Automated Vs. Manual Transcript Processing & How It Works

An academic transcript is a record of each credit course that a student has enrolled in during his or her time spent at their chosen institution to pursue a degree. The academic transcript lists the course numbers, titles, credits, and grades earned, along with any available degree information. Regardless of how such academic transcripts are ordered, transcripts cannot be provided immediately upon request. Currently for institutions, the admissions team is manually processing each transcript request. With manual transcript processing, the chances for mistakes are higher. For transcript requests, students may need to fill out a form, pay a fee and then have to wait a stretch of time before it can be released. Institutions usually receive hundreds of transcripts each day. No matter how the institution receives it, they may not be able to process for almost a month, or even longer. During busy periods for institutions, such as around the holidays, leading up to graduate school application deadlines, etc., it can take even longer to process transcript requests. 

Automated Transcript Processing:

The increase in the number of students in higher education institutions has posed great challenges for the university’s administration. One important challenge is the delayed computation and issuance of transcripts. This delay is apparent because such universities and colleges are manually processing transcripts. No doubt, the manual transcript processing process is time consuming, more prone to errors, costly, and stressful. The manual transcript processing system, in some cases, the transcript has been wrongly computed, while quite a number of students have lost admissions due to the unnecessary delay associated with the manual process. However, an automated transcript processing system is here, allowing for greater operational efficiency and transforming the enrollment process.

Auto-Transcript processing engines powered by AI now are capable to recognise and extract relevant information within each transcript with the use of AI-powered Optical Character Recognition technology, and immersive auto-machine learning algorithms to structure and derive insights from transcript data; which was not possible earlier with the use of traditional OCR. 

Sia’s Automated Transcript Processing System not only automates the existing manual process of transcript processing but also speeds up transcript processing as the system is capable of processing several thousand transcripts in a few seconds and that too, with high levels of accuracy; regardless of the transcripts format. Sia, with out-of-the-box intricate image recognition algorithms, can read, detect and extract courses, programs, credits and GPA-related metrics from any transcript instantly. Once the transcripts are processed, the extracted data is then pushed automatically to a College or University’s Student Information system and/or Customer Relationship System and/or any other systems.