West Vancouver School District

Making the Grade with Xerox Content Management Solutions

"DocuShare is an integral part of our work. We're getting results with it right out of the box."

Client Profile

The West Vancouver School District in British Columbia is relatively small, with only 16 schools and 6500 students, yet each year its pupils win international honors in math, science and arts competitions. Its committed teamwork of 400 teachers and 250 support and administrative staff, along with dedicated parents and communities, has helped School District 45 fulfill its mission to "inspire students to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for participation in our changing society."

That commitment to excellence in a changing world is one reason why the district had its own website as early as 1995, and why today it has the most robust technology of any district in its province.

The Content Management Challenge

Like all public schools, the West Vancouver School District was struggling to offer a superior education in the face of tightened budgets and increased demands for reporting and accountability. Says Len Archer, Secretary-Treasurer of School District 45, "The demand for information - from government agencies, from the public, from our own internal organization - was increasing, and overwhelming."

The Human Resources department had nine years' worth of job descriptions and ratings piling up in cardboard boxes, resulting in a lack of continuity and an ongoing document retrieval nightmare. Teachers found themselves spending less time serving students and more time processing paperwork. Posting information on the website meant waiting until the web master had time to convert documents to HTML. It was time for a change.

The Xerox Content Management Solution

The school district turned to DocuShare - Xerox Document Repository Software, for content management that is managed by users themselves - to streamline information flow via its website. "With DocuShare, we could take a document and immediately make it accessible on the Internet without having to go through a programmer," says Archer. "The ease with which we could post documents on the Web was a huge 'wow' factor."

Xerox Document Centre multifunction systems and FlowPort - Xerox Image Routing Software, were installed at five different schools, enabling teachers and administrators to scan paper documents, convert them to digital PDF files or Word documents, and e-mail them to anyone on the school's preprinted cover sheets. "With FlowPort cover sheets, we can also scan and file documents into DocuShare as easily as putting a tick mark on a box and pressing two buttons on the Document Centre," says Archer.

West Vancouver School District Benefits

Norma Ahrens, Supervisor of Human Resources, reports that all job histories, descriptions and ratings are now posted online, and can be retrieved via word searches and tracked through the version management feature. "Besides being convenient and fast, DocuShare has also organized the material for us - a wonderful bonus. It's so much more efficient."

School board minutes, press releases, and other documents are now placed in online folders with drag-and-drop ease, seamlessly integrated with the school district's public and internal websites. And DocuShare's subscription feature provides e-mail notification of new document entries to relevant constituent groups. "My assistant can take a press release and post it without going through a web master," says Archer, "and we can make changes to the content in a matter of seconds."

Archer foresees many future applications for DocuShare and FlowPort. Special education teachers could use FlowPort to scan student work, such as drawings and reports, into the student's Individualized Education Plan (IEP), which the student and his parents could access and review online. FlowPort catalogue sheets could ease the instant retrieval of the latest version of any school form such as expense reports and medical forms.

"With Xerox technology, we're avoiding future costs and will be more efficient and effective in decision-making," says Archer. "We'll spend our time doing more high-level tasks, rather than the lower-level tasks of retrieving documents, making copies, and filing."

"We have enjoyed a long standing relationship with Xerox," Archer adds. "And as we enter the digital era, we're very keen on Xerox content management solutions throughout our system." As a company dedicated to research and learning, Xerox enjoys the opportunity to support West Vancouver School District's educational initiatives.