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Download feature checklist used by IDVA to compare final two vendors, including notes.

Case Study
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Smooth Conversion to Online Records

Idaho Virtual Academy Tames Paper Tiger with EZContentManager

 

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At Idaho’s largest public charter school, kids and teachers are often hundreds of miles apart. That’s because the school is virtual. Students study at home, connecting with teachers online, over the phone, and at regular get-togethers.

Idaho Virtual Academy (IDVA) started six years ago with 500 students; it’s now grown to 2,526 students, 63 teachers, and 12 administrators.

Despite the fact that the teaching happens online, the record-keeping did not --- until recently. That change was prompted by the need to buy another filing cabinet.

“These filing cabinets are five feet tall, three feet wide, they’re fireproof, and they cost about $10,000 each,” says Kerri Pickett-Hoffman, IDVA’s Academic Services Director. The school already had five cabinets, and no space for another.

Cost was another issue. Whenever a new student arrives, the school must request a cumulative file of their entire records. And whenever a student leaves, IDVA must copy the entire record for itself, then ship out the file to the new school: a time-consuming chore that can easily take 10 minutes a file.

“Sometimes these records are two inches thick, so it’s a problem to have that much paper to copy and ship,” says Pickett-Hoffman.

But the main issue was that IDVA’s teachers needed better access to student records to help make timely and effective decisions on their students’

education. Since teachers are legally responsible for maintaining student records, and the school is responsible for keeping them in one place, teachers often had to fax or mail updates to the school headquarters in Boise.

“After an incident where a teacher needed a student’s file to make a decision and couldn’t get at it, we realized we needed to get that information into teachers’ hands more quickly,” says Pickett-Hoffman. “So space was one issue, cost was another, and the teacher’s lack of access to records was another.”

Checklist shows ACOM twice as easy to use
The school sent out an RFP for a paperless records system in January 2007. Naturally enough, officials wanted to do business locally, if they could find an Idaho-based company.

But when Pickett-Hoffman reviewed the bids, the EZContentManager (EZCM) system from ACOM came out on top.

Download feature checklist used by IDVA to compare final two vendors, including notes.

For example, on the checklist of features the school needed, ACOM scored “easy” or “very easy” on 16 tasks; twice as many as the competing system. So IDVA decided to go with California-based ACOM.

”What attracted us was the interface, and how it was naturally intuitive,” says IDVA Technology Manager Chase Trapp. In fact, he compares EZCM to Windows XP, which his staff and teachers already know --- while the competing system reminded him of Windows 3.1, a hangover from the 1980s.

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THE CUSTOMER
Idaho Virtual Academy, a public charter school whose 63 teachers and 2,526 students are located all over the state.
THE PROBLEM
The virtual school needed to make student records more accessible to far-flung teachers in a more timely way.
THE SELECTION PROCESS

Idaho Virtual Academy narrowed the list to a final two choices. They then tested how each system worked performing the same tasks they would need to complete everyday.

Download the checklist (complete with notes)

THE SOLUTION
EZContentManager document management system from ACOM, which replaces paper files with a secure, web-based repository for instant access to information through a familiar browser-based interface.
THE RESULTS
No more photocopying, faxing, and shipping thick paper files around the state. All files converted to easy-to-share electronic format. And no more need for costly fireproof filing cabinets and the space to house them.

 

 

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