Posted Date:September 14, 2009
Author: Susan Szabo, Chief Business Operations Officer, Federal Student Aid
Subject: Availability of Electronic Cohort Default Rate Appeals Process (eCDR Appeals) Release 2.2
We are pleased to announce the availability of Release 2.2 of the Electronic Cohort Default Rate Appeals process (eCDR Appeals) for the fiscal year (FY) 2007 official season. As the community is aware, since February 2008 we have provided schools with the opportunity to submit and process certain cohort default rate challenges and adjustment requests via eCDR Appeals, a web-based application. With Release 2.2, schools will again be able to submit their Uncorrected Data Adjustments (UDA) and New Data Adjustments (NDA) electronically, providing certain conditions apply.
The eCDR Appeals facilitates the exchange of information between parties for three of the challenge/adjustment processes. These processes are the Incorrect Data Challenge (IDC) during the draft cycle, and the UDA and NDA processes during the official cycle. The application allows schools to electronically submit these challenges and adjustment requests during a cohort default rate cycle, and allows guaranty agency, Direct Loan Servicing Center, and Federal Student Aid personnel to electronically view and respond to these challenges and adjustment requests. The application tracks the entire life cycle of each challenge/adjustment request from the time the case is submitted until the time a decision is made and the case is closed.
With this release, we made the following changes:
Perfecting a New Data Adjustment - While perfecting its case, the school user now has the option to remove all Data Manager Adjustments with a "disagree" status in one step. In the previous release, the school user had to remove each such adjustment individually.
Overall Data Correctness - We added validation to ensure that a School Adjustment includes adjustment effects for the current year. While the application is not able to help the school with potential prior year effects, the system now requires the entry of current year effects, thus ensuring greater data correctness and completeness.
Uncorrected Data Adjustment Generation - We corrected the way the system generates the UDA case in the event where one Data Manager agreed and another Data Manager disagreed with the proposed School Adjustment for a given borrower during the IDC process. The previous version did not include the necessary logic to ensure correct handling of these relatively rare instances.
Additionally, the changes made for Release 2.1 (Incorrect Data Challenge - FY 2007 draft season) in February 2009 carry forward into the NDA/UDA, including:
- A confirmation page to the select/deselect loans feature to ensure that schools select all of the pertinent loans for a given allegation/borrower during NDA preparation
- Redesigned Web pages and reports to improve usability
- The ability for a school user with Case Manager access privileges to edit contact information within the school profile in the application for themselves as well as for other users within their school
The use of eCDR Appeals remains optional for schools at this time. If a school submitted its FY 2007 IDC electronically via eCDR Appeals, it is encouraged to submit any UDA and/or NDA electronically, but is not required to do so. Also, if a school did not submit an IDC during the draft process (via the paper process or electronically), it may submit an NDA electronically.
Note: If a school submitted its FY 2007 IDC via paper, it will not be able to submit an electronic UDA or NDA. It must submit its UDA or NDA via the paper process.
Contact Information
Please visit the eCDR Appeals Web site for a listing of frequently asked questions (FAQs). You will also find the User Guides for each of the challenge and adjustment processes, as well as a User Guide for the registration process. Additionally, you will find links to recordings of eCDR Appeals demonstration sessions to assist first-time users.
If your school has questions regarding eCDR Appeals, contact us by e-mailing fsa.schools.default.management@ed.gov or by calling the Portfolio Performance Division (formerly Default Prevention and Management) Hotline at 202/377-4259.