Ana's recent message referred to the regrettable absence of a "“save
file” mechanism to facilitate internal review practices and prevent
re-keying". I'm interested to know how others are coping with this.
There are two stages for which we're seeking a "neat" solution - i.e., a
solution which enables a "continuum" in the proposal process, and which
doesn't simply begin and end with the keying of the proposal on the Web
form.
1. "upstream" - allowing one's staff to start work on proposals and to
submit them to their local liaison person in a form which the latter can
then, with minimum effort (and even less rekeying), submit to LC after
review and appropriate amendment.
2. "downstream" - allowing the liaison to take a copy of the finished
proposal in order to provide feedback to the member of staff who did most
of the work, as well as to track its progress through the system. There
has to be something better than Alt+PrintScreen snagging of the web form,
surely?
There are at least 4 stages to a SACO proposal in our organisation (are
we unusual?):
Preparation of draft proposal and submission to Liaison
Review and finishing off of proposal content by Liaison
Submission of proposal to LC by institutional liaison
Internal feedback and monitoring post-submission
The Web form is clearly ideal for the third of these steps, but is less
well suited to being part of an ongoing workflow. I would welcome ideas
from other SACO participants whose workflows are broadly similar to our
own as to how you are managing to fit the Web form into your workflow.
One "solution" would be to tell any of my staff wishing to submit a
proposal to do it directly themselves (via the Web form), and to skip the
internal review stage entirely. But the quality of the proposals
submitted to LC would inevitably drop, thereby causing more work for LC
staff (as well as impacting eventually on the "good name" of our
university - I'm assuming we have one...). So the time LC might be saving
with the web form would be replaced by time spent cleaning up Cambridge
proposals. (Despite individuals' best intentions, the local liaison will
inevitably have specific skills that enable him/her to tidy up even the
best of proposals.)
I'm sure others will have already addressed this issue and would
appreciate guidance.
Thanks,
Hugh
--
Hugh Taylor
Head of Cataloguing, Cambridge University Library
West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR, England
email: [log in to unmask] fax: +44 (0)1223 339973
phone: +44 (0)1223 333069 (with voicemail) or
phone: +44 (0)1223 333000 (ask for pager 036)
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