Paperless Office and ArchiveGuideline in PDF

Aim

To ensure that paper is used as little as possible and that archiving is done efficiently, so that the limits on physical storage and archive space remain limited and all significant documents can be retrieved.

Description

The EMGO+ Institute for Health and Care Research is striving to achieve a paperless archive. This saves on significant (costly) storage and, above all, often leads to less loss of (important) documents. It is, of course, self-evident that all electronic documents need to be saved. In addition, it is good practice to scan any important documents received on paper or those requiring a signature. Examples of this include: Privacy agreements, responses from the scientific committee to your proposal, response from the METC (Medical Ethics Committee), etc.
Many departments have copying equipment with a scan function. Documents can easily be copied from these to a memory stick and the file stored in PDF format. There is also the option to outsource any large quantities of paper that need to be converted into electronic files. This costs approximately 10 – 12 cent per double-sided page. The questionnaires will be indexed, to allow them to be rapidly retrieved by respondent number. You can, for instance, use the services of Scanserv B.V. in Nootdorp for this.

When setting up your research, think carefully about the ways in which the questionnaires can be collected. This should preferably be paperless and via the Internet, for instance using Netquestionnaires or Examine. If you nevertheless decide to collect written questionnaires, then you should use optically readable questionnaires. If this is not possible or desirable either, then scan the questionnaires once the research has been completed. Refer to the “Data Entry Methods” guide for further information about all of these opportunities.
Informed consent forms need to be stored for the duration of the research and immediately destroyed after this. It is therefore not necessary to store these papers electronically.

Refer also to the following guidelines: “Information analysis”, “Data Entry Methods”, “Handling privacy-sensitive data”, “Folders and file names”, “Transfer and archiving”.

V1.1: 1 Jan 2010: English translation.
V1.0: 27 May 2009.