Document Imaging >> The Road to Paperless

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Document Imaging >> The Road to Paperless

10/28/2006

By Matt Villano

Moving to electronic record-keeping and record-sharing means different things for different institutions with varying needs, challenges, and budgets.

More and more colleges and universities today have discovered electronic record-keeping and -sharing, made possible by document imaging technology. Across the country, schools such as Monmouth University (NJ), Washington State University, the University of Idaho, and Towson University (MD) are, in fact, embracing document imaging wholeheartedly. Yet still, there are campus administrators mired in paper records, unaware of the relief the technology offers.

In a nutshell, document imaging provides the capability to capture, store, manage, and route documentation in a secure electronic manner. With this technology, paper documents, photos, and graphics can be scanned and saved as images, organized into electronic folders, linked to business applications, and retrieved by users. The benefits of this approach are undeniable: It makes documents easy to find and retrieve, enhances the ability to share documents across campus, replaces the dreaded microfiche, and preserves document integrity. On top of this, document imaging can save money on both printing and storage costs. The record-keeping challenges that move campus administrators and technologists to search for electronic solutions are myriad. So, if you see yourself in the stories and challenges that follow, it just may be time to clear out those filing cabinets.

Total Conversion

For years, record-keeping for the more than 23,000 students at Monmouth University was less than a paradigm of efficiency. While the school generated only one copy of a student’s transcripts, office personnel printed multiple copies of other records, such as requests to change majors. Depending on the kind of correspondence, the school made copies to distribute to department chairs, academic advisors, and so on. For any one of these records, there might have been five or six physical copies residing in various campus offices. Not only was the process expensive, but there was no way for administrators to keep track of how many copies were in circulation at any given time.

FACTBOX

At Monmouth University, the challenge was the learning curve. To familiarize users with the system, administrators created a pamphlet explaining which kinds of materials would go into each of the new electronic student folder types, and how users should access the new system. Now any Monmouth user can master the system in five minutes.

School officials set out to change things in 2004. After investigating a series of storage options, they decided to transform the student records process entirely, eliminating paper with a document imaging solution that created electronic copies of records instead. The new solution hinged on the multifaceted D3 Workflow Suite from AIG Technology, a three-step solution that consists of automatically completing documents, scanning them, and uploading them to a server. Laura Babbin, director of registration and records, says the new system ended the paper drain and improved efficiency almost immediately.

“The old carbon forms with the three or four sheets we used to have our people tear off and stick in different files—those are long gone now,” she says. “Thankfully, at this point, our people don’t even have to touch paper if they don’t want to.”

The first phase of the AIG project involved digitizing 17,000 student files. As part of this effort, Babbin’s office assigned each student a virtual drawer consisting of eight unique folders: Academic Advising; Academic Standards and Review Committee; Registration; Enrollment Information (including financial information from accounting); Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act data; Grades, Graduation (e.g., transcripts); and Non-Monmouth Coursework. This process went so well that Babbin’s department looked to expand the imaging effort into other areas. First, they tackled archival records dating back to 1933, including curriculum charts, microfiche, and other chronicles of school history. Next, they hit the academic archives library of older documents, such as university catalogs. While the school still has hard copies for many of these documents, Babbin says the electronic versions take up less space and are easier to find than the oldfashioned method of searching through drawers and file cabinets. The system is relatively inexpensive, too: After the initial hardware investment, Monmouth paid AIG a license fee of $10 per user.