Distribution List Messages

Message sent to QA distribution list on Thursday, September 29, 2011. Below is that message.

Dear QA Program Participants,

We hope the fall term has gotten off to a smooth start. The purpose of this message is to bring you up to date on information about the QA Program for the 2012-13 award year, share details about upcoming training opportunities and registration information for the QA preconference.

• As FSA transitions to Federal verification changes in award year 2012-13, QA Program schools WILL NOT draw a random sample of aid applicants for the 2012-13 award year. However, QA schools should continue to verify applicants that meet their schools institutional verification criteria and upload a subset of those records into the 2012-13 ISIR Analysis Tool. Additionally, you will continue to assign codes to identify the records that met the criteria. Users will have the ability to upload one flat file including the applicable codes (instead of creating a separate user specified data file) into the 2012-13 ISIR Analysis Tool.



• To prepare QA schools to analyze data from the 2011-12 award year, we will provide training on Microsoft Live Meeting during the first two weeks of November. This training will help you understand your data and teach you how to use several new shared report templates. Our goal is to teach schools how to evaluate the effectiveness of individual verification selection criteria. This training is a prerequisite for the hands-on training that we will provide at the QA Program preconference.



• The QA Program Preconference is scheduled for Monday, November 28, 2011, the day before the beginning of the Federal Student Aid (FSA) Fall Conference. We will hold the preconference at the MGM Grand Hotel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, the same location as the FSA Fall Conference. The preconference will begin at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at approximately 5:00 p.m. “A Day of Analysis” is the theme of the preconference and will pick up where the November training ended. The preconference sessions will help schools answer questions about the data from the ISIR Analysis Tool, provide opportunities for schools to share their information with each other and the QA Team, learn about the direction of the QA Program as well as program-wide analysis in 2012-13 and beyond. You can locate the agenda on our web site, http://www.ifap.ed.gov/qahome/conference.html.

To register for the preconference:

Please send an email to quality.assurance@ed.gov and provide the following information in the email:

• The name of each person attending the preconference
• The name of your school
• Email addresses for each attendee
• Contact phone number

QA Program staff will send registration confirmations to each participant registered to attend. Please be certain that you have added quality.assurance@ed.gov as an acceptable e-mail address to receive our emails and to ensure delivery of confirmation messages.

If you have questions please contact your QA Program regional representative, http://www.ifap.ed.gov/qahome/contact.html

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas.

The QA Program Team

Message sent to QA distribution list on Thursday, August 4, 2011. Below is that message.

Dear QA Program Participants:

We hope you have had a productive summer and are gearing up for the start of the fall term. The purpose of this message is to: reassure you that the verification exemptions of the QA Program remain in place despite changes to verification for the 2012-13 award year; clarify what the QA Team means when we refer to "verification;" remind you of your school's responsibility for analyzing QA program data; and let you know of upcoming training opportunities for program participants.

As you are aware, the Department issued final verification regulations in July 2011. The regulations provided guidance to schools regarding the items to verify and the documentation to collect. The publication of the final verification regulations DOES NOT supersede the verification exemptions that QA Program participants are afforded and agreed upon in the signed amendment to your program participation agreement. Your school remains exempt from the following sections of the federal verification regulations:

As a QA Program participant, your school can determine who to select for verification, what items to verify, acceptable documentation to verify FAFSA information, and the deadlines for applicants submitting documentation. Please keep in mind that when the QA Program staff reference “verification,” we are generally referring to the specific elements of verification listed above that your school is empowered to determine based on your own analysis and experience. We realize that there are many other distinct tasks associated with ensuring the accuracy of information used in processing aid applications. QA participants are still governed by the Department's regulations concerning these other elements not listed above, such as resolving conflicting data. We hope this clarifies any confusion that we may have contributed by our program specific use of the term "verification."

As we look toward the fall we would like to remind you of several activities that all QA schools should be in the process of completing. The focus for 2011-12 analysis is on your school's institutionally selected records, specifically the efficiency of individual verification criteria. To identify the criteria applied to students selected for verification, we asked schools to assign an alphabetic code to each criteria. We required schools to create a user defined field (#15) in the ISIR Analysis Tool and create a flat file that contains the codes assigned to each student. Schools will upload a flat file of records that they selected for verification AND the flat file containing the user-specified data into the 2011-12 ISIR Analysis Tool. In March 2011, the QA Team provided training on how to identify your verification criteria and to create a flat file. A recording of the training on how to create User-Specified Field 15 is available on the QA Program website at the following link: http://www.ifap.ed.gov/qahome/training.html

In preparation for analyzing the 2011-12 ISIR data, the QA team will provide a series of Microsoft Live Meeting training sessions in early November 2011. This training will help you understand your data and teach you how to use several new shared report templates. Our goal is to teach schools how to evaluate the effectiveness of individual verification selection criteria. This training is a prerequisite for the training that we will provide at the QA Program preconference.

Finally, please “Save the Date” of Monday, November 28, 2011, for the Quality Assurance Program preconference on the day before the beginning of the Federal Student Aid (FSA) Fall Conference. We will hold the preconference at the MGM Grand Hotel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, the same location as the FSA Fall Conference. The preconference will begin at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at approximately 5:00 p.m.

“A Day of Analysis” is the theme of the preconference and will pick up where the November training ended. The QA team is developing an agenda that will help schools answer questions about the data from the ISIR Analysis Tool, provide opportunities for schools to share their information with each other and the QA Team, learn about the direction of the QA Program as well as program-wide analysis in 2012-13 and beyond. Please plan to attend the preconference. Stay tuned for more details in the upcoming weeks.

We look forward to continuing our work with you. Please contact your QA Regional Representative if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
The QA Program Team