016, we sent institutions their Draft Gainful Employment (GE) Completers Lists. Refer to Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #78 for important details about the distribution of the lists, including information about message classes, the upcoming 45-day corrections period, and guidance on considering corrections to the data.
As also noted in Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #78, we have developed two tools that can be used to import, view, and sort GE Completers List data: the GE Completers List Viewer Tool and the GE Completers List Import Tool (an Excel spreadsheet workbook). These tools are now available for download from the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site, along with an instruction guide for the GE Completers List Viewer Tool. Instructions for the GE Completers List Import Tool are provided on the first tab of the workbook.
Note: We will discuss the GE Completers List Viewer Tool and the GE Completers List Import Tool in the “Reading Your Draft GE Completers List Files” webinar, to be held on June 2, 2016 and again on June 7, 2016. To register for the webinar, refer to Dear Colleague Letter ANN-16-09.
GE Completers List Viewer Tool
The GE Completers List Viewer Tool, available as an executable software file, can be used to display an institution’s Completers List in a viewable, user-friendly format. The Viewer Tool can display the Completers List by program or by student, allowing the institution to view a set of students based on selected criteria. The tool allows users to view which exclusions (In Military, In School, Death, Disability, Higher Credential Level), if any, apply to a student as well as to view a student across GE programs.
Institutions must have Java version 8.0 on the user’s computer to access and use the GE Completers List Viewer Tool. To download the tool from the IFAP Web site, click on the “GE Completers List Viewer Tool” link in the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page. Choose to save the file to a location on your computer, open the zip file from that location, and unzip the software file (NsldsGeClViewer.jar).
After downloading and opening the software, the user must first browse and locate the institution’s GE Completers List file. Once that file has been located, the institution’s OPEID and School Name appear below the file extension. The Completers List file must then be uploaded to the Viewer Tool.
Additional information and specifics on how to use functions of the Viewer Tool are available in the tool’s instruction guide, available along with the tool in the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page.
GE Completers List Import Tool
The GE Completers List Import Tool is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that can be used to review the institution’s Completers List file. The Import Tool separates the Completers List data into nine distinct worksheets in a sers List data into nine distinct worksheets in a separate Excel workbook, one for each GE Completers List record type. This tool is most useful for usle into Microsoft Access or similar database software. Instructions for getting started, uploading Completers List files, and using the Import Tool are provided on the first tab of the workbook.
Note: If your institution’s GE Completers List (containing all programs) has more than 32,768 total rows, it will not load into the spreadsheet. You can generally work around this file size limitation by requesting program-specific Completers List files on the Reports Tab of the NSLDS Professional Access Web site and loading the separate files into the Import Tool.
Contact Information
We encourage institutions to add an institutional contact for GE to the ORG tab of the NSLDS Professional Access Web site. The contact information in this new field will assist us if we need to contact the institution for GE-related questions.
If you have questions about these two new tools or about NSLDS, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 800/999-8219. You can also contact Customer Support by e-mail at nslds@ed.gov.
The Gainful Employment Information Page on the IFAP Web site contains publications and resources on GE as well as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). If you have a question about the GE regulations that has not already been addressed in the FAQ section of the Gainful Employment Information Page, please submit the question to ge-questions@ed.gov.