Elon University’s Visual Experiential Transcript (Visual EXP) is a significant departure from traditional co-curricular transcripts. Building upon the institution’s more than twenty year history of capturing and validating student’s co-curricular experiences, this digital-only document presents the co-curricular dimensions of Elon students in an accessible and aesthetically pleasing format. Each of the five Elon Experiences (Service, Undergraduate Research, Leadership, Internship, and Global Engagement) is presented as an infographic, and together they are presented chronologically along a four-year timeline. As students engage in experiential opportunities on and off campus, information about those experiences are collected for the student and verified by university faculty and staff.

A sample of the first page of an Elon Visual Experiential Transript.While this new record is obviously useful for employers, allowing them to appraise the ‘whole student,’ it is a boon to students as well. Students now have a comprehensible tool that serves as an anchor for synthesizing their overall collegiate experience and sharing their Elon story. Indeed, what better way is there to get to know a recent graduate than to learn about what they did outside of class?

The Visual Experiential Transcript was created as part of a NASPA and AACRAO partnership funded by the Lumina Foundation to develop new models for comprehensive student records and first launched spring 2016 to graduating students in the Class of 2016. The Experiential Transcript development team was led by Dr. Rodney Parks, University Registrar, and included Evan Heiser, Assistant to the Vice President for Student Life; Dr. Paul Miller, Professor of Exercise Science and Director of Undergraduate Research and Intellectual Climate Initiatives; and Julie White, Programmer/Analyst with Application Technologies. Along with Parchment (the university’s transcript provider) and an independent developer, the document was designed to breathe life into the co-curricular transcript and pave the way for further innovation.