What is EDX?
Electronic Data Exchange (EDX) is an acronym used to describe various formats of electronic education record exchange. The most common formats used today in North America and Canada are EDI and XML structured data formats. The transactions are transmitted
electronically between institutions and or their service providers through various secure networks then run through any variety of software translators in order to communicate information between computer systems. Institutions exchanging electronic
education data agree to use the standard EDI and XML data formats which can be referenced at no charge on the Post Secondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC). There are schemas, implementation guides and recommended implementation
practices available for a variety of education record types such as the College Transcript, High School Transcript, Request and Response, Financial Aid and the Application for Admissions. The use of standard EDI or XML formats enables institutions
to exchange education records electronically between each other in a secure and efficient manner. The main benefits of EDX are secure data exchange, efficiency gains, automation opportunities and improved student experience due to decreased errors
and processing time. Portable Document Format (PDF) is another popular method of electronic transcript exchange and does not natively contain machine readable data without the use of extraction tools.