The American Samoa DOE Streamlines the Digital Records Management Process
The OPEX® Falcon+® scanner helps the ASDOE reduce labor by 80% for filling student requests for records.
The Background
The American Samoa Department of Education (ASDOE), located in Utulei, serves the public and private schools of the American Samoa. The ASDOE’s mission is to provide highly effective educators, resources, and community partnerships to ensure meaningful learning opportunities for over 12,000 students. Led by the Director of Education, the ASDOE has around 1,600 employees committed to the department’s mission. In addition to the day-to-day responsibilities of the American Samoa education system, the ASDOE handles all student records for current students, graduates, and new registrants. The student records date back to 1903 and are physically stored in filing cabinets in the department. For over ten years, the ASDOE has been working to digitize all student records but has been limited by the technology they were relying on.
The Challenge
When the ASDOE received a new Director of Education, they implemented a goal to digitize all student files to save time and improve their efficiency while reducing the storage space needed in their offices to retain the records. The ASDOE receives high volumes of requests for student records daily. To fill a request for student records, five staff members needed to manually search for the file, prep, and scan the documents using one of their five table scanners before delivering the files electronically to the students. Each student file contained at least two types of documents: a CSPR folder and miscellaneous pages. The file sizes in each student record range from 4.5” x 3.5” up to 18.5” x 11”. The ASDOE was limited to what sizes of documents they could scan with the table scanners, causing them to pause the project until they found a better solution.
Key Challenges
Goal of Digitizing all student records to save time and storage space
High volume of student requests for physical records
The process of delivering student records is time-consuming and labor-intensive
The Solution
After the ASDOE set their goal of digitizing all of their student records to improve the way records could be found, stored, and delivered, Lance Pelenato, System Admin – ASDOE-IDS Officer, set out to find a solution that would allow the ASDOE to digitize their records. They needed a versatile solution to serve multiple purposes after all the student records were scanned. After discovering the OPEX® Falcon+® document scanner through an OPEX video online, the ASDOE worked with OPEX and implemented the scanning solution to digitize all student records.
The Falcon+ scanner digitizes many document types and sizes while requiring minimal labor and prep work. The equipment was easy for the ASDOE to train their staff on, allowing them to get up and running quickly. Providing remote technical support and training to American Samoa is crucial, as it’s an island located approximately 2,558 miles southwest of Hawaii. Since implementing the equipment, the ASDOE has saved time and space by removing its five original table scanners and retaining student records off-site. The current Director of Education’s initiative is to complete this long-term project within the next five years after starting the project in 2020, which, until implementing the OPEX solution, had been moving very slowly.
“We wanted to implement a scanner that didn’t just have one use.”
Lance Pelenato
System Admin – ASDOE-IDS Officer, American Samoa Department of Education
Key Results
80%
Decrease in labor needed to scan and deliver student records
5
Years of student records digitizied (2017-2021)
2
OPEX Falcon+ Scanners used to digitize student records
The Future
Now that the ASDOE has an effective scanning solution using two OPEX Falcon+ document scanners, it can quickly digitize all student records. After completing this project, the ASDOE plans to digitize other projects and implement additional Falcon+ scanners to free staff from manual, time-consuming, and labor-intensive projects, increasing efficiency.
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