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(COD System) Subject: Preliminary Information about COD System Implementation for 2011-2012 Award Year

Posted Date:September 7, 2010

Author: William Leith, Service Director, Program Management, Federal Student Aid

Subject: Preliminary Information about COD System Implementation for 2011-2012 Award Year

Early each year, we implement Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System functionality that supports processing for the upcoming award year. Our planning for the 2011-2012 Award Year is underway and the implementation schedule will differ from previous years.

To assist the financial aid community in its planning for the 2011-2012 Award Year, this announcement provides the following important information about our implementation plans:

  • High-Level Schedule and Summary of Changes
  • Technical Information and Document Availability
  • Contact Information

When appropriate, we will communicate further details about the 2011-2012 Award Year system implementations, as well as all necessary operational implementation guidance, through Electronic Announcements on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site.

High-Level Schedule and Summary of Changes

We plan to implement COD System functionality to support 2011-2012 Award Year processing in two phases:

February 2011 - This phase is scheduled to include:

  • Updates to process 2011-2012 awards for the Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant), Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant (TEACH Grant), and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) programs
  • Updates to the COD Common Record Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema
  • Updates to the Direct Loan School Account Statement (SAS) Report to include servicer information
  • Reports for Entrance Counseling, Direct PLUS Loan Requests for Supplemental Information (Direct PLUS Loan Requests), Master Promissory Notes (MPNs), and actual disbursements
  • Cessation of Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant (National SMART Grant) processing (2011-2012 and forward; the COD System will continue to process for prior award years)
  • Functionality to support the processing of all awards submitted under new Ability to Benefit (ATB) regulations. This will include five new data elements and new edits.

June 2011 - This phase is scheduled to include:

  • Modifications to the StudentLoans.gov Web site, including changes to the Direct PLUS Loan Request process
  • Additional school processing option settings for StudentLoans.gov Web site activities
  • Student FAFSA-matching on Direct PLUS Loans (we will edit to ensure the student for whom the Direct PLUS Loan is borrowed has a valid FAFSA on file)
  • Additional functionality to support Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant processing
  • Implementation of a revised Direct PLUS Loan MPN

Additional Notes:

  1. There will be no Initial Authorization for the Pell Grant Program for the 2011-2012 Award Year. Schools will receive a Current Funding Level (CFL) based on the accepted and posted actual disbursement records that they submit to the COD System.
  2. For EDExpress Users: EDExpress for Windows 2011-2012 software will also follow a similar two-phase release schedule. Release 1.0, containing the Global, Application Processing, and Packaging modules, is scheduled for release on January 3, 2011. Release 2.0, containing Pell Grant, TEACH Grant, and Direct Loan functionality for the 2011-2012 Award Year, is tentatively scheduled for release on March 28, 2011. Subsequent releases, if any, will be determined at a later date.

Technical Information and Document Availability

Over the course of the next several months, we will post additional technical information and documents and other operational guidance on the IFAP Web site.

COD Common Record XML Schema

For the 2011-2012 Award Year, a school must send and the COD System will acknowledge Common Record documents using COD Common Record XML Schema Version 3.0d.

We plan to post information about the updated schema version by the end of September 2010. We will post these updates on the IFAP Web site. In addition, we will include the updated schema version in the 2011-2012 COD Technical Reference.

2011-2012 COD Technical Reference

We plan to post draft versions of select sections of the 2011-2012 COD Technical Reference by the end of September 2010. A more complete draft version is planned for mid-November 2010. We will post the COD Technical Reference on the IFAP Web site and on FSADownload.

COD School Testing for 2011-2012

Schools and software vendors will have the ability complete school testing with the COD System before sending data into production. Additional testing information will be provided in future Electronic Announcements on the IFAP Web site.

Contact Information

If you have questions about this announcement or its attachments, contact the COD School Relations Center at 800/474-7268 for Grants or 800/848-0978 for Direct Loans. You may also e-mail CODSupport@acs-inc.com.