More than ever, states need to make the most of their education dollars. Now there's an innovative software designed to help them do just that. ElRep (Eligibility and Reporting) is tailored for the needs of state programs that provide extra support for financially and academically challenged students in institutions of higher learning. Developed by Hanu Software, a leading business solutions provider based in Princeton, NJ, ElRep is a web-based, cost-effective, error-proof, secure, time-saving and environmentally friendly system for administering these assistance programs.
ElRep's Origins
ElRep is based upon an application developed for the State of New York's Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). The HEOP application has already resulted in dramatic benefits for schools throughout New York State. Built entirely from the ground up, utilizing the latest technologies, the user-friendly, highly configurable ElRep system can immediately benefit all state and school systems nationwide. With an annual budget of about $25 million, New York's Higher Education Opportunity Program provides financial and academic support to over 5000 students a year in 66 private institutions of higher learning in New York State.
How it Works
The functions of ElRep can be broken into two categories: Eligibility and Reporting.
Eligibility is determined based upon a complex set of criteria related to residency, academic record and household income. Those criteria are set by the State and change every year. Each institution has its own additional academic requirements.
ElRep streamlines the process of identifying eligible students into four steps.
- Staff enters student's information using the Eligibility Wizard, whose easy-to-use forms and navigation accelerates tasks and safeguards against mistakes.
- Wizard provides preliminary eligibility status.
- After student is deemed pre-eligible, counselor follows a checklist generated by the system to confirm student has provided the required documentation.
- Verification Engine runs student's information through list of rules to determine final eligibility. State Education Department officials use the rules engine to update requirements each year, eliminating the need for programs to keep track of the changes.
Reporting with ElRep, all reports can be generated automatically and viewed online.
User-specific access ensures that people can view only information directly related to their role such as counselor, administrator, director or SED official protecting student privacy and sensitive information.
Institutions use ElRep to:
- Aggregate and send information about eligible students to SED.
- Submit Proposals to SED.
- Submit budgets to SED.
- Report expenditures to SED.
- Aggregate and report on academic outcomes of students for the state.
- Track progress of individual students.
SED uses ElRep to:
- Review information submitted by institutions to ensure compliance with eligibility rules.
- Communicate with institutions regarding funding and awards.
- Track academic outcomes of students by institution.
- Generate reports for state legislators.
- Review and approve budget proposal and expenditure reports and issue Award Letters.
Flexible and Scalable for All States
ElRep combines a sophisticated, extremely flexible rules engine capable of executing thousands of rules and a user-friendly Web-based interface. The rules engine can accommodate the needs of any education assistance program system regardless of size and complexity. The interface makes the system easy to implement, ensuring a high degree of accuracy with minimal staff training.
"The system for determining eligibility is practically fool-proof, and we've been able to reduce the amount of time spend on preparing reports by 80 percent."
- Dr. Param Chawla, former Executive Director of Opportunity Programs at NYU. |
