School Intranet

[blackcat]

Over the last few years, as the result of an OFSTED report, we have installed a network, provided email for all staff, have a website and are introducing Parentmail. When I was in the school office the other day, the school sec was was going through masses and masses of files to weed out rubbish. What would they do in the event of a fire / there's no back up to all this ? Should we be looking to scan and hold all future policies, procedures and who knows what else on an intranet ? Should they even have paper copies as they must exist in electronic format somewhere? I think they keep all the (small primary school) children's filled in forms. Sorry for the ramble, but what system do you use if any ?

[localzuk]

At the moment, we have a room filled with filing cabinets, lever-arch files etc... I have discussed the idea of using a document management system, and my boss is very keen on the idea. We are also going to be buying scanners for scanning documents that are mailed in/handed in.

 

At the moment, i've looked at invu (which is superb!) but we can't afford it, and i've looked at a couple of open source systems as well as sharepoint.

 

I've yet to make a decision which system we're gonna go with.

[Edu-IT]

I'm guessing that these are written by hand? If that is the case then I would certainly look at creating electronic copies. These files will then be backed up, assuming you have a backup plan, and also you can use them on your website if they're the sort of documents which should be available publicly. Add the to the fact that they can be updated easily.

 

I'd certainly look at creating electronic copies. There's no harm in keeping the paper copies though.

[srochford]

I'd certainly look at creating electronic copies. There's no harm in keeping the paper copies though.

 

The only "harm" is that it grows and grows - you end up buying more and more filing cabinets until eventually everything collapses in a heap :-)

[Edu-IT]

The only "harm" is that it grows and grows - you end up buying more and more filing cabinets until eventually everything collapses in a heap :-)

I meant keeping the old ones that have already been created on paper. New documents should, ideally, be created electronically but I understand what you're saying. I didn't make myself that clear.

[scotspgc]

We were having the same problem with old documents but here is what we implemented.

 

Purchase KBPublisher - Knowledge base software which isnt that expensive at all for what it can do.

 

Buy something similar to the Canon DR-2580C mass document scanners.

 

Scan to PDF format and publish into the kbpublisher archive. We did purchase a few licenses of Acrobat Pro so that we can edit the pdf files but I do know there are opensource editors available.

 

It all worked so well we have around 12 scanners located around the college used for document storage.

[imiddleton25]

We have now got some network attached photocopiers as well as various scanners around the place.

we scan in all paper to a network share.

Then this is moved and attached to individuals SIMS records In the attached document section.

We use e-copy desktop for easy sorting of document management stuff but you can use file shares or sharepoint/web server to store them instead