University of Alberta increases

timely access to policies and procedures

by Stellent
Staff

Background

As
one of Canada's foremost
research-intensive universities, the University
of Alberta strives to
provide its more than 34,000 students and 9,400 academic, support and trust
staff with the most up-to-date information on university policies and
procedures. However, the task of managing existing hard-copy protocol, and new
policies and procedures, presented a growing challenge during a time of limited
resources.

By
2002, the hard-copy core of the university's administrative policies and
procedures -- or the Manual of Administrative Policies, Procedures and Services
(MAPPS) -- had become sufficiently unwieldy, warranting initiation of a project
to re-centralize and digitize this content. The university's Computer and
Networking Services (CNS) department was brought in to assist with identifying
and implementing the required content management technology.

After
considering a number of content management vendors both large
and small, local and global, the University
of Alberta selected Stellent® Universal Content Management to create an
Internet site for electronically organizing and managing the university's past,
present and future policies and procedures.

"The
University of Alberta's previous method for updating
and distributing administrative content was extremely inefficient. Our main
objective in selecting a content management solution was to centralize all of
the university's policies and procedures, and more importantly, make updated
information available to our community in a timely fashion," said Akiyah Clements, Express Applications project leader for
the University of
Alberta. "Several
content management solutions were considered for this project, and after due
evaluation against our requirements, Stellent's
technology was rated the most suitable. The university was particularly
impressed with the 'out-of-the-box' functionality offered by the Stellent system."

How the University of Alberta's Internet site works

Stellent Universal Content Management serves as the
foundation of the University
of Alberta's Policy and
Procedures On-line (UA PPOL) Internet site, streamlining the process of
creating, managing and updating its policies and procedures online. To support
this site (see screen shot), the university primarily uses the Web content
management and document management components of Stellent's
Universal Content Management architecture, which also includes records
management, collaboration and digital asset management functionality.

The
university stores all UA PPOL content in Stellent®
Content Server in its native format, such as a word processing document or
spreadsheet, enabling users to view and modify it quickly and efficiently.
University personnel are able to contribute content to the system using only a
Web browser. At the time of contribution, metadata is assigned to each piece of
content, making the policies and procedures easily searchable.

After
content is submitted into the Stellent system, the University of Alberta utilizes Stellent®
Content Publisher to publish all information to its Internet site,
automatically converting policies and procedures from their native formats to
Web-viewable formats such as HTML and PDF -- eliminating the need to route
content through a Webmaster for coding. Together, Content Server and Content
Publisher allow consistent presentation of all policies and procedures across
the Internet site, and enable the University
of Alberta to update and
publish policies and procedures as soon as they are approved.

To
secure proper approvals, the university uses Stellent's
built-in workflow capabilities to ensure all necessary parties within
governance protocol have reviewed and incorporated any necessary changes into
UA PPOL documents. Additionally, Stellent Universal
Content Management's version control feature makes certain only the most
current policies and procedures are available for consumption, while previous
information is saved for archiving purposes.

Due
to the success of the initial UA PPOL rollout, the university has implemented
another Web-based initiative using the Stellent
system. The University Infrastructure Records Access Program (UIRAP) provides
the planning and infrastructure department with secure, online access to all
building drawings, including mechanical and electrical specifications. In
addition to contributing these drawings directly into Stellent
from computer-aided design (CAD) programs, university staff can scan older,
hard-copy drawings into the system. To date, more than 32,000 drawings are
housed in Stellent Universal Content Management.

Benefits of using Stellent Universal Content Management

The
University of Alberta is still in the process of
migrating previous hard-copy policies and procedures to electronic format but
has already experienced many benefits from its Stellent
Universal Content Management implementation. Most significant has been the
ability to provide timely access to policies and procedures, and planning and
infrastructure documents.

For
example, when the policies and procedures project is complete, students and
staff will no longer be required to go to multiple Web sites or contact
multiple departments to find the policies and procedures they need. Instead,
these groups will be able to access every policy and procedure, whether it
relates to university financials and governance or human resources and
research, from any Web-accessible location.

The
Stellent system also has allowed the University of Alberta to eliminate a former major
hassle: locating and obtaining the most recent versions of both a policy and
its corresponding, up-to-date procedure. "Previously, an individual [faculty
member, staff or student] might find a policy they were looking for, but not
necessarily find the most current procedure[s] in the same location. With the Stellent system, we have set up a systemized organizational
structure that forces us to review, modify and publish these documents in the
same locale," Clements added.

University
staff involved with the UIRAP site note similar benefits related to information
accessibility. "Not only do University trade staff have the ability to
obtain mechanical and engineering drawings, but off-site contractors and
project managers also can access password-protected documents from any Web
browser," Clements said. "This functionality has greatly reduced the
number of planning meetings and trips to the university required by off-site
partners, saving both time and money for all parties involved. Our investment
in the Stellent system continues to pay dividends,
and we look forward to utilizing it for additional university initiatives in
the future."

University of Alberta Policies and Procedures On-line Vision

From
the UA PPOL Website: "University of Alberta Policies and Procedures
On-line (UA PPOL) will be the single source of University of Alberta
institution-wide policy and procedure, and related supplementary information
not otherwise available in other official source publications. UA PPOL will
serve the University as an integral part of its operations information
framework by providing ready access to information." A University Policy
is "A statement outlining expectations of behavior pertaining to certain
activities or matters set out in relevant legislation (i.e. the Post-secondary
Learning Act) and approved at the University’s senior levels of
governance: the Board of Governors (BOG) and/or General Faculties Council
(GFC); committees of the BOG and GFC having the delegated authority to approve
certain policy; and the President, President’s Executive Committee, the
Executive Planning Committee, or Vice-Presidents." A University Procedure
"serves to operationalize policy. A University
procedure is an institution-wide or standardized procedure outlining a required
process and/or set of instructions to be followed for achieving a specified
purpose/outcome."

Stellent Universal Content and Process Management Features

Stellent Universal Content and Process Management provides
rapid success and distinct advantages to customers via its product
functionality, breadth of content managed, architecture and solutions
all which enable rapid implementation and quick user adoption. The integrated
Universal Content and Process Management architecture offers a full array of
content management functionality featuring document management, Web
content management, digital asset management and
imaging supported by collaboration, records management and business
process management services. The scalable system manages and delivers the
entire spectrum of unstructured content, from active content such as documents,
graphics and Web pages to fixed content including scanned images, email and
records.

"Like
businesses around the world, higher education institutions are faced with the
challenge of managing an overwhelming amount of content," said Robert
Olson, president and chief executive officer for Stellent.
"It is critical for these organizations to gain control of this content in
order to efficiently serve students, staff and vendors something the
University of Alberta is well on its way to achieving
using Stellent Universal Content Management."

About University of Alberta

Opened
in 1908 as a board-governed, public institution, the University
of Alberta in Edmonton has grown to be one of Canada¹s
foremost research-intensive universities serving more than 34,000
students in more than 200 undergraduate programs and 170 graduate programs. The
university¹s pioneering spirit inspires faculty and students to advance
knowledge through research, to seek innovation in teaching and learning, and to
find new ways to serve the people of Alberta
and the world. Check URL www.ualberta.ca.

About Stellent

Stellent, Inc. is a global provider of content management
software solutions that drive rapid success for customers by enabling fast implementations
and generating quick, broad user adoption. With Stellent,
customers can easily deploy multiple line-of-business applications
such as accounts payable imaging, claims processing, Web sites, call centers,
compliance processes and dealer extranets and also scale the
technology to support enterprise-wide content management needs. Stellent has more than 3,500 customers, including Procter
& Gamble, Merrill Lynch, Los Angeles
County, The Home Depot, British Red
Cross, ING, GlaxoSmithKline, Georgia
Pacific, Bayer Corp., Coca-Cola FEMSA, Emerson Process Management and Genzyme Corp. The company is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn. and
maintains offices throughout the United States,
Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. The
Web URL is www.stellent.com.

From the Editor: Some
Questions for Further Analysis and Discussion

What is the purpose of
content management? How does content managemt
differ from building a Data Warehouse?

Is this a document-driven
Decision Support System? Why or why not?

What technologies were used?

What is the major benefit of
this application to decision makers? other users?
Why?

What problems or
difficulties do you anticipate with the use of this type of decision support
solution?

Please cite as:

Stellent Staff, "University of Alberta
increases timely access to policies and procedures", September 17, 2004,
at URL DSSResources.COM.

Amanda
Kohls, Haberman & Associates,
Inc., for Stellent provided permission to use this
case study and screen shot at DSSResources.COM on July 19, 2004. The final
version was reviewed and approved Wednesday, September 8, 2004. This case study
was posted at DSSResources.COM on Friday, September 17, 2004.

This
case study is provided for informational purposes only. DSSResources.COM makes
no warranties, express or implied, about this case summary.

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