Document archiving has always been an important aspect of project management in Departments of Transportation (DOTs). While paper documents made up the majority of documents stored in the past, digital storage is fast becoming the norm. The transformation from paper-based documents to electronic documents is causing some difficulty within DOTs. This article addresses the transformation process by conceptualizing the process to make the conversion as effective as possible, regardless of the current status of a DOTs conversion. With a complete understanding of the three critical components of conversion from paper to digital, those being: organization, conversion, and access, DOTs nationwide can feel confident with outsourcing the conversion of historic documents. While this paper-to-digital process was developed for use in a DOT environment, this strategy can be generalized to any firm looking to adopt or optimize an electronic document repository.
Abstract