Most ECM packages include import and export modules that can move images and
meta data to and from other systems.

If you contract out the backfile, talk with the vendor and inform them of
the products that are going to be considered on your RFP, and make sure that
they can provide you with your data in a format that would be compatible on
all those systems. Also talk with them about how the transfer and the import
processes would work and how long they should be expected to take. Planning
this step ahead of time and knowing what format the data and images will be
saved in are crucial. As is a vendor that will assist in the process of
migrating the data once your new system is online - for a pre-agreed upon
fee.

We are doing a data migration right now that will take over 6 months to move
images and meta data from one system to another - because they are not
directly compatible, whereas another project imported several million images
over a weekend.

I work mostly with Hummingbird products, but other products I've worked with
functioned similarly; If a text file was provided that listed the image name
and the meta data, the images could be easily imported into the New system,
and the meta data properly assigned to those images.

Another important factor is to make sure the meta data is input correctly on
the front end, because the old adage garbage in = garbage out is very true
here - once incorrect meta data is assigned to an image, finding and fixing
the error is very time consuming. 

My .02

Brent

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Warren Harris
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 4:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: electronic imaging question

Hello everybody.  I have a question as usual!  I'm just thinking some of
you have probably already dealt with this type situation so thought I'd
see if anyone might share their experience with me.

 

In my organization, The University of West Florida, we will eventually
(next year or so) be implementing electronic imaging in our Registrar's
Office for Student Records.  We're in the process of writing the
proposal, etc for imaging/document management software and hardware.  To
date...we've been microfilming these records....actually doing a backlog
of many years....and still have about 10 years records in hardcopy that
have not been microfilmed.  We plan to stop the microfilming soon.
Therefore we will still have this backlog to deal with.  Certainly we
aren't going to worry about what is already on microfilm because we can
deal with that (probably scanning the film, etc.) once we have a system
in place.  The problem is the hardcopy that is not on microfilm....the
backlog not on microfilm...that won't be microfilmed.  We won't be able
to continue to store it on-site since records will continue to
accumulate and the backlog will grow even larger causing us storage
problems.  Certainly we can contract for off-site, secure storage of the
hardcopy in the meantime....But, what I'm wondering is this....is it
feasible to go ahead and have a conversion (contracted) of these
hardcopy records to digital images (scanned) without knowing what
software and indexing format that we'd be using in the future when we
get a system inhouse?  I'm thinking we could end up with compatibility
issues...and at the very least have to "re-index" each image when we get
inhouse scanning and indexing software/document management software.

 

Any comments from those of you who have worked through this kind of
situation would be most appreciated.

 

Gus Harris

The Univ. of West FL

Pensacola, FL

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