Edith Cowan University (ECU) has three campuses in Western Australia: Joondalup and Mount Lawley in the Perth metropolitan area, and the South West campus in Bunbury, 200km south of the Perth CBD. ECU offers innovative and practical courses across a variety of disciplines and a vibrant research culture. ECU is a leader in developing alternative entry pathways to higher education.

ECU had an existing custom developed search interface for policies stored within TRIM that had reached end of life and was expensive to update to integrate with Records Manager. ECU initially implemented TRIM as its EDRMS solution, which was then extended to capture policies and other content for consumption online via the EDRMS. As a result a web-style interface needed to be developed and integrated with the EDRMS to enable users to search and view policies.

ECU had 172 Policies that needed to be exposed both internally and externally to the internet. These policies were created and managed by 14 different departments of the University, each with their own process causing issues with duplication and outdated policy information being made available to students, staff and public.

The search solution needed to behave like a web browser search and retrieve content from HPE Records Manager. Information Proficiency (IP) was invited to assist as a specialist in Information Management, Software Development and optimisation of EDRMS like TRIM and Records Manager.

ECU already uses HPRM quite extensively in their environment so it was a logical step for IP to suggest that policy documents be captured in Records Manager as part of the managed data, allowing the ECU Records Team to take ownership and provide the University with a single place to reference documents.

The first step was to extract the required data from the legacy system, a MYSQL Database, and detail the draft design. Some fields were retained such as Policy Code, Title, Policy Owner and Categories, used by ECU to identify a document and owner.

IP opted to use WebDrawer as part of the solution, which is included in the RM base license package minimising the cost and leveraging the existing investment made by ECU. WebDrawer also limits users to only view and download documents making it an ideal platform for exposing data. Public access was enabled using a guest account so users without a licence could access the policy documents.

• ECU is now able to search all policy documents stored and managed in the central Records Manager repository, which is accessible from both the web search and client interface;
• Users have a familiar way of searching, browsing and improved visibility of available content;
• Improved search result accuracy and reliability for University policy, statutes, By-Laws, and rules;
• Improved publication control of policy, statutes, By-Laws, and rules across University faculties and campuses;
• Reduced duplication of documentation and processes across the University;
• Reduced time from approval to publication;
• Centralisation of policy document storage has generated significant savings in cloud storage costs by consolidating multiple versions and duplication; and
• This project has acted as a catalyst for new relationships and collaborations across ECU faculties and campuses. Several business areas are now looking to make specific content sets available to internal and external parties to support better business and information access.