Charlie Graham (and the next commentator) made some excellent points
which parallel our experience at the University of New Orleans in trying to
implement an "electronic" routing form. I particularly agree with Charlie's
Item 2, which I had failed to consider and don't really have an answer for.

How *would you* manage to "attach" an actual copy of the proposal,
something that administrators are going to want to see regardless before
they sign off on anything, electronic or otherwise?

At UNO, we redesigned our routing form last summer on the contingency that
our computer resource center would follow through with its proposed plan to
implement a uniform campus-wide e-mail system, which at the time was going
to be some variation of Windows-for-Workgroups mail system.  When that got
"delayed" we decided to introduce the paper copy of the new form, which was
*somewhat* more confusing because it was designed to conform to electronic
prompting within certain sections.  We took a great deal of heat because
you know how "they" complain whenever you change anything.  Well, you've
probably already guessed.......our computer people have "delayed" the
electronic e-mail system "indefinitely" (largely due to some of the
technical complexities described in Charlie's comment about the
difficulties of "campus-wide anything" electronic).

In a nutshell, I know of *no* college or university that is ready technically
for that kind of electronic communication.  My guess would be that if
anyplace is inclined to do it, ironically it might be at the smaller,
[wealthier] liberal arts campuses that don't have the technical variations in
hardware and communications that the larger campuses have.  But the
question would surface that it's the smaller places (where people "know"
and talk to each other) that might need such an innovation the least!

I'd like to hear from people out there.   Is anyone actually from a campus
that has *successfully*  and  *completely* automated their pre-award approvals?

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*       Jane E. Prudhomme, Director      *
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