Digital Student Records Leave More Time for Studies

Having a high level of national and international recognition, CES University’s academic focus includes medicine, dentistry, biology, veterinary medicine and zoology, as well as law. It also offers postgraduate courses such as clinical medicine and clinical dentistry, including master's degrees and doctorates. Since the second semester of 2008, applicants have been able to enroll via the university's website. The university's main campus is in Medellín, Colombia, where all of its academic services are based. Branch campuses are located in Sabaneta, Envigado, Girardota and in other parts of the country.

Documents
For each student enrollment, the system generates a form. Documents like reports, ICFES certificates (entrance exam, etc), qualifications and so on are attached. These documents then become part of the student's record or résumé. They are stored at the university and are active while the student remains at the institution and become inactive or withdrawn once they have graduated or leave the institution.

Work Process
Before DocuWare was installed, applicants wishing to register and enroll for classes stood in line for hours at the campus Admissions and Registrations office. Two staff members spent an average of six hours a day registering students. With this constraint, new applicants often had disappointingly, long wait times.

The documents submitted by each applicant were stored in physical folders and sent to the assigned staff interviewer as the final step to enrollment. Following the interview, they were stored at the Admissions and Registrations office. As an applicant becomes a student, additional documents were generated and added to their folder increasing the University’s liability due to physical manipulation, alterations, lost documents or unauthorized access. Eventually all documents were sent to the Centro de Administración Documental or document administration center responsible for record keeping.

Solution Requirements
The university was allowing students to enroll via its website but had difficulty managing the different documents since it had no control over their method of capture, quality or size. It needed a solution that would simplify the process, allow for the different document types and could be easily integrated into its website.