Student Government Software for Productivity Permanent Link: Student Government Software for Productivity
Student Government Associations have a tendency to focus on their websites as an external communication tool, seeking improved outreach to student bodies and assistance in recruiting members. Having up-to-date content is a prerequisite to accomplishing these goals. As an example, it’s become an expectation that when a governance group is meeting publicly, that an agenda for the next meeting is online. When such content is missing, and all visitors find are references to meeting that happened months in the past, the creditability of all your content is hurt. People know SGAs are dynamic organizations–if the content seems stale, they will be unsure if officers terms have expired or if issues are still live. Those people move on and do not engage the student government.
The case is made easily that up-to-date organizational content should be a top priority for any student government website. However, the student government association is often limited by reliance on an able and proactive webmaster, when the reality is that on most campuses these people are very much in demand by other organizations and by better paying clients.
What SGIMS offers is a true web-based workflow for the student government association. By using the software as the primary vehicle for initial processing of documents, the webmaster is no longer a middleman and the publishing of documents no longer a separate step.
As an illustration, take the SGIMS committee report feature. A common scenario in a SG legislature is a committee reviewing and amending a bill or resolution. What’s the traditional workflow involved? There’s two documents that have to be created, a report from the committee and the updated legislation. Traditional processes probably involve the chair emailing the report to the president, who then relays it to the members and to the webmaster, who converts and posts it on the website. This will often take a few days, and some reports are first seen at the legislative meeting itself. The process for the revised bill is even more complicated. The committee chair will either itemize the revisions to relay to someone else to apply, increasing risk of error and clerical overhead, or request and wait a copy of the legislative to revise. Once it is revised, it still has to go back through officers and webmasters before being posted online.
In contrast is the SGIMS workflow for this report. The committee chair or other officer initiates the report online, either filling the report in online or uploading a document. The report is then transmitted to the officers and/or staff, and immediately published online. No work by the webmaster or president is required. The SGIMS legislative system includes a versioning database for each bill or resolution. The committee chair can directly download and editable document from when the bill was filed or last revised. The chair can then directly upload the new version of the legislation. With the SGIMS workflow, as soon as the chair records the committee actions, the public is fully informed about them.
We hope you see how this web-based workflow can enhance productivity and improve clerical efficiency. With SGIMS, a student government website can be a valuable tool for the member of the organization as well as for the public at large.