Solutions for the Education Industry – How to Automate Student Records Management

Schools process a myriad of documents on a daily basis that must be kept on record. Whether it’s student transcripts, test scores, medical information or regulatory forms, the sheer volume of documents can often be extremely frustrating for administrators and staff if manual processes are still the norm.

Today, storing these documents in a digital repository is a necessity to facilitate staff productivity. Furthermore, the ability to easily route these documents to the repository helps prevent any backlogs or delays in relaying the information.

It all starts with an advanced capture solution that can streamline these processes and automate routing so administrators can focus on more important issues. So how does that work you might ask? Is it really as easy as just scanning the documents and the rest magically takes care of itself?

It may not be magic, but it may feel that way if your used to manual processes. Here’s an under-the-hood look at how an advanced capture solution from Psigen works within the educational industry:

 

1. Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) – Converts scanned documents into meaningful text

• Example: A student record with multiple pages of information can now be scanned and extracted in seconds, rather than the hours it may take to manually enter the data

 

2. Classification – Automatically separates documents based on identified document type

• Example: Scanned documents are automatically recognized and routed accordingly. Student transcripts, financial aid documents, medical records, athletic releases, etc. all are identified so pre-scan separation is no longer needed—saving staff countless hours over time

 

3. Database Lookup – Automatically indexes and classifies documents, powerful search tool for student information

• Example: Spending too much time looking for a student record? Now a few keystrokes can locate it for you

 

4. Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) – Reads marks such as check boxes and processes the data from forms and tests.

• Example: Easily grade multiple choice tests or data from surveys

 

Wouldn’t it be nice to leave the tedious task of extracting and routing information to machines so your administration and staff could be freed up to do what you hired them for—solving problems and creating meaningful solutions for students?

There are some common red flags that indicate your processes may be outdated. If that’s the case, it’s not just staff that may be overburdened, but your students may be submitting information that is being improperly filed or even mishandled. Here are the symptoms:

• Managing student records is tedious and interferes with other administrative work
• Admission decisions are delayed because applications and other documents are not centralized and easy to find
• Making timely financial decisions is difficult because the student information is not centrally located and turnaround times are slow
• It’s difficult to focus on addressing students’ needs with so much paperwork to deal with
• Your school is using valuable classroom and administrative space to store documents
• Your school is spending too much storing documents off-site
• Test grading is a repetitive nightmare—collecting data from tests and surveys is done manually

 

The education industry is the perfect fit for an advanced capture solution because school’s can benefit in so many ways from automating student records management. Converting student records to digital files allows a school to store this information in their ECM system where they easily located, improving both the student experience and administrative workflow.

There’s also factors to consider such as the costs associated with processing paper (printing, storing records, time spent searching for missing documents, resources spent replacing lost documents).

In short, automating these processes will enable your school to make informed decisions faster—which is paramount in any educational setting.

Ready to talk? Contact us today and we will set up a meeting to discuss your current processes and needs. Call us (866) 736-2191, email us, or simply fill out a form on our website with “Education Solution” in the message section and a member of our team will reach out.