Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Features
Suffolk County Community College: Imaging Goes to College
2/27/2003
"Feith demonstrated they could fulfill our concept with only minor customization," explains Rice. "Their software easily met our initial needs, and they have been very responsive to our need for tweaks."
Centralization
Feith installed software to operate a high-speed scanner at the main campus,
and SCCC began scanning inquiries from prospective applicants on a day-forward
basis. "We wanted to create a virtual folder that tracked a student from expression
of interest in attending to graduation and beyond," Rice details. "Because it
is electronic, we can include e-mail and faxes without printing. We add placement
tests, counseling notes and recommendations. Now we scan on all three campuses.
The records are stored on a server in Selden, but they are instantly available
at Brentwood and Southampton as well."
Approximately 80 clients are spread across the college, and password security is defined by job description. For example, only the nursing staff has access to medical records, and, "only a few eyes can see disciplinary files," states Rice, "Security is robust."
Staff and students view documents using Feith's WebFDD, which resides on the server and requires only a browser on a PC—and permissions—to gain access to the system. The WebFDD software has access to both the database and the document images. It returns electronic copies of images, and other information, based on the users' requests.
The document retrieval and viewing process starts in an image-enabled application. A search there results in the display of student's information. Next, the Quick Integrator is used to cull screen information needed by WebFDD to locate the student's document. WebFDD uses this information to retrieve the document image.
The central scanner is now supplemented with six departmental scanners distributed throughout the college. Scans go to indexing stations and then on to RAID (magnetic) storage. Rice rejected optical storage, saying the extra cost of the RAID box was more than justified by the speed of access. When Feith installed their system, the college already had an effective network and a sophisticated PC installation, so the total implementation cost was reduced. Using Feith ERM (COLD) capabilities, materials can enter a student's folder directly from the college mainframe as well, but 90 percent of the materials are scanned, according to Rice.
The staffing departments at each campus draw extensively on the centralized records repository for their work. "We have a couple thousand adjunct teachers," explains Rice, "and we keep records of who is qualified to teach which classes. But we used to keep records for each adjunct teacher at only one campus, although they can teach at two or three. Now any campus can find someone, for example, who can teach physics, regardless of their ‘home' location."
Practical Benefits
Rice is always looking for ways to use technology to improve the college's functions.
In one case, he led a kiosk project that set up 14 stations where students can
look up their schedules, grades, and other vital information. Rice looks to
Feith to help him get the most out of the document system. "Feith is always
enhancing their product and will push us along."
Recommended Reading
- Beck Technology Donates DProfiler to Colleges, Universities
Beck Technology recently announced that it will donate its DProfiler software platform to colleges and universities for use in construction-related coursework.
- Microsoft Adds Gen 4 Datacenters for Cloud Computing
Microsoft is initiating the fourth in a series of datacenter upgrades to enable its cloud computing services, according to a Microsoft blog post Tuesday. And, like everything else in the software world, being highly modular is a good thing.
- Can You Operate as a Virtual Being?
Now that we are conducting at least a part of our business of education virtually and often meeting in virtual environments, let's explore the really big question for academics in a Web 2.0 era...
- Columbia Center To Smooth Web Operations with Collaboration Suite
A college or university without a Web site is inconceivable today, but with every site comes the challenge of managing content. Some sort of automated system is a given, but how much should the site's content management system integrate with other aspects of the campus computing infrastructure?
- IBM's Pass It Along: Mapping Memes Toward A Learning Organization
How IBM's new release is following through on old challenges... big ones.
- North Idaho College To Provide Accessible Lecture Recordings for Disabled Students
North Idaho College will be implementing a new classroom capture system as part of an effort to provide accessible education to students with disabilities. The college will be using SpeakerBox from ClearSky Systems for the lecture capture program beginning in January 2009.
