DCLPublicationDate: 2/1/98 DCLID: ANN-98-1 AwardYear: Summary: Expanded information available to the financial aid community on our World Wide Web pages. Student Financial Assistance Programs Dear Colleague: We are pleased to announce a major expansion of the services and information available to the financial aid community on our World Wide Web pages. The first two areas of the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) are now available for your use. The IFAP Bookshelf provides access to electronic copies of a wealth of Student Financial Aid (SFA) publications and Dear Colleague Letters, from 1995 to the present. Our extensive document collection includes SFA Handbooks, Verification Guides, Dear Colleague and Action Letters, SFA-related Federal Registers, the Compilation of SFA Regulations, SFA Announcements, and many more SFA publications. The IFAP Display Case will be used to highlight new additions to our document collection as well as items of renewed or immediate interest. For example, a Federal Register published earlier announcing a change in regulations might be highlighted in the Display Case as the implementation date for the new regulation approaches. Within the next 60 days the Catalog and Reference Desk areas of the IFAP will also be unveiled. The Catalog will enable you to locate SFA policy, procedures and regulations related to a specific program and topic. The Catalog will identify all SFA publications within our collection which address the specific program and topic you select from the Catalogs index. The Reference Desk will be restricted to the exclusive use of Financial Aid Professionals. After you register with us and obtain an ID you will be able to take advantage of the features available through the Reference Desk. Once available this area will include: Participation in private discussion groups. Members of the SFA community will be able to discuss new issues and challenges with each other and with ED. ED will actively participate in discussions as needed. A comprehensive listing of all SFAP-supported customer service centers, and the ability to communicate with most of them by e-mail from the Reference Desk. Page 2 An organizing feature that will allow you to customize up to five different search preferences. For example, you may wish to review all announcements once a week, but check less frequently on new regulatory activity. You can tailor your search preferences to give you announcements only, and regulations only. We developed the IFAP web collection to enhance and eventually replace the Student Financial Aid Bulletin Board System (SFA BBS). In the future, we will cease updating the document collection on the SFA BBS. When we do so we will notify you of the date of the change through the SFA BBS and IFAP. Until that time the SFA Customer Support Branch will post new documents and publications to both the SFA BBS and to IFAP. We encourage you to visit IFAP and become familiar with the features it provides. The URL for IFAP is: http://ifap.ed.gov Feel free to send your comments, questions and suggestions about IFAP to the SFA Customer Support Branch via electronic mail to csb@ed.gov, or via FAX at (202) 260-4199. Sincerely, Diane E. Rogers Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Student Financial Assistance Programs |