Thursday, December 24, 2015

University Cloud Document Management Systems

By Loris F. Anders


Universities have several layers of administration. The student population often numbers in the thousands and sometimes tens of thousands. Every action taken by a student, from application for entry to obtaining financial aid generates paper and digital documents. The school is overburdened with managing and storing these mountains of paper and digital documents in a usable manner. University cloud document management systems are the solution to this data overload problem.

Documents are stored and retrieved, saved and stored again by various authorized users. When an administrative process can be completed online it saves the school and the student time, money and frustration. Naming and saving protocols are established to enable easy retrieval by students and by university staff. Naming and saving are done seamlessly by the system to prevent human error.

The secure cloud management of documents allows multiple users access for different purposes. Most of the digital files are PDF files, portable document format that are compatible with most computers. Users only need to have Adobe Reader, a free application, on their hard drives. Many of the files cannot be edited or altered, while others were designed to be edited.

Added to the traditional work flow of universities is the move towards online education. Each class needs its own web portal for the students and teachers to access homework assignments, eBooks and communications. Every action has a reaction of paperless documents.

The makers of PDF software applications, Adobe, developed the function that allows users to sign documents over the web electronically. This software and digital files are integrated into the could management system. The process is efficient and effective. In many cases, the student never needs to leave home to complete class registration and assignments.

The electronic file management system can serve other functions. Now schools are able to turn over rooms of hard copies for scanning by the company providing the management system. The new digital files are incorporated into the system appropriately and the paper files are shredded. Electronic storage of files is more secure than papers in file cabinet drawers.

A wonderful, high tech function is intelligent data capture. This function allows the school to extract data points from digital files and appropriately incorporate the data into their enterprise system to use as needed. File storage is crucial to the success of the system. The minimum for back up redundancies is three, but there will typically be more back ups. If one or two back ups are lost, a crisis is averted because other copies exist. Even if you do not understand the cloud, you are using it.




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