The educational sector is growing at a very fast pace globally. There are many challenges that the educational sector has to deal with. One among them is managing large volumes of data. In fact, data entry and management is quite tedious.Implementing digital working practices, including the scanning and digitization of administrative and student material helps schools address these issues. This will help schools quickly see the benefits that they bring to staff members, pupils, parents and wider support personnel. Outsourcing document scanning tasks to experienced document scanning companies helps scan all paper documents and convert them into the required format, thereby helping schools to save time as well as money and reduce their administrative burden. In addition, outsourcing will allow schools to focus more on their core tasks.
The following are some of the benefits that schools can enjoy with digital transformation.
- Helps better understand who is improving and who requires more attention – Technology plays a crucial role in capturing the details of the student’s work, which in turn helps teachers and parents monitor the progress of the child. Documenting handwriting and creative work helps to make comparisons at intervals against content already stored digitally. This will lead to a better understanding of who is improving and who requires more attention.In fact, when schoolwork is available in digital format it can be more easily shared. Some schools capture all student content every day and share it directly with parents. This eliminates the need for children to take home the physical documents.
- Supports in school administration – With document capture solutions, administrative duties in schools which include managing permission slips and invoices can be performed quickly and easily. An OCR – enabled (optical character recognition) scanning device can extract the relevant data from the forms. This in turn saves time on manual data entry. Even some universities use this technology to capture data on lectures. To provide feedback on lectures, students are given paper versions in the room, rather than asking them to complete online forms. These are then scanned, and the information is captured digitally. This will lead to higher response rates and also help improve teaching.
- Provide information to the right stakeholders – Schools that cater to excluded and special needs students may face additional challenges as they have to communicate with a range of stakeholders, such as the SENCO (special educational needs coordinator), child services, councils, other schools and the student’s parents, who regularly require different datasets. Digitizing the documents that are used by and about school children and utilizing OCR helps these schools capture all the necessary data at once and using the right solutions helps these schools send that information directly to the relevant party safely and securely.
- GDPR Compliance – As per new laws, individuals have the right to access their personal data. Currently, schools receive very few requests, though this is expected to increase. Now, a large amount of information is only available in paper format and if the requested data cannot be found, then responding to such requests will consume your valuable time and potentially lead to non-compliance. Moreover, paper records are also less secure than a fully managed digital platform. Now, with general data protection regulation (GDPR), teaching institutions can address security issues.
However, some schools opt for scanning in-house. For such schools, here are some of the best scanners that could help digitize the documents.
- Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100 –
This is the world’s lightest and fastest scanner for scanning in the classroom, office or at home. It can scan receipts, contracts, recipes, or plastic cards. It can also scan small documents such as permission slips or notifications simultaneously. It takes scanning beyond the desktop and into your mobile world. It is completely wireless and weighs only 400 g. It brings mobility and wireless scanning to your PC or Mac as well as iOS or Android device.
- Doxie Flip Mobile Flatbed Scanner –
This is a battery-powered scanner with a transparent scanning area of 4×6 inches. Designed to be a portable scanner, it can flip over to capture 600 dpi scans directly on top of documents items and sketches. It usually operates on four AA batteries for wireless operation and has a detachable lid for versatile scanning options. It can complete each 300 dpi scan in 7 seconds and can run 200 scans before you have to replace the batteries. This scanner allows you to share or send your JPEG and PNG files to social networks or other applications. Moreover, it offers a software update, which can automatically stitch together more important documents.
- Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 Scanner –
This scanner scans at 600×600 dpi in color and at 1200 dpi in monochrome. It can scan 25 pages per minute and also one and two-sided documents in a single pass. The integrated 50-sheet automatic document feeder processes large enough documents in a single step, allowing you to digitize your records quickly.
However, outsourcing document scanning tasks to a professional document scanning company will be a good idea than doing it in-house. With advanced equipment and high-end software, a reliable document scanning service provider can scan your documents and convert them into the required format. This will help save storage space and ensure that your data is available as and when you need it.
