What is a Value Added Network (VAN)? Ordinarily a Value Added Network (VAN) is a commercial company that provides an important link within the Federal EC/EDI infrastructure. As the EC/EDI Road Map showed, VANs connect Federal trading partners with the Electronic Commerce Processing Nodes of the Government. In this way VANs are the crucial connection which allows electronic data to be sent reliably, securely and to the appropriate trading partners. VANs will be the link between the DoD and your university. Without them, it would be impossible to utilize FACNET and Pentagon's electronic procurement system.

VANs have been compared to a long distance telephone company or a computer on-line service because they provide the communications services, electronic store and forward mailboxing, and other related services for EDI transactions. Without a VAN, EDI connections would have to be direct or point-to-point. That would be a direct, continuous telephone connection between a sender and a receiver, allowing data to be transmitted and received. While that would certainly allow EDI, it would be an expensive and impractical condition with so many Government suppliers.

Instead, VANs can intervene, creating in effect, an "in-box" and an "outgoing mail drop." A VAN serves as an electronic mailbox where messages are routed, stored, and forwarded. Twenty four hours a day and regardless of physical location, VANs provide connectivity and distribution to their customers. Once you connect to a VAN, you are, in turn, connected to all other trading partners. If direct connections were made, one would need to be concerned with the varying communications speeds and protocols of all trading partners. VANs eliminate those issues. Generally, they can take care of the connectivity problems. They can even provide the translation software to convert to and from ANSI X12 to whatever format you wish. When you subscribe to a VAN, you inform the company as to what types of electronic mail you will accept. In this way you are not bombarded with every electronic document sent out.

In addition to the traditional connectivity and message storage and forwarding services, VANs offer an array of other services known as Value-Added Services. VANs offer everything from e-mail and EDI-to-fax to bulletin board and database access. VANs will likely offer you any number of additional services. VANs advertise these services in publications such as the EDI Yellow Pages available through Phillips Publishing International at 1-800-777-5006.

There is no requirement for your university to subscribe to a commercial VAN. The university can act as its own VAN. You can apply to be DoD to be certified as your own private VAN. The services the university would provide as its own VAN would be the same as those it would acquire when subscribing to a commercial entity. As a private VAN the university would need to comply with the same business and technical standards that are applied to commercial VANs. And, after testing and certification, the university would be able to connect with an Electronic Commerce Processing Node and receive the same EDI documents the Government sends to the commercial VANs. While working as one's own VAN is not a viable option for many organizations, if you are interested in learning more about becoming certified as a private VAN you can contact the Defense Information Technology Contracting Office (DITCO) at (618) 229-9592.