Durham Business School, a part of
Durham University, is improving communication and speeding up work
processes withMicrosoft Office Groove 2007andSharepoint Server 2007.
The software is said to enable people to collaborate more
effectively and easily on research documents, fostering a community
feel between students working on the same projects.
Students and staff at the school, making up more than 4,000
users, can use the system for administrative purposes and for
sharing research-based information.
The school has boosted its capability to share research through
a web browser portal, which allows members of the academic
community to access research documents from anywhere in the world
and work on them online or offline.
Chris Fenley, senior consultant at Waterson's and Durham
Business School's IT manager, said, "The system has created a
community across the whole research cohort. Students are getting to
know one another, instead of the few people they would know
face-to-face, and we think this is important.
"Both staff and students can take control of certain portals
within the system and develop them according to their own
requirements."
In addition, faculty members can book department rooms for
meetings, let colleagues know where they are with a
diary management system, and fill in forms electronically.
Feedback forms on the department's courses can now be filled in and
analysed quickly and easily.
"The biggest advantage is the time savings that people are
getting. They are able to do things a lot more effectively and time
is not wasted. Things are also not getting lost anymore.
"On the document management side, it is a lot more powerful than
what we had in the past. People can restrict who can receive or
amend information and there are lots more options," said
Fenley.
Faculty staff can also spend more time on students and research
now that administrative procedures are simpler, and less paper is
being used as processes go online, Fenley said.