Hello,
I'm the Development Manager at the University of Bath, which means I
have responsibility for IT development in the University.
I fascinated to see the trends already emerging in the other
introductions on the list.  I had always thought of Document Management
in terms of image processing but many other people appear to be more
interested in web content.  I can understand that the web is a great way
to deploy image processing but it's obvious that you cant separate
images on the web from the wider context of University administration on
the web.  

At Bath we have been undertaking a review of records management
recently.  This has demonstrated how difficult it is to tie down where
paper documents should be held and how to avoid duplication.  I'm
hopeful that EDM will come to be seen as part of the way forward in this
respect.  I've also been interested in looking at EDM as part of process
improvement in areas such as payments.  
Like the respondents from Manchester we are starting to use the web to
distribute information interactively from central databases, and to
allow people to input details.  We have just introduced a Contacts
database which individual departments take responsibility for updating
(and which feeds an LDAP directory).  Web based procurement is about to
go on pilot in one department here too.

I'm interested to note that some respondents have talked about using
Scanning and OCM to record data from things like enrolment forms, where
others have spoken of interactive web based forms.  I wonder if anyone
has any thoughts on the relative merits of these two approaches.  For
instance does OCM have an advantage because of the speed with which it
can capture data, or is web based data entry better because it results
in greater accuracy of data (or so we're led to believe).

One thing is clear, this is a hot topic at the moment, and peoples
contributions are proving very valuable.

Greg Smart
Development Manager
BUCS Management Information Services, University of Bath.
Tel: 01225 826704
Mailto:[log in to unmask]



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