Education:
2006
Document Imaging & Management for School Districts
Universal Access to Student & Administrative Records Reconciling
Administrative Demands & Budget Challenges
- Consider your growing student population
- Limited classroom space
- Overflowing storage facilities
- Increasing demands for instant information
The records storage and retrieval burden of complying with federal laws such as FERPA and HIPAA. As your district administration faces these issues, what is the impact of paper and microforms-based records management on efficiency, productivity, and quality of service to district departments, students and your community? Compare & Contrast.
Consider the Costs:
• Valuable office and classroom space consumed by physical document storage
• Money and time spent searching for lost and misfiled documents
• Time-consuming manual searches for transcripts, School Board meeting minutes and other administrative and student records
• Difficulty controlling access to sensitive student and personnel documents
• Incompatible electronic records systems that complicate information storage and retrieval
• Cumulative impact on your district’s ability to serve more students, parents and the community at large with fewer resources
Consider the Electronic Difference:
• Reclaim productive space and eliminate file cabinets with digital document storage
• Instant records access with intelligent search, retrieval & distribution
• Transcripts, disciplinary actions, etc., archived in individual electronic folders and full-text indexed for constant availability
• Comprehensive security protects records from unauthorized use
• Simplified integration with student information management systems and other applications in district-wide use
• The cumulative benefits of saved time, reduced costs, enhanced security and more efficient service
"Public education today is burdened with more paperwork than ever before. [Digital imaging software] helped our staff minimize paper-shuffling and searching for documents while keeping us in compliance with local, state and federal requirements,” Frank Auderer, Superintendent, St. Bernard Parish K-12 School District.
Document Management at Work in Your District
District offices and school records centers scan personnel files, student records, transcripts, business documents – all of your working and archival documents – into single or multiple imaging databases. You can also import word processing, spreadsheet and other electronic documents to be archived in native file formats. Paper files can then be destroyed or transferred to a more cost-effective remote storage facility.
Authorized personnel then search and retrieve documents instantly with the search function. Users view, print and e-mail documents from their desktops. Documents may also be archived to CD-ROM or dynamically posted to your intranet or the Internet at large without HTML coding.
Comprehensive enterprise-class security protects your digital records archive with individualized security measures for multiple departmental databases. CD-based backups can be stored safely off-site. Audit trails constantly monitor access to confidential records such as teacher credential files, resumes and immunization records. Your electronic and scanned paper documents are as secure as they are accessible.
“I was getting so many records that I could have filled the Astrodome. We get requests from places like other school districts and [the document management system],” Barbara Smith, Director of Special Education, Vidor Independent School District, TX.
For example, with paper files, consider the costs of maintaining a student’s portfolio over the course of his or her educational career:
• How many hard copies are required for review and archiving?
• What are the physical storage costs for the entire district?
• How much staff time is required to distribute photocopies?
• What are the cumulative costs in terms of budget, productivity and service?
Now imagine tracking the portfolio with digital imaging:
• Scan the portfolio or import it as an electronic document with simple drag-and-drop actions
• Scan only new pages when additions are necessary
• Distribute for review on the Web or CD
• Protect portfolio integrity with comprehensive security and audit trail monitoring
Benefits for Schools & School Districts More Efficient Document Management
Document management software delivers high-volume document archival, retrieval and distribution across your building’s network and throughout the district. It reduces or eliminates misfiling, time spent searching for documents and costly paper reproduction and distribution methods that impede information access. Document management is a flexible solution that adapts to meet multi-departmental needs and allows staff to maintain preferred procedures.
• Reduce labor and clerical mistakes with automated indexing
• Manage entire document repositories from workstations
• Easily add electronic annotations
• Build secure digital archives of unalterable documents
• Emulate paper filing systems with customizable folders structures
• Index electronic and image-only documents with customizable template fields
• Simplify retention schedule management with portable volumes
Enhance Productivity with Faster Information Retrieval
You can retrieve documents instantly, find and distribute documents with the speed required to keep pace with today’s information demands. With the flexibility of full-text and customizable index field searches, digital imaging systems keep documents accessible on demand to district decision-makers.
• Search function provides instant retrieval of records such as School Board policies and past meeting agendas
• Intuitive search interface encourages staff acceptance
• Unlock the contents of paper records with full-text searches
“There is a very small learning curve. We could teach people who aren’t that familiar with computers to use [document management software] very easily. That was a real plus,” Rene Gonzalez, Director of Psychological Services, LA Unified School District.
Comprehensive Security Eases Regulatory Compliance Burden
Administering records access under the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA) consumes staff time, as does protecting medical records privacy according to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules. Working with finite resources, how do you provide timely access to staff, parents and eligible students while maintaining compulsory levels of security?
Reams provides an impenetrable repository for confidential records. Configurable security helps strike the precise balance between accessibility and protection that best serves each department. Redactions protect information on an individual word level. Audit trails provide constant vigilance over user activity and produce complete, easy-to-use reports.
• Reduce cost of compliance
• District-wide password-protected records access
• Flexible security can be controlled centrally or delegated to department heads
Streamlined Deployment & Simplified Technical Administration
True scalability minimizes implementation risks, allowing districts to budget for departmental installation and expand district-wide as need dictates. We offer state-of-the-art n-tier architecture plus support for multiple servers and databases, allowing administrators to configure separate databases for individual departments while maintaining a controlled information repository. Databases can reside in separate physical locations and can be protected with individualized security measures.
• Open architecture simplifies integration with standard student information databases such as Chancery® Student Management Solutions
• Non-proprietary file storage formats maintain future accessibility
• Configure access and feature rights by users and groups
• Leverages COM (Component Object Model) technology to facilitate customization
• Support for industry-standard Microsoft SQL simplifies integration
• National solution provider network delivers local implementation, training and support services
Digital Archiving Simplifies Records Transport & Disaster Recovery
Maintaining, moving and protecting paper and microform records on students and personnel are expensive tasks. Disaster and theft threaten archives integrity. Photocopying for off-site storage takes time and money. Digital media raise concerns as well: Will digital files be accessible in the future? Will evolving technology allow access to your documents when you need them? Digital archiving with Reams' document management products addresses these concerns while also facilitating disaster recovery planning:
• Store entire document repositories on durable, royalty-free CDs
• Built-in viewers maintain long-term accessibility, even if your network is down
• Streamline the records transport process: records follow students on CDs
• Easily reconstruct destroyed or damaged archives from digital backups
Improve Records Access and Community Service with Web Tools
Our Web products harness the power of the Web to deliver instant document access via standard Web browsers. The programs have the capacity to provide rich document management functionality in a rapidly deployable thin client. Further, it contains a secure publishing gateway between your digital archives and an intranet or the Internet.
Both allow efficient access while administrators retain complete control over what documents are accessible. Comprehensive security measures guarantee the integrity of the digital archives while making designated documents accessible to authorized staff, remote district offices, and even parents and the public when appropriate.
• District-wide browser-based document access
• Secure distribution without photocopying expense
• Share community-appropriate information without HTML coding
• Easy implementation: no client installation
• Records managers retain complete access control
• Web products provide seamless integration with existing sites
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Monday, September 08, 2008 
