What is XCRI-CAP?
XCRI-CAP stands for 'eXchanging Course Related Information, Course Advertising Profile'. The XCRI-CAP project to date has been to get a standard developed, in order to get all course related information following the same structure, so that courses can be easily compared and the data about them is up to a certain quality.
Most institutions develop an XCRI-CAP feed from just one set of data; the need for separate and sometimes conflicting systems holding course information is now redundant.
The benefits of XCRI-CAP
Benefits to the institution
- Cost savings - having one feed negates the need to input manually into course aggregators' systems
- Consistency - one set of course data which all systems and users access
- Efficiency - by streamlining the process of updating course information, you reduce duplicity and errors
- Ease of sharing information - use of the course data both internally and externally
- Better communication within an institution - all users are looking at the same set of course data
Benefits to the student
- Quality - the institution knows that the course data that the student is seeing is current and accurate
- Ease of comparison - if all institutions provide their course data in the same format, students can compare courses easier
Prospects involvement
Prospects is the first aggregator of Postgraduate (Taught) courses to accept XCRI-CAP feeds. We have developed two systems:
Course Check
Course Check is a validator, against which an XCRI-CAP feed can be tested. At the moment only PG(T) courses will be validated, but if the feed fails as an valid XML file, then you will notified of this too. All feedback will be emailed to the user's email address which needs to be supplied at the point of validation.
Visit Course Check
Course Exchange
Course Exchange is the system for managing feeds. It is part of the existing Course Handling System (CHS), which allows manual management of Course Data to appear within the postgraduate search on Prospects. Users will need a password to access this system, so please contact XCRI for more information or if you have a feed.
Support for building your XCRI-CAP feed
Prospects, in conjunction with Alan Paull of APS Ltd, have written various support documents:
- Implementation manual - a detailed look at the benefits of XCRI-CAP, with resources for where to go for more help when starting on the XCRI-CAP feed build process.
- Data Definitions document - this is the technical document to be used in conjunction with the British Standard (BS-8581:2012). It is the guide supporting the creation of PG(T) feeds.
- Sample XCRI-CAP feed - a sample XCRI-CAP feed in XML format for guidance when creating an XCRI-CAP feed.
- Functional statement - further details on the process of swapping to an XCRI-CAP feed.