3 strategies to improve your university admissions records security

1. Enable point-of-receipt capture. While many are focused on threats to digital files, paper-based records such as admissions applications are incredibly vulnerable because they don’t take any particular expertise to compromise. Just-received paper records pose even more of a problem, as they have not yet entered the system and can be misplaced and forgotten – errors happen no matter how excellent a department’s administrators are.

To address this issue, it’s important to digitize incoming records as quickly as possible, which ideally means digitizing information at the point of receipt. Many colleges and universities have solutions – digital fax, which automatically captures electronic versions of incoming faxed documents; mobile capture, which enables prospective students to take pictures of documents with their tablets and smartphones and submit them directly to the admissions workflow; and automation solutions, which funnel incoming mailed documents directly into the admissions process.

2. Choosing secure storage. Digitization is an important starting point, but making sure information is secure in its digital form is the crux of the issue of admissions records security. It’s important to find the right kind of management and storage, whether that includes the cloud, on-site or off-site solutions. While different universities have different storage needs, security is always essential.

3. Digitize back files. Securing admissions information isn’t just a job for new, incoming documents. With this in mind, many colleges and universities are digitizing their old files. By pulling sensitive records out of filing cabinets and scanning them into workflows and storage, improperly accessing those files becomes a lot harder. Additionally, the metadata associated with these advanced capture processes makes locating old records easier.

While admissions is one of the busiest departments in many universities, these tips can help yours get on the path towards improved information security.