Founded in 1869, the University of Otago is New Zealand’s oldest university, and also one of New Zealand’s largest with a roll of 20,057 students and 3,307 staff.

The University’s long history and its growth have generated large volumes of corporate records and important historical documents. The Department of Records Management is responsible for some of these historic documents as well as all new records generated by the University’s service divisions including academic, human resources, financial services, marketing and communications, research and student services.

The Department of Records Management comprises three full-time staff members and one part time assistant.

The need
University staff members require regular and timely access to vital corporate records. With the Records Management site located off-campus some distance from the service divisions, physical retrieval was problematic, not to mention expensive and time-consuming. In addition, the University was aware of the evidential value of its historic records, many of which existed in one original bound hard-copy only.

As a result, the Department of Records Management embarked on a project to electronically archive all its records so it could provide a comprehensive records management programme, giving University staff faster, safer, more secure and more convenient access to archived records. It was also vital that records of value were able to be captured, maintained, made identifiable and accessible to meet both organisational needs, and meet recently introduced legislative requirements (with the recent Public Records Bill and Electronic Transactions Act).

The solution
A working group was formed to decide upon objectives and requirements, research possible solutions and submit recommendations. After reviewing a number of products on offer in the marketplace the working group decided on the Alchemy document management solution, as supplied by Canon New Zealand. This solution delivers a complete fixed content management system that can grow with an organisation’s information management needs, with modules that provide capture, workflow, document management, archiving, records management, integration, retrieval and distribution.

The Alchemy document management solution met all the requirements and specifications for the project - and it was competitively-priced. The working group were also impressed with the good support structure offered by the Canon team, who were based locally with offices in Dunedin. As a significant provider to the University for a number of years, Canon in turn was delighted to be able to provide another solution to the University’s evolving needs. A new position - manager of the Electronic Archives and Records Programme – was created to administer the programme on an ongoing basis.

The results
The obvious benefits of University staff being able to access, store and retrieve documents electronically is the massive saving in both time and cost when compared to physical retrieval, not to mention the office storage space that is saved. In addition, the University’s valuable historical documents have now all been duplicated and are safely stored electronically. Plus, greater security has been achieved by creating various levels of access to documents.

The Records Management department has continued to add further documents to the initial base of administrative records and has moved into other areas of information, including multiple back-scanning projects.

“We are now in a position to offer a very comprehensive - and near complete - electronic archive of current corporate and historical academic records,” says Tracey Sim, manager of the Electronic Archives and Records Programme.

The department undertook strategic marketing of the Alchemy product internally, providing education and training to staff that would be utilising it. This was very successful and resulted in greater usage and a better understanding by staff of the efficiencies the product offers them. The working group were also impressed with the good support structure offered by the Canon team. The flow-on effect of its benefits is already evident.

For more information contact
Mike Hooker
Canon NZ Ltd
mike.hooker@canon.co.nz
+64 9 489 0367

July 2006