Registrars' Office Teaches Campus About Content Management

Located in Canton, Ohio, Stark State College of Technology has more than 8,000 credit and non-credit students who pursue 42 associate degrees or participate in other continuing education programs. Until 1996, Stark State maintained the thousand of student and faculty records on microfiche and paper. At that time, the college embraced document management and began scanning student records to conserve space and better manage information. On average, Stark State handled about 15 pieces of paper per student.

However, several years later the document management vendor the college was dealing with no longer offered local support. "In more than 20 years in this job, I've learned that if you don't build a relationship with a vendor, you can't do the job effectively," says Lisa Kasunic, Registrar at Stark State. "Our business is being there to help students. We just can't be down."

Though Stark State was prepared to switch vendors, it wasn't willing to abandon years of student data collected in the existing system, so Ms. Kasunic began looking for a local solution provider that could convert that data and preserve the original set up and style. She contacted Hudson James, a systems integrator and authorized solution provider for OnBase, enterprise-class software developed by Hyland Software, Inc., that combines integrated document management, business process management and records management in a single application.

The Registrar's Office was the first department to convert to the OnBase system to manage student records. In addition to documents converted from the previous system and all incoming documents, all student records have now been imported into the OnBase system using the Fujitsu document imaging scanners. By scanning the paper-based documents to electronic files, these items can now be searched, cross-referenced and made available to all authorized users instantly.