Edge Database Subscriptions for the Service Center Operations Directorate (SCOPS)

The mission of USCIS is to administer the immigration and naturalization laws of the United States. USCIS must ensure customers receive timely and accurate information, and correctly adjudicated benefit applications and petitions through a commitment to excellence, courtesy, process improvement and customer satisfaction. SCOPS supports the USCIS mission by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness, and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration systems.

To support this mission, SCOPS requires an unlimited subscription to access the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO) Electronic Database for Global Education (EDGE) system to determine foreign applicant education validity.

AACRAO shall provide unlimited access to the EDGE online system for USCIS SCOPS and AAO program offices. The USCIS adjudication officers utilize EDGE information to support their decision and determine foreign applicant education validity. EDGE offers a thorough description of the educational systems for each country in the world. If there are divergent pathways for academic qualifications and skilled work qualifications, EDGE maps and describes those in extraordinary detail. Each academic and professional qualification is explained as the prerequisites for those qualifications. EDGE then describes how those various qualifications equate to academic and skilled qualifications which are offered in the United States. Further, EDGE describes how the various qualifications may be used to pursue additional academic qualifications.

The amount of data which EDGE provides, as well as the level of detail aids USCIS in performing the level of analysis that is required for Adjudication Officers determinations. Further, if there is an academic or skilled qualification which is not yet
identified in EDGE, USCIS will contact EDGE with a request. EDGE Country designated contact will then perform the research to obtain a description of the previously unidentified qualification and notify USCIS of the update to EDGE.