November 21, 2002

Purdue University, which has more international students than any other public university in the United States, has become the first to successfully test the new international student tracking system developed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

According to a November 13 press release from the Indiana-based university, Purdue last month successfully tested a method for transmitting large amounts of data on international students using the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS.

The university also completed testing student data changes, known as events, in early November and continues to test other applications using SEVIS. Student data updates are required to be sent to the tracking system when specific events occur during an international student's academic career, such as changing an academic major, receiving financial aid or reducing and adding to a course load.

All universities in the United States that enroll international students are required to begin using SEVIS by January 30. Universities will use the system to send student information to the government, and the data will then be used by INS to track international students.

The system was developed in response to recently passed legislation, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, which sets new requirements on visa issuances for students and participants in exchange programs.

Because Purdue has more than 5,000 international students, it was able to employ the so-called "batch" method to send data to SEVIS on 250 students at a time using a sophisticated software developed by Newfront Software, a private company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"We are heartened by this success, because schools across the U.S. are getting very worried about not meeting the compliance deadline," said Sanjeev Kale, president of Newfront Software. He added that schools with more than 50 to 100 international students are now able to use the SEVIS batch process instead of an alternate method that sends records of one student at a time over the Internet.