What's New

• Florida Legislative Session 2008 Updates
• Florida Legislative Session 2007C Updates
• Florida Medallion Scholars May Receive 100% Funding at Community Colleges
• Bright Futures Updates

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• First-Time Applicants
• Initially Awarded Student Information Page
• Renewal Students
• Eligible Colleges and Schools
• Award Amounts
• Summer Funding
• Frequently Asked Questions

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• High School Guidance Counselors
• Resources for Postsecondary Institutions
• Comprehensive Course Table

Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program

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1.0 Transcript Evaluation System Overview
2.0 Obtaining and Using Your Logon ID and Password
3.0 Main Menu Options
4.0 Downloading Evaluation Results

The Bright Futures Transcript Evaluation System (the System) receives transcripts from Florida public and private high schools and evaluates them to determine if the student is eligible for any of the Bright Futures Scholarship Awards offered by the Florida Department of Education. The on-line system allows authorized high school representatives to query the system and manipulate the data to varying degrees. This on-line system requires the use of a web browser compatible with Netscape 4.0 or better (such as Internet Explorer 4.0).

The System processes student transcripts in two modes of operation. In "practice" mode, student transcripts are evaluated according to the same criteria used in "production" mode (the second mode of operation, the Production System). However, the practice system only evaluates transcripts; no letters are ever sent to students from the Practice System. Its use is merely that: a system for conducting preliminary evaluations on student transcripts.

The original purpose of the Practice System was to give schools the ability to practice with their transcripts so that, when the time came to send them into production, any errors and inconsistencies already would have been resolved. It became immediately obvious that the Practice System could also be used as an advisement tool. Thus, schools can submit transcripts for juniors, sophomores, and even freshmen to the Practice System, retrieve their evaluation results, and share them with the students. This gives schools the ability to provide their students with progress reports on their Bright Futures scholarship standing.

The Production System differs from the Practice System only in that its results can become official. Final Production System evaluations result in letters being sent to students informing them of their eligibility for Bright Futures scholarships. The Production System also informs the student's postsecondary school of the student's eligibility status, and, if eligible, sets the student up to receive state scholarship funding.

A second evaluation cycle was added to the System in 1999-2000. Instead of only evaluating students at the end of their high school education (the 8th semester or summer evaluation), students can also be evaluated at the end of their seventh semester (the 7th semester or early evaluation). This new evaluation cycle permits students and postsecondary institutions to know, at a much earlier stage of the admissions process, the students' scholarship eligibility. Each evaluation cycle has its own Practice and Production Systems.

Students can be evaluated in either or both evaluation cycles. A student evaluated in the 7th semester evaluation can enter the 8th semester evaluation at no risk to the student. The results of the 8th semester evaluation operate only to improve a student's scholarship eligibility.

A student who is found ineligible in the 7th semester evaluation can enter the 8th semester evaluation and be found eligible for a scholarship. Also, a student, found eligible for a lesser award (the Gold Seal Vocational or the Florida Merit Scholarship) in the 7th semester evaluation, can enter the 8th semester evaluation in the hope that their final grade point average and test scores would now qualify them for the highest level award (the Florida Academic Scholarship). However, should the student's 8th semester results qualify the student only for a lesser award (or none at all), the student would still retain the scholarship eligibility they received in the 7th semester evaluation.

There is no limit to the number of times a student's transcript can be evaluated on the Practice System, but no actual scholarship awards are made for Practice System records. If the guidance counselor/district contact is satisfied that all records for the high school/district are correct, all transcripts may be transferred to the Production System. This can be accomplished either by using the "Copy All" or "Transfer up to 30" options or by retransmitting the data via FASTER.

If some, but not all, of the high school's transcripts are ready for transfer to the Production System, those ready may be transferred individually. See Section 5.0, Action button X - Transfer Transcript to Production.

Production System transcripts are also evaluated nightly (they are automatically evaluated when they are first transferred to Production). Subsequently, Production System evaluations can be viewed and records can continue to be updated (on-line or via FASTER) for an additional 10 calendar days. After 10 days, award and ineligibility letters are sent to students. At that time, the student eligibility determination is final except under special circumstances approved by Bright Futures. See Section 8.0 for details. Note: As the fall term begins, this ten-day period is subject to being reduced to speed student eligibility determination and notification to postsecondary institutions.

This document describes the portions of the on-line system that allow district and private school personnel to view evaluation results, view individual transcripts and transfer or delete records. Transcript data entry and update are explained in Part III: On-line Transcript Entry Instructions and will not be covered here.

2.0 Obtaining and Using Your Logon ID and Password

Each school district and private high school that submitted Bright Futures transcripts last year should continue to use the Logon ID they have already been issued. Schools that did not submit transcripts last year or those who wish to obtain additional Logon IDs should contact Jacque Hunt at 1-888-827-2004 or (850) 410-5177. Prior to using a new Logon ID and Password, you must have the Logon ID activated by Jacque Hunt. Once activated, you may begin using the on-line system. This may be accessed from the Bright Futures Home Page through the link for High School Guidance Counselors, and then On-Line Transcript Entry and Evaluation System.

Initial connection to the on-line site results in the display of a Logon screen similar to that shown in Figure 2.1 below. Enter your Logon ID and password into the spaces indicated. To ensure a high level of security you should change your password the first time you use your new Logon ID and at regular intervals, say monthly, after first use.When you have entered the necessary data, use your mouse to click the "Submit Logon Request" action button -OR- tab to the "Submit Logon Request" action button and press the Enter key.

FIGURE 2.1 - Initial Logon Screen

SPECIAL NOTES:

• All information entered while logged into the on-line data entry system is encrypted. For additional security, your session automatically terminates (without saving) 30 minutes after you last submitted a screen to Northwest Regional Data Center (NWRDC). The screens have been designed so that transcripts are entered in small logical sections to diminish data loss due to system overload.
• The first time you access the on-line data entry system you may be asked to accept a Certificate which uniquely identifies NWRDC to your computer. If this happens, you must accept this Certificate in order to use the system. NWRDC has obtained the Verisign Certificate that streamlines this process for both Netscape and Internet Explorer.For more information about certificates (and Verisign in particular) visit http://www.verisign.com/.
• Your browser must be set to accept 'cookies' which allows the System to uniquely identify your particular session. This 'cookie' is returned to NWRDC whenever you submit a screen of data and must match the one stored at NWRDC for your session. More information about cookies can be viewed at http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html.

3.0 Main Menu Options

The Main Menu screen for the On-line Transcript Evaluation System (for non-FASTER users) will be similar to the one shown in Figure 3.1. The Main Menu for FASTER users will not include the "Enter a New Transcript" option. Since this document concentrates on on-line facilities that can be used by both FASTER and non-FASTER users, that option is not discussed here. For instructions on its use, see Section 2.0 of the document titled "Part III: On-line Transcript Entry Instructions."

FIGURE 3.1 - Main Menu Screen

The options available on the screen above will vary slightly depending on your level of security.

• The first option on this menu takes you to the System Status Screen, where you can view recent announcements made by the System's administrators.
• The second option provides a list of students at your school who have submitted a Florida Financial Aid Application.
• The third option is discussed in Part III On-line Transcript Entry Instructions.
• The fourth option is described in Section 4.0 of this document.
• The fifth and sixth options are described in Section 5.0
• The seventh option, Summary Statistics, will provide a "real-time" list of the number of students who are eligible for each scholarship, the number of ineligibles and the FFAA status of each. Underlined figures link to a list of student names in that category.
• The eighth option allows you to delete transcripts from the Practice System.
• The ninth and tenth options are described in Section 6.0.
• The last option returns you to the Bright Futures Home Page (after first logging off, as a security precaution).

Before selecting options 2 through 10, you must review the settings in the five selection lists in the upper portion of this menu. The " District/County" selection list will be preset based on your Logon ID, as will the "Private School" list. School districts will need to choose one of their schools from the "School" selection list (unless you are exercising a district-wide option). All users will need to identify the "System" and the "Evaluation Year and Time-Frame" options they wish to use. Once the desired settings have been entered, you can then use one of the other main menu options.

4.0 Downloading Evaluation Report Print Files

When you click on the "Download Evaluation Report Print Files" for the Practice System or the Production System you will be presented with a screen similar to the one shown in Figure 4.1.

FIGURE 4.1 - Student Evaluation Report Download Menu

The table below lists the files that have been reserved for your Bright Futures Student Evaluation Reports for both the PRACTICE and the PRODUCTION system. If your reports are currently available for download, the file name will appear as a link on which you can click to start the download process. If a report is not yet available for download, then the file name will appear but will not serve as a link and the file size will be zero. Also note that the files are 133-character wide ASCII Text files that, once downloaded, must be viewed using a fixed-width font (such as Courier) rather than a variable-width font (such as Times New Roman). The file sizes displayed are only approximations (due to limitations in reporting of space allocations on the server) but should be within 30 Kilobytes (Kb) of actual size.

To view the most recent evaluation for a student without downloading the entire Evaluation Report file, return to the Main Menu and select the 'List of Students by Student ID or by Last Name' option.

Evaluation reports are generated with slightly different names, to distinguish the Practice System reports from the Production System reports, and 7th Semester evaluation results from 8th Semester. The nnnn in the "File Name" column represents the year when graduation takes place. The dd in the "File Name" column represents the school district or, for private schools, the county number. The ssss only appears for private schools and represents the school's DOE-assigned ID within the county.

The first step in the nightly evaluation of transcripts posted to the Bright Futures Scholarship System (Practice or Production) is the retrieval of test scores from the SAT/ACT Test Scores Repository. It is possible that a problem could occur in the evaluation process that would delay the generation of reports for a day or so. This sometimes occurs when our attempt to retrieve test scores from the repository fails (due to contention problems). When this happens, please be patient and check for your reports on the following day. If you still fail to find new reports waiting, call the FIRN Applications Programming staff and have them check on the problem.

To retrieve your reports and store them on your PC, click on the links in the "File Name" column. The length of time needed to complete the download is greatly dependent on the size of the file, the speed of your connection, and the amount of traffic on the Internet at the time. With a connection running at an effective speed of 28.8 Kb you would expect to be able to download a 500 Kb file in about 20 seconds. However, practically speaking this file could take 2 minutes or more to download. Be patient! The report format is described fully in Section 4.1.

Clicking on the "Return to Main Menu" action button will return you to the Main Menu.

4.1 The Evaluation Report Format

All information on a given student will appear in one place. This information will include a list of all the courses a student took (for high school credit), with indications as to the extent each course was used in the various methods of eligibility and GPA computations.

The first section of each report will be the student's name, Social Security/Student ID Number, and the scholarship award for which the student has qualified (if any). Also shown will be the date the student was evaluated, the student's test scores and any special qualifying information (such as whether or not the student completed the International Baccalaureate curriculum).

The second section provides the subject area totals for each evaluation method and the GPA in that method. This year, there are four (4) evaluation methods:

There is a column on the evaluation report for each method, plus an additional column for Vocational Curriculum credits (a sub-component of the Gold Seal Vocational method).

If the results in an evaluation method have qualified the student for an award, the award qualification will be listed here (the Award Status printed at the top of the student's report lists only the highest award for which the student qualified). If the student did not meet the eligibility criteria in a category, ineligibility reasons will be listed instead.

The report concludes with a list of the courses the student took for high school credit. Where a course was used in one of the four evaluation methods (or was a part of the student's Vocational Curriculum), a notation will appear in the corresponding column for that evaluation method. The notation will specify the subject area in which the course was used and the number of quality points earned in that subject area. In designating subject areas, the evaluation report uses the following abbreviations:

Please note, in the evaluation reports, that any annual course records submitted to the System have been broken out into components having no more than 0.5 credits each. For example, a course record with 1.0 credit earned will appear as two course records, each with 0.5 credits. Both records will carry the same grade as the original record, and any pluses or minuses will be disregarded. Thus, if you want an annual grade of "B+" to count as half a credit of "A" and half a credit of "B", you will have to break the course record up into its component parts before posting it to the System. Otherwise, the course will be counted as two 0.5 credit records with grades of "B".

A student is evaluated in each of the four methods whether or not the student's test scores would qualify the student for the corresponding award. This provides useful information for guidance counselors when they find that a student has met the subject area and GPA requirements for a scholarship, but has not earned the required test score. In such a case, the counselor would be able to advise the student to retake one of the tests in an attempt to achieve a qualifying score prior to graduation.

As mentioned earlier in this section, two reports are available after each execution of the transcript evaluation program. The first, the Cumulative Report, lists all the transcripts submitted to date along with their evaluations. The second, the Most Recently Evaluated Students Report, lists only those students evaluated in the latest evaluation run. Thus, if you submitted 1,000 transcripts on Monday, these were evaluated on Tuesday morning, and you submitted another set of 200 transcripts (unduplicated) on Tuesday, the reports you would receive from the Wednesday morning run of the evaluation program would show 1,200 students on your Cumulative Report and 200 students on your Most Recently Evaluated Students Report.

These reports are sorted by school and then by the student's last name, first name, middle/maiden name and appendage. At the end of each report are totals for each school and the district as a whole, giving counts of the total number of students eligible for each award (both duplicated and unduplicated counts), the total number of students evaluated, the total number with at least one scholarship, and the total number earning no scholarship.

4.2 Browsing Transcript Evaluations

Your alternatives for Browsing Transcript Evaluations are:

1. download the entire file and browse it on your PC by clicking on one of the links in the "Download Evaluation File" column depicted in Figure 4.1 and discussed in Section 4.0, or
2. use the single transcript view option discussed in the Section 5.0 , and browse the student's evaluation report on-line.

Viewing large files on-line can be time consuming and, at times, frustrating. The definition of 'large' depends on several factors: type of connection (LAN, WAN, Dial-up), modem speed (counted in Kilobytes per second or Kbs), competing traffic on the connection, the amount of memory in your machine, and the amount of disk space set aside for cache in your browser. Essentially, 'large' is defined on a case by case basis. You'll know a file is too large when it takes too long (in YOUR opinion) to bring the file up. If you find this to be the case, your alternatives are to download the entire file and view it locally (or in printed form), or to view student transcripts one at a time. It is important to use Web-browsing software with at least the capabilities of Netscape version 4.0.

5.0 Viewing Information for a Specific Student

There are two ways to view information on a single student. From the Main Menu, you can select either the "List of Students by Student ID or by Last Name" option, or the "To go directly to a specific student..."; option. Both options produce a screen similar to the example shown in Figure 5.1. The difference between the two options is that the former produces a list of all the students in the school you specified on the Main Menu, while the latter produces a list that includes only the single student you specified in the box on the Main Menu (the student also must be one of the students in the specified school).

FIGURE 5.1 - Student List Screen

Numerous options are available from the Student List Screen. There are two sets of six action buttons (one at the top of the student list and one at its conclusion).

• The first button is labeled either "Sort By Last Name:" or "Sort By SSN." The button will have the former label if you originally specifed (on the Main Menu) that the student list be sorted by SSN. It will have the latter label if you requested a sort by last name.



• The second button is labeled "Main Menu," which will take you back to the screen you see upon logging in as a high school guidance counselor.



• The third button,"New Transcript," will present you with a screen that allows you to enter a student's transcript (from the school you previously specified on the Main Menu) by either SSN or by Local Student ID (if the Student's SSN was not provided to the data base).



• The fourth button, "Transfer up to 30 Records to Production," allows you to transfer up to 30 student records from practice to production at one time. Clock on the box next to a student's name, for up to 30 students, then hit this "Transfer" button. A graduation date must be on the transcript to transfer to production.



• The fifth button, "Copy up to 30 Records to Summer Practice," allows you to duplicate ("copy") up to 30 student records from Early Practice to Summer Practice at one time. Click on the box next to a student's name, for up to 30 students, then hit this "Copy" button. Those student swill then be in Early Practice and Summer Practice for that year.



• The sixth button, "Delete up to 30 Records, "allows you to delete up to 30 student records at one time. Click on the box next to a student's name, for up to 30 students, then hit this "Delete" button. Those student records will be deleted.

The left most column of the student list is labeled "Action." This column shows letters representing up to seven possible actions for each student. Fewer actions will appear in certain situations. For example, public school districts that use FASTER to submit transcripts to Bright Futures will not have the actions that permit a user to edit transcripts on-line. As a rule, if your Logon ID is not authorized to perform an action, you will not see that action in the Action column (or in the action code descriptions that appear above the student list). The letters in the Action column are links that result in the following actions when clicked:

E - Edit Demographic Information and Test Scores

Clicking on the "E" link on a transcript row will result in the display of a transcript edit screen. Instructions on the use of this screen can be found in Part III: On-line Transcript Entry Instructions.

C - Edit Courses

Clicking on the "C" link on a transcript row will result in the display of a course edit screen. Instructions on the use of this screen can be found in Part III: On-line Transcript Entry Instructions

V - View Award Notification Status / Demographics

Clicking on the "V" link on a transcript row will result in the display of a screen that is a compressed view of the transcript edit screen. The view is compressed, since you will not use this screen to actually edit a transcript. Using an action button on this screen, you also can bring up a list of the courses from the student's transcript.

D - Delete Transcript

Clicking on the "D" link on a transcript row will result in a the display of a confirmation screen asking you if you really want to delete the transcript. If so, click the "Done" action button on the confirmation screen: this will irrevocably delete the transcript from the Bright Futures System. If you do not wish to delete the transcript, click the "Cancel" action button on the confirmation screen. In either case, you will then be returned to the Student List Screen. Unlike the other edit features of the system, this delete function (button number six) is available to all public school districts.

X - Transfer Transcript to Production

Clicking on the "X" link on a transcript row will result in the transfer of the students records from the Practice System to the Production System. Once a transcript has been submitted to the Production System, it cannot be returned to the Practice System: use this option with care! This link will not appear among the options on a Production System student list.

8 - Copy Transcript to Summer Evaluation

Clicking on the "8" link on a transcript row will cause a copy of the student's 7th semester transcript to be stored in the 8th semester evaluation Practice System data base. The 7th semester copy will not be disturbed. This option will be used only by non-FASTER users.

R - View Evaluation Report

Clicking on the "R" link on a transcript row will result in the display of the evaluation report for that student. This screen will be in the same format as that described in Section 4.1. It will be the width of a standard print file (133 characters). Thus, you will not see the entire printout on one screen. Use your browser's scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to view the data to the right.

6.0 Transferring and Copying Transcripts

Transferring and Copying Transcripts has been modified since last year due to Legislative Session 2007C changes, eliminating evaluation of early admit students who are no longer eligible for Bright Futures awards. (Strikethroughs indicate procedures will no longer be followed.)

Once your review of the evaluation reports confirms that all students have had their transcripts accurately entered into the System, you can transfer Practice System to Production System by using the "Transfer Practice system Transcripts to the Production System" option on the Main Menu. This option allows you to transfer to production either the transcripts for the single school specified on the Main Menu, or the transcripts for every school in the district (for a private school, district and school are interchangeable). When either choice is made, you will be presented with a confirmation screen similar to the example shown in Figure 6.1. This screen will list the school numbers, names, and transcript counts of all the schools whose transcripts you have marked for transfer.

This confirmation screen provides two subtotals for each school, in addition to the total school transcript count. The first subtotal lists the number of students being transferred who have either graduation dates or early-admission-to-college status. That is, the first subtotal is a count of the number of students in the school who may receive either an award or an ineligibility letter. The second subtotal is the number of students in the school who will definitely receive an ineligibility letter (for example, a non-early-admission student who does not have a graduation date cannot be awarded a Bright Futures scholarship). The purpose of the second subtotal is to identify transcripts that you may need to correct. If you wish to correct any transcripts, select "Cancel" and you will return to the Main Menu.

Clicking the "Transfer" action button on the confirmation screen will transfer to the Production System all transcripts from all the selected schools. Clicking the "Cancel" action button cancels this action. Both actions return you to the Main Menu. Remember, once you transfer transcripts to production, a ten calendar day period begins, at the end of which an evaluation letter is sent to the student. Also, once a transcript is sent to production, it cannot be returned to the Practice System. Do not transfer transcripts until you are really ready to do so.

FIGURE 6.1 - Bulk Transcript Transfer Screen

7.0 When Letters Go Out to the Students

Once a student's transcript has been entered into the Production System, a period of ten (10) calendar days will elapse before the student is sent either an award letter or a letter explaining why the student is not eligible for a scholarship. As stated in the previous section, this allows one or more re-evaluations should you find an error at this late date. Once this ten (10) day period has run, however, a letter will be sent to the student.

Note: As the Fall term begins, this ten day period is subject to being reduced to speed student eligibility determination and notification to postsecondary institutions. At those times, most submissions are for the purpose of correcting previously submitted transcripts, so there is less need for a waiting period. You will be notified of such a reduction via the Bright Futures System Messages link on the Main Menu page.

8.0 Making Corrections After Letters Have Been Sent

Once a letter has been mailed to a student, you will no longer be able to resubmit the student's transcript and have it loaded into the System. Instead, the System will reject the transcript and send you notification via a FASTER request record (if you are a FASTER user). If you enter your transcripts on-line, the System will no longer provide you with edit capability for such a student. If you determine that you really need one more evaluation, you should contact Bright Futures, which has the authority to issue an override that will allow you to re-transmit or correct the transcript. Once you have received notification from Bright Futures that the override has been issued, you can resubmit or edit the transcript.