Securing a scholarship can be a make or break opportunity for any student, especially the ones that come from low-income backgrounds. But having a higher IQ, excelling at sports, or getting high SAT scores are just the beginning of the scholarship process.
Scholarship applications start with paperwork. Students are required to submit their educational, medical & financial documents, along with an array of forms, which are checked & approved by the scholarship department before being sent for university or government approvals. And if you think managing all this paperwork is already hard enough, imagine having to enable it for thousands of students each academic year.
A scholarship grant is a necessity to ensure basic student necessities like books, accommodation, research facilities and more. Just recently, researchers & PhD candidates from Telangana suffered a delay in the release of the scholarship amount from the UGC. When scholarship grants are delayed, students don’t get the monetary support they were promised. This results in a fall in their grades and for some, it means relocating back to their hometowns due to a lack of funds.
Scholarship delays can occur due to faulty or missing paperwork, delays in approvals, and many other factors. A scholarship management software streamlines the scholarship process to such an extent, that applicants, as well as approvers, can not just submit, organize, edit, approve & share documents with ease, they can also track their application’s status, make changes to the application, and add missing documents with a single click.
Here are features and benefits of a scholarship management system which helps improves the scholarship process:
Improves document organization:
Scholarship management systems provide a wide range of organizational features that let you segregate your documents faster & more efficiently. The tagging feature allows you to add custom tags or keywords to documents which helps find them faster. Document types & stacks let you organize documents into different groups based on the applicant’s name, scholarship, qualification, etc. Document linking lets you link related documents or stacks together for easier access.Scholarship management systems also provide an automated indexing feature that drastically reduces data extraction time by automatically scanning & extracting necessary information like the applicant’s name, age, sex, qualifications, amount, etc from text-based documents, PDF files & images.
Accelerates document search:
Finding the right document at the right time can be one hell of a task. Scholarship management systems’ search features reduce document search time by more than 50%. Features such as metadata/keyword-based search, saved searches, in-document search & multi-language search scan through thousands of documents for the keywords or conditions you have entered in the search, and locate your documents within seconds.
Automates document approvals:
One of the main reasons for delays in scholarship applications is securing on-time approvals on student documents. Every application goes through multiple rounds of checks, edits & approvals, which becomes even more cumbersome when the documents have to be physically delivered desk-to-desk or transferred one email at a time. A scholarship management system comes with a built-in document approval system that replicates & automates the entire approval process online. The document approval system provides features such as a built-in notification system, electronic signature, custom workflow design, notes & comments, a built-in tracking system and more, which make it easier for applicants to upload & make changes to documents, and discuss the process with the approvers.
Improves data security:
When it comes to securing the personal, medical & financial information of students, one cannot rely on unsecured storage & email servers. A scholarship management system provides industry-grade encryption algorithms like AES, Triple DES & Blowfish, that protect documents against cyberattacks, leaks & other digital threats. The software also lets you control document access at every step of the scholarship application process. Administrative users can choose who gets to view, modify, share or delete documents based on their hierarchy & department.
Assists with compliance:
Scholarship management systems have a built-in scanning & printing feature that lets you capture & record financial records. They also provide excellent organizational & search features, along with a document tracking system that tracks document changes & versions, all of which are essential requirements to comply with regulatory protocols like GDPR (General Data Protection & Regulation), SOX (Sarbanes – Oxley), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and etc.
A scholarship management system is all of the above, and so much more. It also provides automated document archiving, document retrieval, automated document imports, custom form typer, content redaction, document version control, etc. A scholarship management software doesn’t just reduce unnecessary paperwork costs, it also accelerates the scholarship application & approval process, making it that much easier for students to apply for scholarship grants.
Our document management system GLOBODOX has been one of the most trusted educational DMS around the world. Our Document Management System is being used by educational institutions worldwide to manage their documents. The in-built workflow can be used to automate their scholarship application process. We’ve had the privilege of assisting global institutions like Shue Yan College Hong Kong, Somaiya College India, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management Nigeria, University of Manchester, University of Philippines, Boston College USA, Hunter College, USA and more. Our primary service to these educational institutions is to help reduce their dependence on paper & other outdated technologies and improve their internal document processes, like student applications, scholarship applications, human resource management, compliance, audits, etc.
Want to check how GLOBODOX can improve your scholarship document processes? Try it for free with our 30-day free trial, or write to us at sales@globodox.com
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