Academia And The Ever-Changing Face Of Form Submissions

The industry of education is continuously changing at this point in the 21^st century, and given the events surrounding the global pandemic, this will clearly not slow down any time soon. With regards to life in the academic surroundings, predominantly at university or third level institutions, the aspect of time and how to save more of it has never been more prescient.

Compiling academic journals, research and other forms of documentation could be viewed as a painstakingly long process, but in recent times huge steps have been made in the digital world to curb all of that. The days of stressing to meet the last-minute deadlines and bind pages of material before sending it all off are coming to a close thanks to the online upheaval.

The prospect of opportunity is also one that has come to fruition through this method, as writers of academic journals have seen in attempting to engage or get the attention of researchers around the world.

We will look at how this rapid change as a whole has changed the entire industry, and with many of the events that have taken place in 2020, even the schooling system at a younger level is beginning to see huge changes too.

Case Study; Limerick culture and arts office

One client that is specific to Submit is that of the Limerick culture and arts office, originally set up to promote the best of investment in both of those fields across the county.

There they manage applications, and submission material that builds towards entering the Limerick festival as well as any other required documents for competitive entries. The main festival as well as the various other events taking place are hugely important for boosting tourism and the economy, particularly now, as well as the uptake from students involved in the creative fields themselves.

Lizanne Jackman, the administrator for the Culture and Arts office, notes that;

‘Before using Submit, we were dealing with a lot of physical paperwork, then making additional copies for adjudicators. The process of databasing all applications and applicant details was time-consuming and required additional staffing to meet internal deadlines and turnover times.’’

Particularly following the events of 2020, this would have become increasingly difficult, as the office were attempting to upload applications in their prior system which was quite slow and cumbersome. That also required individual uploads of the applications, so the prospect of changing to Submit’s more user-friendly serviced proved fruitful.

Using the multi-phase submission function, they were able to save time and effort as well as the aforementioned cost involved, and measures to follow up with applicants proved far more successful. For art and drama students participating and submitting content to these festivals, this would also be a unique time saving opportunity.

Regarding this case study, more information is available here .

Affecting third level and rapid growth

Dr Alison Cullinane is a lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. She maintains that a lot of third level institutions are beginning to change focus and move away from more traditional paper/book means. For a university as prestigious as Oxford, it does mean a lot of changes away from the expected customs. She notes that; ‘The face to face aspect of schooling has led to a lot of zoom/skype/ Microsoft based calls between students and lecturers’ and this in turn makes the paper submission services less active than before.

There are of course ‘Blackboard’ systems which are specific to each University throughout Ireland, The U.K. and various third level colleges. These do vary in content and capacity, some such as Oxford may have a world class level book-based library, while others have moved the vast majority of content online towards pdfs and other forms of downloadable documents.

Alison does note that they provide ‘online surveys for masters, so that it’s a lot easier than compiling things in the background’ whereas beforehand they would have had to be collected and organised on a more individual level.

Other documents in the University are marked and submitted in the form of a word document to again save time for the academic staff. They also make use of an online based system known as ‘weblearn’ with full access to dropbox and other similar file sharing programs to ensure connectivity and response time is at the highest level possible.

As with a number of similarly prestigious universities, Oxford is proof for how students and lecturers alike are adapting towards digital and pandemic style innovation while keeping many aspects of tradition safe too.

Submit’s approach to academic submissions

As all areas of the academic world change, from the very beginners at kindergarten to the post-graduates and semi-professional students, Submit is prepared to offer an exceptional service. The state-of-the-art systems boost the application process for forms and also for those looking to submit academic material. All journals, documents, projects and assignments are backed up and accessible for review at any given time. The forms themselves are customisable and straightforward to use, with various permissions and access granted so that administrators, educators, and students will all be able to save more time away from the more static process of individual uploads.

Submit provides an open platform that provides all of this access along with excellent customer support and helps give guidance to clients both with and without this type of experience. It can be more useful to manage an online system where reports, administrations and records are kept and available to be used again at any time.

Aside from the time saving and accessibility, another positive is the cutting down on printing and paper costs, as academic institutions are usually near enough to the top of the pile where it comes to this.

There is also the prospect of screening candidates, something which is useful in helping the selection of stronger applicants through multiple phases. Through screening and direct messaging this process is kept transparent and as straightforward as possible. Scoring and tagging are also used in this system to add further clarity.

Submit provides all of these features and more, with further information available on the topic of academic related submissions here.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team today for a free trial!