Un percorso universitario mirato per chi si occupa di bambini con deficit sensoriali.

Fonte: disabili.com

L’Università degli Studi di Verona ha attivato anche quest’anno, visto il grande successo della scorsa edizione, il Master di I livello in “Educatore Esperto per la Disabilità Sensoriale” (EEDS).
L’obiettivo è quello di formare una figura professionale adeguata all’intervento educativo rivolto a bambini e ragazzi con minorazioni della vista e dell’udito.

Abbiamo intervistato per voi la dottoressa Marcella Nalli, responsabile del Segreteria Organizzativa del Master EEDS:

D: Com’è nata l’idea di attivare questo Master?
R: La scelta del percorso formativo è stata una intuizione del prof. Mario Longo, preside della Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione. La richiesta di attivare una formazione idonea è provenuta dalla provincia di Verona, durante il mandato dell’ex assessore Maria Luisa Tezza, di cui ero collaboratrice per quanto riguarda, in particolare, l’Osservatorio Provinciale Disabilità Sensoriali.
Le faccio una premessa: la provincia ha il mandato legislativo dalle Regioni di occuparsi del servizio di assistenza socio didattica integrativa per bambini sordi e ciechi che siano in età scolare.  La legge regionale 11 del 13 aprile 2001  dice in particolare che l’obbligo sussiste fino al raggiungimento di un diploma professionalizzante.
Quindi la scuola mette in campo gli insegnanti di sostegno per sostenere la disabilità sensoriale, ma si tratta di figure di sistema; il supporto al bambino sordo e cieco, soprattutto quando è a casa a fare i compiti, oppure quando serve adeguare il materiale scolastico alla sua disabilità specifica, compete invece alle province, attraverso una figura che non è stata precisata dalla legge così come invece è stato fatto per l’insegnante di sostegno. In assenza di un riferimento legislativo preciso mancano un’identità professionale certa e una contrattistica adeguata. Questo si riflette negativamente sul bambino in termini, ad esempio, di cattiva continuità didattica. Si sono inoltre creati spazi in cui agiscono le associazioni che, pur avendo una conoscenza della materia, non possono essere considerate enti formativi. Non succede quasi mai che un’Università ascolti le necessità del territorio; in questo caso, invece, il Preside Longo ha pensato ad una formazione di master, oltretutto aperto anche agli uditori (che alla fine riceveranno un attestato di frequenza), in modo non solo da formare le nuove leve, ma anche da riqualificare professionalmente gli operatori già in servizio.

D: Quali sono le novità più significative di questa edizione?
R: Come dicevamo, la formulazione didattica vede il 60% delle lezioni online. Perché non il 100%? Perché una formazione di questo tipo richiede che l’educatore che si dedica alla disabilità diventi anche, come dice il prof. La Rocca, “esperto di umanità”: questo si ottiene con delle lezioni frontali. Poi tra le materie ci sono LIS e Braille, che ovviamente non possono essere insegnate online. Un’altra novità importantissima è il forte collegamento con il territorio. Chi ha agito è l’Università di Verona, però le sette province venete si sono consorziate e hanno steso un protocollo d’intesa specifico sull’argomento formativo e di stabilizzazione del profilo professionale. L’Università ha spalmato le lezioni in presenza sul territorio delocalizzandole: il modulo di LIS e Braille, ad esempio, è a Venezia, il modulo psicologico è all’istituto Configliachi a Padova, il modulo di riabilitazione logopedica è a Treviso, e stiamo studiando i collegamenti anche in videoconferenza con Belluno.
Poi c’è un’altra novità: l’attivazione, collateralmente al master, di seminari di approfondimento. Uno è già immaginato in dicembre, a stampo medico-specialistico, con la partecipazione di professionisti estremamente competenti sui temi della disabilità visiva e uditiva. Oltre a questo è prevista anche una presentazione delle associazioni che operano sul campo, in modo tale che i nuovi operatori siano ben informati sull’offerta del territorio. Altra novità è l’organizzazione in sette moduli distinti, monotematici, che possono essere acquistati  separatamente ed essere occasioni mirate di formazione specialistica. Per quanto riguarda il modulo 1, a carattere prettamente scientifico, sono stati accreditati 8 punti ECM (Educazione Continua in Medicina) per la frequenza del personale che ne faccia richiesta. Un altro target importante di questa formazione sono gli insegnanti, perché il master è della tipologia specifica che può procurare, a chi lo frequenta e lo conclude, tre punti in graduatoria, in base alle caratteristiche descritte dal D.M. 42 dell’ 8 aprile 2009, valido per il biennio 2009-2011, in particolare l’allegato 2 punto C7.

D: Quanti sono stati i partecipanti alla scorsa edizione e, indicativamente almeno, da che percorso universitario o professionali provenivano?
R: Durante la precedente edizione ero solo docente e collaboratrice, come sempre sono stata, del direttore scientifico, prof. Angelo Lascioli, che, unico nella facoltà di Scienze della Formazione, si occupa di pedagogia speciale. Quindi non so fornirle dei numeri. So che nella precedente edizione c’erano ottici, logopedisti, persone già inserite nel lavoro, anche perché c’era il finanziamento quasi totale della provincia di Verona. L’ex assessore è stata veramente sensibile ai temi della formazione e del benessere dei bambini. Questa volta abbiamo abbiamo un plafond d’iscritti molto ampio e ho il piacere di vedere le più disparate professionalità e provenienze, addirittura studenti stranieri. Ho avuto anche l’onore di avere la richiesta di iscrizione da parte di due ragazze sorde che sono educatrici già in servizio, e di un ragazzo cieco con la terza media, che fa supporto a ragazzini più piccoli.

D: Un’ultima domanda: ecco, dove viene svolto lo stage finale e, in base alla sua esperienza, può fornire dei contatti utili ai fini dell’inserimento lavorativo.
R: Intanto il fatto che questo master sia richiesto dalle province dice già che attingeranno ai masterizzati per le assunzioni, come si è già verificato con la scorsa edizione. Sulla seconda facciata del volantino, ci sono una serie di loghi, quelli delle istituzioni e delle associazioni che hanno confermato di essere disposte a ospitare gli stage. L’anno scorso lasciavamo l’iniziativa al supervisore e agli studenti, ma  è stato un meccanismo difficile, quindi questa volta abbiamo fatto la scelta di partire già con tutte le istituzioni concordi. Tra le varie istituzioni ricordiamo le ULSS, l’associazione I-Care, il centro R.E.U.L. di Genova, il  Centro Disabilità Sensoriale di Mestre, la fondazione Hollman.

Per altre INFO:
Sito web: formazione.univr.it
E-mail: marcella.nalli@univr.it
Brochure in formato PDF

I don’t get excited by technology much these days. I tend to have a rather cynical view about it – Typically it’s either been done before, or it’s a solution looking for a problem. But occasionally something comes along which makes me sit back and take notice.  I’ve known about Google Wave for a while now. It’s been heralded as an “email killer” or a “wiki on steroids” or a “collaboration on the fly” and various other profound marketing statements. So it’s been sitting in the “wait and see…” corner of my mind for a while. I’m particularly skeptical about products which are declared “game changing” before they are even released…

Yesterday however, I indulged myself in watching the 1:20′ demo video of Google Wave. If you have not seen it, get yourself a cup of coffee and some biscuits, lock yourself in a room, stick the headphones on and be prepared to watch a good movie. You’ll laugh out loud too! This isn’t your typical PowerPoint presentation or even product demo. It’s good fun and it’s important.

However, beyond the functionality that you see demonstrated, pay attention to the personalities of the presenters, the people behind the product. You will begin to understand why Google Wave is significant.  It’s not the technology, it’s the attitude that’s different.

“What’s this got to do with ECM?” you may ask… It has everything to do with ECM. If Google Wave succeeds as a corporate platform (and I see absolutely no reason why it wouldn’t), it will fundamentally change the ECM industry.  Why? because the ECM industry, and Document Management before it, was invented as a workaround to compensate for NOT being able to do what Google Wave does. Let me explain… let’s look at some of the fundamental capabilities of ECM and how they might change in Google Wave world:

1. Check-In / Check – Out: This was invented primarily to overcome the issues of multiple authors trying to edit the same document at the same time and then having to synchronise the edits. Google Wave’s real time authoring synchronisation, removes the need for asynchronous editing and document locking.

2. Version history: Each Wave contains a complete version history of its lifecycle. The “Playback” function allows users to go back in time and trace the lineage of any edit in the document. A much more detailed and granular approach.

3. Lifecycle workflow management: Author, review, comment, modify, authorise edits – all native to the authoring interface and contained within the Wave. With the development of agent/robots I can imagine adding a “Review-y” (when you see the video you’ll understand what I mean…) to the wave, which will make sure that the right people are invited/uninvited to wave at various stages, based on the type of discussion or queries raised. All with complete audit trail information contained in the wave itself.

4. Security: Here we have another paradigm shift: Forget for a moment the traditional Access Control Lists (ACL) that we are all familiar with in the ECM world. Although not explicitly demonstrated in the video, the fact that the protocol supports federation and has the intelligence to allow/disallow the relevant people in and outside the firewall to see parts of the wave, means that it supports contextual security. The Wave’s security model is (appears to be…) contextually adaptive. That means that it will define its access behaviour based on the context/domain that it appears in. So not only you can implement implicit access security, but effectively it comes with Rights Management already built in.

5. Search & retrieval: The search capabilities demonstrated on the video were impressive, and given that this is Google, I don’t think it will have scalability issues, somehow…

6. Publishing: Of course you can take a snapshot of the wave and create a traditional document or another wave, much like we do today. But here’s another shift… (If any of you have seen the Harry Potter movies, you will remember the newspapers with the moving video clips on the page?) Rather than publishing content to websites, blogs, etc. you “embed” the wave on the site. Which means real-time dynamic web-publishing rather than static. The same way that Google Wave obviates the check-in/out, review cycled of traditional ECM, it also eliminates the need for elaborate web content publishing cycles. If you need to use staged publishing (remember, the approval itself is embedded in the wave), it’s easy to have an embedding function that checks for approval and only presents the wave up to the previously approved point!

7. Process / BPM: Process engines can attach Waves as documents, so that’s not an issue. Forms are not an issue either as they are included in the Wave.  Where things are different, is that a Wave is the ultimate “active content”. It is an entirely even-driven engine, which adopts its behaviour to external events. So, by introducing “agents” into the Wave audience, you are effectively embedding both rules processing and predefined behaviours into the wave. Think of this simple example: you added a third party to your wave, asking them to complete a part of a form inside the wave. Since the wave is jointly monitored by both internal and external wave environments, as soon as the information is completed, your process agent (who is a participant to the wave and therefore also monitoring the wave live) immediately recognises this, removes the third party from the wave and continues the process. Remember, the whole audit trail is “recorded” inside the Wave itself!

8. email management: Redundant. The purpose of email management was to convert emails to document objects in order to apply document management rules and controls. As the wave replaces email but is a document in its own right, you get both functions effectively rolled in one

9. Imaging: Imagine embedding both a scanned image and it’s OCR’ed text rendition in a wave, where you have created overlay-ed documents – much like the Satellite/map views of Google maps. Remember, it’s the same people that invented both…

I can go on and on… Yes there are holes in all the above and there will be some niche scenarios where this will not work quite the same way. But for 90% of standard office communications and documents, I can see Google Wave turning the whole ECM industry on its head: My colleagues have heard me rant repeatedly about the need of a new ECM strategy that is no longer bound to the file / folder paradigm.  From what I’ve seen so far, a Wave is exactly that: a self-contained, self-governing multiple-content object, which includes both content and its associated behaviours.

As an ECM practitioner, am I scared? No, I’m excited – very excited! The ECM software, as we know it today, may change dramatically in the next 5 years because of Google Wave.  But the ECM practices and principles are still required. We just need to make sure that we adapt them to the 21st century. So ECM guys, roll your sleeves up, there is A LOT of work to be done here…

What do you think of Keith Jarrett’s Testament by ECM? Can you hear a wide arc of expression, as “that old Jarrett magic forges majestically on”? And do you like the composition London December 1 2008?

Paris’s Salle Pleyel and London’s Royal Festival Hall… Please take also into consideration that you may vote Keith Jarrett below by adding one of his compositions. Thank you.

The Observer: Brad Mehldau and “the commercial mainstream with Keith Jarrett“

Opera, an European browser, and Mozilla, Linux and Apple

Spreadthesign, the sign language dictionary. European Commission – Education & Training

- Your favourite travel destination – A poll

- Which is your best song? (please vote)

Vanilla icecream, Vanilla Toffee Crunch and Chunky Monkey

Vanilla Bean, Strawberries & Cream, Double Chocolate, Mango & Passion Fruit Madness, Lemon Meringue, Cappuccino and Sticky Toffee Fudge

Mango & Banana Smoothie, Banana & Strawberry Smoothie, Frozen Yogurt, Cappuccino and Chocolate Icecream

Saturday October 3, 2009

updated on Wednesday November 25, 2009

calogeromira.wordpress.com – e-mail

Does this search engine save watts/hour?

A couple months ago, Gartner released their annual ECM Magic Quadrant (which I looked at).  Sure enough, being an odd year, Forrester released their ECM Wave.  I see the pros of waiting two years as the larger vendors take that long, or longer, for a significant release.  On the other hand, you have longer to wait for new members to show up.

Well not in Forrester’s world.  Only one new vendor (HP) was added and a few were cut, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The 2009 Wave

Thanks to Oracle (again), you can look at the Q4 2009Forrester Wave for ECM Suites in detail. For those with less patience, here is a copy of the wave…

Before we talk about the individual vendors, let’s talk about the low number of vendors.  If you look at the 2007 report, many vendors are gone. A couple were acquired (Interwoven and Vignette) and some aren’t what I would call ECM (SAP and Xerox) vendors anyway.

The question is, where is Autonomy?  They bought Interwoven and weren’t new to the content space.  They aren’t mentioned anywhere.  Nuxeo got a mention as one of the two open-source vendors in the "reduced footprint" category.  The SaaS focused SpringCM (under "reduced footprint") and emerging Laserfiche (under "process-focused" and "SMB") both got a nod as well.

All of those got placed on the Quadrant, as did SAP and Xerox.  I wouldn’t be upset, except I like how Forrester structures the wave more than Gartner’s MQ.  I want to see more vendors in here.

Breaking it Down

Let’s look at some of the vendors…

• Alfresco: Forrester thinks they are losing ground.  They didn’t say as much, but last time they were on the verge of making the Strong Contender  classification.  Now they are just strongly a Contender.  I understand raising the bar as the market evolves, but Alfresco hasn’t been sitting on its laurels.  They lost a lot ground in Strategy according to Forrester. As for the Current Offering, looks like the increased focus on integration in this Wave hurt Alfresco.
• HP: Welcome to the Wave.  Still the only major vendor that I haven’t heard connected to CMIS in any way.  I’ve even heard that Hyland is working on it.  Forrester has noticed and made note.
• Microsoft: Love the realism.  There are gaps, but less this time around than two years ago.  Microsoft  has a vision.  When 2010 comes out, they should push their way into the Leaders.
• Open Text: Getting hit on their Strategy.  Constant acquisition of the competition can do that.  Getting things integrated, as always, remains their biggest hurdle.
• EMC: Not much to say, except they got dinged for their poor WCM.  This is a growing trend.
• IBM/Oracle: Feel the love, especially with IBM.

To be honest, nothing surprising, just reinforcing.  I like how Forrester has the Leaders spread a little and how getting closer to the upper-right corner is rewarded.  You need a strong Strategy and solid Offering to get rated well.  Market Presence is measured by the size of the dot.  It just makes a lot more sense to me.

You know what is missing this year?  The score weighting.  Smart move as I trashed it last year and it gives people something extra when they pay for the full details.

Overall, the scoring had nothing massively off, though I’m not sure why Alfresco took so many hits.  The next couple of years is going to be critical for Alfresco as they start to hit middle-age and strive to be more.

Part 1 – Getting Started

From a user organization perspective, constructing an effective ECM Project Team needs to be on of the initial mandatory objectives and activities undertaken when implementing an ECM Project.  Achieving this objective in its totality directly links to the success of the implementation of any major ECM project within an organization – whether it be for a phased enterprise or a departmental initiative. 

Achieving this objective is a management challenge that must be supported at the top.  It requires Executive leadership that should initially lead to developing:

• an organizational vision
• clear and consistent motivation
• full mid-management support
• staff commitment at the user level that supports the executive sponsored vision developed by a qualified Project Team. 

With the above being understood, in an instance where the initiating champion of an ECM Project has a mid-level management role, that person needs to acquire an appropriate and committed executive level sponsor. 

In a typical scenario there initially needs to be a management level person(s) involved as project sponsor(s) who would likely be a department/division manager or line of business (LOB) manager.  As indicated, this person needs to acquire the active support and sponsorship of executive level management.  This could be a VP of Operations or the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the organization. 

The first sponsor tasks are to:

[1]   Develop and document the initial premise of the ECM initiative.

[2]   Select and organize an effective team of Project Team members who will work together with the sponsors to fully define and refine the project vision, and develop a strategies to plan the details and bring the project to fruition. 

The people selected for the Project Team, their planning and collaboration skills, their ability to understand the underlying concepts of both the change management and technologies necessary to implement ECM, and their ability to communicate effectively are going to be as important to the success of the ECM Project project’s success as the software, supporting expert resources, and project implementation team solution that is ultimately selected.

The successful ECM project will likely have new business processes implemented, improved workflows, integrations with existing systems, and will require changes in the way supervisors and users do their work.  The successful Project Team will be realistically creative, and individuals as Team members need to be open in their communication of ideas and the challenges to be faced.
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This blog will likely continue on this subject – with future installments discussing the recommended makeup of the Project Team members, the considerations that need to be covered, utilization of supporting partnership resources, and some recommended methods that should be considered to achieve implementation objectives.
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Nei giorni 11 e il 12 dicembre 2009, si svolegerà a Palermo un corso teorico-pratico sul paziente disfagico in età pediatrica.

Il Corso verrà tenuto dalla Dott.ssa Antonella Cerchiari, Logopedista di fama nazionale per la sua specializzazione in pazienti disfagici.

La segreteria scientifica, oltre alla Dott.ssa Cerchiari, è a cura del Dott. C. Mazzola e del Dott. E. Trapolino.

Il Workshop si svolgerà al Centro Studi Polisportiva Palermo, in via Val di Mazzara n.43, a Palermo.

Il programma dell’evento offre una panoramica completa sulla presa in carico del paziente disfagico in età pediatrica, partendo con l’anatomofisiologia delle vie deglutitorie, proseguendo con la valutazione clinica, strumentale e funzionale; per finire con le procedure terapeutiche e le strategie compensatorie.
Sono previste esercitazioni pratiche sulle manovre di emergenza.

Il corso è a numero chiuso, riservato a 30 persone. Le iscrizione verranno accettate fino ad esaurimento posti.

L’evento è in fase di accreditamento ECM.
La quota d’iscrizione ai fini del conseguimento dei crediti formativi ECM, per i Logopedisti, è di 200€ + IVA del 20% per il rilascio di fattura.
Per le altre figure professionali la quota è di 130€ + IVA del 20% per il rilascio di fattura.

L’iscrizione può avvenire tramite pagamento contanti o tramite bonifico bancario intesatato a:
“Libreria Accademia di Medicina Biologica” al c/c Banco di Sicilia Ag. 10, via Libertà – Palermo. IBAN IT15J0102004610000300627582
Causale del versamento: Iscrizione al corso del 11-12/12/2009 Palermo.

Per ulteriori informazioni, per il programma completo del corso e per la scheda di iscrizione, potete contattare la Segreteria Scientifica alla Polisportiva Palermo Onlus, in via Belgio 2/b a Palermo. Telefono 0916703078 – 3284278378. Responsabile: Salvo Modica.

[Aggiornamento: potete scaricare da qui la brochure con il programma completo e con ulteriori informazioni]

Per gli studenti del Corso di Laurea in Logopedia dell’Università di Palermo, dopo una trattativa con i responsabili della segreteria organizzativa, ci è stata data la possibilità di iscrizione al corso con uno sconto del 50%.

Indicando quindi l’appartenenza al Corso di Laurea e ricordando l’accordo telefonico con il Responsabile, abbiamo la possibilità di partecipare a questo evento al prezzo di 100€. Ci verrà rilasciato inoltre l’ attestato di partecipazione.

Venerdì richiamerò la segreteria organizzativa per comunicare il numero degli studenti interessati al corso, in modo da estendere il limite di 30 persone partecipanti.

Chi tra noi studenti ha intenzione di partecipare a questo illuminante corso teorico-pratico lasci un commento con nome, cognome e anno di corso entro le 13:00 di venerdì mattina 27 novembre.

[Aggiornamento studenti: ho appena avuto un chiarimento con il responsabile dell'organizzazione dell'evento. Mi ha detto che per quanto riguarda l'iscrizione degli studenti, mi farà avere notizie più certe la prossima settimana. Deve parlare infatti con il provider dell'organizzazione, per vedere se è possibile inserire 10 studenti (che non richiedono crediti ECM e che usufruiranno di uno sconto particolare), al posto di 5 professionisti che richiedono ECM e che pagano l'intera somma. Ho sottolineato più volte l'interesse di queste persone nei confronti dell'evento e la volontà di iscriversi comunque all'evento. Mi ricontatterà dopo mercoledì 2 dicembre. Vi terrò informati.]

Christian Wallumrod Ensemble: Fabula Suite Lugano (ECM 271 1269)
With each release by his ensemble, the Swedish keyboardist and composer seems to have widened his stylistic scope even further. The group started out as a quartet, expanded to a sextet with their previous CD The Zoo Is Far, and maintains that size here with just one personnel change: Eivand Lonning in for Arve Henriksen on trumpet.

So, with the other instruments being cello, violin or Hardanger fiddle, harp and percussion, the palette of sounds remains intriguing and capable of a wide range of moods, which is just how Wallumrod likes it. And this is very much ensemble music, with no particular attention given to individual soloists.

The music picks up influences from the near avant garde classical and experimental composers like Morton Feldman, and from the distant Baroque past of Domenico Scarlatti.

The most immediately compelling pieces are the two versions of Jumpa, which in their strangely stately ways conjure up two very serious circus processions at the court of some 17th-century Swedish king. But then you get a piece like Dancing Deputies which is like a minimalist free jazz work-out full of played echoes. Quote Funebre, Wallumrod claims, is based on a few chords from Olivier Messiaen.

And what textures! On Snake there is the piano in the distance, plucked notes from harp and cello, the cymbals stroked with a bow, and the odd tinkle of a bell.

There is a lot of silence on this recording, and a lot of quiet interaction between the instruments – the listener is left with a fascinating sense of both the spaces between the instruments in the studio and also between the centuries of time which separate the interweaving strands of this music.

Wallumrod creates the equivalent of a coldly-lit Vermeer in sound, and a certain sense of human isolation, too. Both chilling and lovely. And triumphantly unclassifiable.

Hello. My name is Art and I am the Chief Knowledge Integrator for my organization.  I used to be the Chief  Knowledge Manager, but times are changing and so is my role in the organization. I still am responsible for overseeing knowledge based activities such as tacit to explicit transfer as a means to reduce organizational knowledge loss, facilitation of collaborative communities to increase efficiencies and drive innovation, and working throughout the organization to infuse the processes, procedures, and policies that support an enterprise culture of collaboration that enables us to make better decisions faster and with better results, but now my organization needs more. The lines between Information Technology and Business Operations are dissolving. The CIO is now focused more on enabling the business then on managing IT resources, while the Operations Directors are now focused on delivering results faster and with more impact through the use of enabling technologies. My job as CKI is to develop the strategies, tactics, and techniques that connect the right information and knowledge to the right people at the right time in the context they need, and ensure they have to know-how to adopt and use the resources. My role is unique in the sense that I need to play a part in all aspects of the organization from strategy development, to operations, to education and training, to sales, to human resources, to finance and metrics and assessment. My goal is to focus the organization on maximizing our corporate knowledge and intellectual capital while minimizing knowledge gaps, and empowering the workers to leverage all the information, knowledge, and resources at their disposal.

I have also found that my new title resonates better with my organization then CKM did. For some reason people understand the notion of knowledge integration better than knowledge management. They can see how knowledge integration strategies can foster better decision making, promote business agility, and connect people to information in context more than they could in a knowledge management context. They also seem to understand that integration requires an organizational/cultural, people, and technology approach to be effective. Yes, I know that was the same with KM, but for some reason the notion of integration resonates better.

I am happy to be part of the next generation of knowledge leaders who will hold the CKI title. I expect that in the next 15 years the job will become obsolete as organizations continue to infuse IT and Business operations, and knowledge strategies, tactics, and methodologies are inculcated into the daily routine of operations, but until then I am proud to be a Chief Knowledge Integrator.

Every company no matter how big or small has an Accounts Payable department.  It may be as small as one person or it may have ten, fifteen or more people.  For medium and large companies there are problems that arise with the data entry of all that invoice data and the tracking of all those invoices through the approval cycle.  There have been many different methods that companies have created to try and handle both which still lead to missing/late invoices and mistakes during data entry.  Methods such as logging the invoices either in a spreadsheet or manually on paper are just some of the types of methods that companies have tried to keep track of where invoices are and how long they have been waiting to be paid.  Maybe there is a better way.

 Kofax KTM in conjunction with Oracle I/PM provides a solution to these two issues.  Kofax provides two software packages to scan and then process documents like invoices.  KTM is the processing part and is able to OCR and identify the key fields on an invoice no matter where on the page the data is located.  KTM can also validate some of the data against the ERP system the company is running. Fields like PO Number, PO Release, Vendor Name, Vendor Address, Vendor Pay Site, Vendor Payment Terms and other fields can be read from the ERP system and added to the set of data held by KTM.  KTM can then pass this data on to Oracle I/PM.

 Oracle I/PM is an imaging and workflow software package.  Not only does it store the invoice document with the index data entered through KTM, but it also has a workflow module that can track the invoice through the business process so the users can know where in the process the document is sitting.  With I/PM workflow the invoice can be routed electronically to the assigned approver for invoice approval that is done on a Form built for workflow.  If there are multiple levels that can be handled within the workflow in one of several ways depending on the information available from other systems such as the company ERP system.  In addition, I/PM workflow scripts allow a programmer to write code to transfer the data directly into the ERP system through its data import tables.  I/PM has been successfully integrated to pass data to JDE F0411Z1/F0911Z1 tables and Oracle EBS Open Interface tables to name just a few.  These code scripts are re-usable so we can quickly get them working in your environment.  Have we have found, not every company process their AP Invoices in the same manner, so each implementation we do is slightly different than any other, so we need to discover the differences and then modify the form and script code to match.

 We at ImageSource can provide the expertise and experience to quickly get an imaging and workflow process into place in your company.  Just contact us at http://www.imagesourceinc.com to find out how.

I had the opportunity to work the Interface ‘09 tradeshow yesterday with ProStor Systems. There was a ton of activity at the ProStor booth, and it was a great opportunity to learn more about the storage solutions that ProStor offers. Some things that people were interested in that ProStor specializes in were:

• Long-term data storage
• Archiving
• Backup
• Compliance

I am looking forward to working more with ProStor and learning more about their storage options as well. ProStor exhibited at this year’s Nexus conference, and we would love to have them at Nexus ‘10 as well. Registration for next year is up and active. Don’t miss your chance to register for the northwest’s premier ECM Solutions Conference, Nexus.

Kristina Parma
Corporate Communications Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

There are a vast amount of companies and organizations that utilize document scanning services in our region, and in this article we’ll look at some of those types of organizations and what they use scanning services for.

The vast majority of document scanning services are able to scan images of various sizes – often from items as small as a receipt to huge A0 drawings. The storage of paper documents can take up a huge amount of space, and while people may not wish to scan their documents or drawings and then get rid of them – they will be able to store them in a more remote location, and be able to utilize more local space for other things.

We feel though, that more importantly, once document scanning services have been used to scan documents/drawings etc., they are extremely easy to access and view by whoever needs to see them. When one considers that up to 5000 large documents can be archived onto a single CD ROM, then it becomes apparent just how much easier it is to store some documents this way, rather than having to sift through many real documents – saving time and money in terms of man hours.

In order to make the viewing process as easy as possible, many document scanning services convert documents to the popular PDF format file. These are considered a good option because they can be easily opened by anyone who needs to see it – the PDF reader is free to download too. As part of this file type, there is the PDF Searchable file, which as the name suggests allows the document to be searched. This is something that can save many businesses and organizations a great deal of time in the long run; it uses Optical Recognition Software which recognizes the letters in a printed document and converts them to searchable words, letters and numbers.

There are a huge range of industries that use document scanning services, from financial and legal, through to construction and local authority. Paper documents continue to be a very important way of keeping track of all manner of events and plans, but the huge amount of space they take up means that the ability to scan documents has become invaluable in speeding up activities in all manner of organizations.

Scanning documents is not always a cost effective option for some organizations though, which is why some firms provide a scan-on-demand service, which means certain regularly used documents can be scanned and stored for retrieval.

Precision Document Imaging is your answer to these solutions and we would be glad to assist you in any of the processes you have in place, or speak to you about new ones.

Precision Document Imaging

(775) 337-1987 ext. 106

429 West First Street

Reno, NV 89503

I’ve heard many comments from individuals summing up their ‘NEXUS ECM Experience’ over the past week following the show’s November 2nd close.  From my perspective, the tweets and blogs captured the momentum and attendance at the show was greater than last year.  I think this is because the quality and value of the show in general was up.  Attendees this year definitely had an agenda, and most were actively seeking solutions, as compared to years passed.  The companies that will be on top when the economy turns will be those who have a strong ECM foundation for business processes.  It was encouraging to see the excitement and drive to get back to work and start retooling for a more efficient future.   If you missed out this year, make sure to register for Nexus 2010 and lock in the reduced rate of $195! Use code NEXUS10SPL

Leigh Woody

Program Manager

ImageSource, Inc.

So its nearly a week since the event in Athens closed and I’ve had enough time to gather my thoughts, and write up some of the sessions, so it is time to summarise the 3 days which I spent there.

To put the conference into perspective I think we need to understand the market and past 12 months of EMC CM&A.

ECM Market

SharePoint continues to be the young pretender breaking into the market. They have no doubt increased their market share in the past 12 months, no figures to back this up unfortunately, and the release of SharePoint 2010 will be a major milestone in the marketplace in the next 12 months as it increases its DM and EDRM functionality. IBM and FileNet continue to be a confused product and player in the market, the traditional strength of BPM in the product is diluted by the integration into IBM and the Process Server product. OpenText remain strong and their relationship with SAP will see them continue to play strong in this area, whilst some of their SharePoint and Microsoft products are attractive. Their big strength though is their solution focus and they are very good at going to market with solutions which focus on business value. Adobe are making a strong play in the market with their forms product and the tie up with Alfresco is certainly interesting. The Open Source market will continue to grow.

Where does this leave EMC CM&A?

I believe they are still strong, going into Athens I believed they were in a strong position, coming out I believe the steps they are taking will ensure they remain a leader.

Momentum Summary

The messages I came away from Momentum with were the three new groups within CM&A:

- Information Governance

- Information Access

- Process

Of the three I see Process as being the one which can lead EMC to success, with Governance not being far behind. Why?

Information Access – of the three groups I believe this one will be impacted most by SharePoint 2010. Organisations will become less likely to look to another product to manage their documents when SharePoint can be considered good enough. When it comes to collaboration SharePoint is strong, no doubt about that, yes it has flaws but it is a product which does a job well. At Momentum 2008 EMC’s message was all about Centerstage; this year I did not get much of a feel for that (although I did spend more time on xCP sessions). Plus Centerstage has been delayed a number of times, I just think it will be a hard sell to push this as a Collaboration play within an organisation who are remotely interested in SharePoint.

Information Governance – the acquisition of Kazeon could be key to the success of this group. EMC can now deliver a compelling message about managing records in-situ, finding information to assist in meeting compliance needs and also about moving information to the appropriate storage tier. eDiscovery has been banded around in the market a lot in the past 2 years but I see this becoming more and more prevalent as organisations begin to act on the risk threats they perceive.

Process – as I said above, this one caught my eye the most. I went into the conference unconvinced about xCP, and to be honest version 1.0 is still nothing more than a collection of products, no matter what the marketing hype. However the ambitions which EMC have for this could really start to drive some opportunities. As I said above OpenText are very good at selling business solutions, the xCP programme where partners and EMC develop business solutions together, will put EMC in a position to challenge OpenText on a level playing field, except the BPM capability of Documentum is greater than that of OpenText. Also by moving the xCP platform onto the Centerstage paradigm it will enable more composite solutions to be built as this is much more aligned with Portals. From personal experience the ability to show Documentum information/content alongside other important information is something customers do wish for and the solution until now has been to bespoke this using a Portal solution or something similar. Also by improving some of the underlying architecture to support things such as relational objects will make developing these applications so much easier and instead allow us as SI’s to focus on the business value of the solution rather than how we relate a vehicle to a claim.

Was it worth attending the event?

Yes, definitely. Again this was an excellent networking event and I have made a number of contacts which I will work with over the coming weeks and months. Its also nice to catch up with some old faces such as Andrew, it would be great if Pie could find his way to europe one year although it could be said that I need to get stateside at some time. There is a lot more which goes on at these events than the presentations and these sometime become as important as the session. I enjoyed the news on xCP and will just have to be patient for this to be realised, if EMC can execute the plans in this area successfully, and importantly, in a timely fashion then I can see the product set breaking out of the pure EDRM mould and starting to play in areas of business where they have sometimes struggled.

One of the goals I had in Athens was to be convinced about xCP. So far some of the messages I had heard up until the Tuesday afternoon had been positive and I was keen to attend a session about xCP to get more info.

This was being presented by Dan Ciruli the Principal Product Manager for xCP; there does seem to be a large number of people involved in the Product Management for xCP, it did confuse me a little.

Dan started by talking about why xCP is so different and although he did not say it directly the message I got was that it is not that different but an evolution or a change of perspective. There was then some talk about the justification of Case Management as the right direction for EMC to take; I’m already sold on this one.

Dan then went through the products which make up the xCP platform and touched on each briefly.

So what differentiates xCP from the crowd, these are the claims:

- Fully integrated solution from Capture, Process, Dispostion and including Reporting;

- Speed to development is 50% quicker (I’d like someone to back this up with facts, given that xCP is not a new product this does some like a bit of a stretch);

- Agile and Flexible; Easy to Build = Easy to Change.

Finally, and this is the best bit, Dan talked about the future of xCP and gave some ideas about xCP 2.0. There will be two point releases of xCP next year followed by the next major release in 2011 along with D7.

xCP 2.0 will be based on a number of things including:

- Extended Case Capability;

- Improved App Development;

- Vastly improved user experience;

Now my notes started to suffer a bit as Dan unveiled a lot of planned features including more use of Smart Containers, the ability to model relationship between objects, better roles, inherited properties, automatic document generation, increased collaboration and integrated capture. He also unveiled that they would be looking at a single integrated development environment. The new products, including the point releases, will be much more services focussed with proposed support for CMIS in 1.5.

Finally Dan showed a screenshot of xCP 2.0. This is clearly based on the CenterStage UI experience and looked extremely powerful. The screenshot was of a Claims based xCP implementation where claim details were displayed alongside a widget which showed the location of the incident via Google Maps.

All in all this was a presentation which covered a lot of existing ground in the first part but then the last 2-3 slides on the roadmap of xCP and planned features was where things took off. They really gave a flavour of how powerful xCP could become, and yes I was convinced.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Angela_Sands

¿En qué casos se puede usar un API?

Muchos clientes utilizan su SGED tal cual está programado, pero otros tienen la necesidad de integrarlo en sus propias aplicaciones o tienen necesidades específicas que les obligan a llevar a cabo algún tipo de personalización. Las consideraciones a tener en cuenta para llevar a cabo la integración o personalización incluyen tiempos de proceso, costos, ahorros en tiempo de personal, duplicación de entradas, programación de tareas, complejidad, eliminación de errores humanos y sensibilidad de determinadas tareas.

¿Cuándo tiene sentido la automatización? Generalmente, cuando podemos ahorrar tiempo traducido en horas de trabajo. Hay algunos escenarios que se describen más abajo, que muestran como pueden conseguirse estos ahorros. Pero no siempre la utilidad de una integración viene determinada por un ahorro de tiempo. Para hacernos una idea, veamos un ejemplo sencillo. Digamos que disponemos de un archivo para el departamento de contabilidad. Un administrativo necesita archivar algunos efectos financieros, generados fuera de la compañía, al final de cada mes. No le lleva demasiado tiempo, y por lo tanto, no se ha considerado que sea rentable automatizar este proceso. Pero, ¿qué ocurriría si estos documentos estuvieran regulados y requirieran una política de retención que impidiera su eliminación en un periodo de 7 años? Las consecuencias de no cumplir esta regla podrían resultar muy caras. Esto hace que la tarea se convierta en crítica. Seguro que no le gustaría que se cometieran errores humanos ni que se dejaran de archivar estos documentos. Este sería un ejemplo de necesidad de automatización de una tarea que no ahorraría horas de trabajo, pero de gran importancia.

¿Dónde se puede usar un API?

Los APIs proporcionan la mayor parte de la funcionalidad disponible en el núcleo de la aplicación de la que parten. Se controlan para dar y denegar acceso dependiendo de los permisos de usuario. Usando el API de un SGED, es posible sincronizar datos [Synchronizer], recuperar documentos específicos [Retriever], automatizar la importación de documentos, “enrutar” documentos, obtener permisos de usuario, etc.

Requerimientos generales para el uso de un API

• Conocimientos en el uso de APIs
• Comprensión de los objetivos del proyecto de integración
• La capacidad de manejar las llamadas al API para completar la integración con éxito

Ejemplos de uso

Las posibilidades de añadir valor a una aplicación existente integrándola con un sistema de gestión documental son innumerables. El objetivo es siempre mejorar la eficiencia operacional al complementar la aplicación existente con características comunes de la gestión documental como la digitalización, el archivo y la organización de documentos en un entorno estructurado. Algunas integraciones avanzadas pueden llevar a cabo tareas sofisticadas como flujos de trabajo automáticos basados en reglas de negocio y en otros criterios compartidos con otras aplicaciones. Vamos a describir algunos ejemplos de la utilización de APIs para facilitar el desarrollo de integraciones personalizadas.

Escenario 1:

Punto de partida: un sistema AS400 que crea a diario un listado de facturas en formato texto basándose en números de cuenta. Se dispone de un SGED con carpetas de todas las cuentas. Proceso sin automatización: el listado completo se almacena en archivos separados. Los inconvenientes de este proceso son varios: el usuario tiene que almacenar en la carpeta adecuada y dar nombre al documento, el documento contiene facturas de múltiples cuentas o los documentos asociados a las facturas están en distintos repositorios.

Necesidad: el listado completo debe ser distribuido en cuentas individuales y almacenado en las carpetas adecuadas del SGED.

Solución: escribir una utilidad que monitorice el directorio donde se generará el listado, que divida el listado basándose en cada factura y que obtenga el número de cuenta. Entonces, usando el API, se creará una carpeta para el número de cuenta si esta no existe. Se obtendrá el número de factura para dar nombre al listado individual en el SGED y se archivará usando el API.

Escenario 2:

Punto de partida: un Sistema de Gestión Médico basado en SQL y un SGED con un archivo de carpetas de todos los pacientes con la información pertinente. Proceso sin automatización: el usuario crea manualmente las carpetas de los pacientes o las actualiza con información del Sistema de Gestión. Esta operación se realiza siempre antes de almacenar ningún documento dentro de la carpeta. Los inconvenientes de este proceso manual son la posibilidad de repetir datos en la entrada y la posibilidad de cometer errores al introducirlos.

Necesidad: crear automáticamente carpetas con los datos de los pacientes en el SGED para acelerar el proceso y evitar errores al teclear.

Solución: escribir una utilidad que conecte periódicamente con la base de datos del Sistema de Gestión Medico y recoja los últimos datos que han sido modificados. Usar las llamadas al API para crear o actualizar las carpetas del SGED.

Escenario 3:

Punto de partida: una Compañía dispone de un software de Gestión de Clientes hecho a medida. También tienen un SGED con un repositorio dividido en carpetas, una para cada unode sus clientes.
Proceso sin automatización: el usuario de administración tiene ambos programas abiertos. Si en un momento dado necesita información relativa a un determinado cliente que se encuentra en el SGED, cambia a la otra aplicación y realiza una consulta estándar para conseguir la carpeta del cliente.

Necesidad: a los responsables de esta Compañía les gustaría disponer de la posibilidad de ver cualquier información relativa a un cliente sin moverse de la aplicación de Gestión de Clientes.

Solución: escribir una función integrada en el programa de Gestión de Clientes que muestre la carpeta del SGED para un cliente específico cuando el usuario así lo solicite, usando las llamadas propias del API.

Conclusión

El uso de un API hace viable la integración de software externo y la automatización de procesos con el SGED, al permitir un acceso a los documentos desde su propia aplicación corporativa. La integración hace que las tareas repetitivas se lleven a cabo más rápidamente, con menos errores, y a un precio más bajo, debido a que los documentos necesarios para completar ciertas tareas están disponibles inmediatamente.

For those of you who attended my breakout session at the NEXUS ECM Conference on automating business processes this topic will be familiar to you.  If you missed the session, this blog will provide a glimpse into the world of automating and optimizing business processes. 

There are many different ways to approach process automation and optimization and the purpose of this blog topic is to provide information based on my industry experience.  I will discuss identifying processes within an organization and then automating those processes utilizing a number of valuable implementation strategies.

Why Automate?

From my experience in the Enterprise Content Management industry, I have found the main reasons to automate or optimize a business process are as follows:

• Gain Process Efficiencies
• Process Quality Improvement
• Improve Reporting, Tracking & Auditing

Process Identification

Let’s take a look at identifying a business process that could be automated.  When looking at processes to automate or optimize, the starting point is to identify a process and then extensively research the process to get a clear understanding of the current state.  A good place to start with this research is to look at all of the inputs and outputs of the current process.  This can include documents, data and communication associated with accomplishing tasks in a process. 

Next, we will want to evaluate the identified process to determine what manual steps in the process can be automated.  From identifying the steps we then can determine which ones will provide the best return for the business and/or user.

The last key to identifying and evaluating business processes is the inclusion of the user community in the analysis of the current process to determine; 1) what is currently working well, 2) what could use improving, 3) what are the major deficiencies and 4) what is on the user’s wish list for the process.

By following these steps in identifying and evaluating a business process you will set yourself up for success when architecting and implementing a solution for automation or optimization.

Implementation Strategies

Now that we have discussed identifying business processes let’s take a look at some implementation strategies to assist you in automating/optimizing the process.

• Understand the Business Process: As discussed earlier in the post, it is critical to fully understand the process that you are automating.
  • Evaluate current bottlenecks
  • Determine the user interaction with the current process
• Require Ownership at All Levels: In order to get full acceptance of the solution you are implementing you should ensure that the entire team is on board and understands the benefits to them and the organization.  This includes:
  • Executive Level
  • Departmental Management
  • End Users
• Know what to Automate: Don’t automate every manual process for the sake of automation.  Determine the return value associated with the re-engineering of the process.  In some cases it will make more sense to keep the process manual.  For example, in a customer service organization, it may be more beneficial to provide human interaction to a customer instead of sending an automatically generated email.
• Educate Yourself on Existing Systems: Understanding the current infrastructure in place can be critical when determining the return on investment and initial cost of the process re-engineering. 
  • If there is already an Enterprise Content Management system in place, you should be able to leverage this for tasks associated with document capture, document management/archival, workflow, etc…
  • Line of Business systems (Oracle E-Business, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, MSFT Great Plains, etc…) can be leveraged for storing metadata associated with the documents you are capturing.   Using software like ILINX Integrate, these LOB systems can then be image enabled to retrieve documents directly from your document management system without ever leaving the LOB system.
• Promote Ongoing Analysis & Optimization: This strategy is key to creating and maintaining truly efficient and optimized processes within an organization.  Let’s take the following example:
  • A manual process is identified to automate
  • The process is automated with success using the above implementation strategies
  • Everyone is happy and uses the new and improved process
  • Now that the process has been improved it is common to call the project a success and never look back.  This may work for some time, but eventually the process will need to be evaluated again to determine if additional automation or optimization needs to take place.  Over time business processes evolve and technology changes, so this step can be imperative to keep your business process streamlined.

 In summary, we have taken a quick look at the process of identifying business process to automate and optimize, as well as, some strategies for success when taking on the task of business process re-engineering.  Please feel free to post comments related to this information or your own experiences related to this topic. 

  

Nexus 09 was a hit, simple as that!

If you missed out this year, make sure to register for Nexus 2010 and lock in the reduced rate of $195! Use code NEXUS10SPL.

A big thank you to our sponsors: Bowe Bell & Howell, Kofax, ProStor, OPEX, Autonomy/Cardiff, AIIM Northwest, Fujitsu, Oracle

To read a recap of Nexus 09, check out the Trends blog.

Kristina Parma
Corporate Communications Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

I was chatting with Sophia Marchi, the director of sales for the Americas for BÖWE BELL + HOWELL Scanners at our recent Nexus event. She had just delivered a great break-out on scanner selection criteria and we started talking about how the users need to have input on scanner selection – they really know what they like and what works for them. Often, these aren’t the people consulted when purchase decisions are made, and it’s a shame. She related how at FedEx, there were 13 identical scanners deployed, and the staff had names them all – Annabelle, Karina, Chloe, Hannah, and so forth. Workers bonded with their machines, and would line up for their favorite – even to the point of coming in early to get their machine. Or switching to it the second in came available. Well what’s the attraction — they are all the same machines, right? Then I recalled my brother and I had the same Schwinn 2 speed bikes as kids, then in college we bought the exact same motorcycles (I stuck to silver, he to purple). 3K miles down the road, I’d borrow his bike. Felt a bit funny, compared to mine with the same mileage. Fast forward to when we had put over 45K miles – what a difference. Rider habits with braking, acceleration, maintenance, even storage – added up to make these bikes ride with distinct differences. I do remember mine being faster – I guess my throttle was used to more demands. It’s the same story with scanners. Properly maintained scanners – the ones that are doted on and listened to carefully – are bound to last longer with fewer unexpected breakdowns. Sophia learned from the users that with their favorite scanners, the operators can hear roller wear, hear double feeds, even hear the need for a cleaning. Scanning shops that listen to their operators, allowing them to use a particular machine when possible, and reward regular maintenance and cleaning will outperform shops that neglect these steps.

Peter Lang
ImageSource, Inc.