Technologies for Document Management

Underlying Infrastructure : The rapid developments in EDM

are partly the result of advances in basic technology infrastructure. These enabling technologies can be organized in five major categories.

Stronger desktop workstations

o Based on RISC technology o Large, high resolution colour screens o Permit the display of documents, a full page or two at a time, delivering non-text media such as voice, video, and animation.

Storage media
o High capacity storage media holds the large volume of bits required for multi-media documents o Optical storage media such as CD/ROMs and laser disks

Technologies for Document Management (Contd)

Networks
o Interconnect the workstations, within and between organizations o Increasingly high bandwidth to transmit the large volume of data contained in electronic documents and forms o Eg. broadband ISDN, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

User friendly software

o Graphic user interfaces (GUI), is enabling the multitude of people who handle paper documents, to deal more easily with documents on computers o To managing thousands of documents on the desktop workstation o Eg. Information Visualization project at Xerox PARC and Piles Interface at Apple

Technologies for Document Management (Contd)

Operating Systems
o Client/Server operating systems and network management systems are increasingly document oriented. o New operating systems shift focus from the application to the document, They are Object Oriented.

Technology Architecture for EDM

In addition to the underlying technology infrastructure, there is a set of technologies aimed directly at handling documents. It is often called document middleware. There are actually two sub-layers in document middleware:
1. Functions for document processing 2. Functions for document management

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

 Capture and Creation

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

o Technologies to digitize information o For documents already on paper, hardware and software digitizes an image of a page, and electronically handles that image. o Scanners capture the image while algorithms convert it to digital form, with compression to save storage space o Software can capture full text in editable form in a variety of fonts, sizes, and formats. o Pattern recognition techniques can recognize voice, some images, and patterns in graphics, animation, and video

Storage and Organization : The primary developments are

o o o o Compound document architecture Distributed storage management software Integration of documents and databases Hypertext

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

Compound Document Architecture : Architecture is required for the different objects that make up a compound document to be handled together. Objects : text, graphics, spread sheet, digital photograph Distributed Storage : Documents are stored on local PC hard drives, servers, mainframes, and large repositories. Integrating Documents and Databases : One approach is to define a BLOB (binary large object) as part of a tuple in a relational data base. Hypertext : Software which implements a hypertext structure enables non-linear access to the logical structure of text within a document, and multiple cross references between documents.

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

Retrieval and Synthesis :
o Information retrieval selects documents from a collection according to the presence or absence of keywords assigned by an indexer. o Text retrieval uses algorithms that eliminate the need for an assigned index. All content bearing words are indexed. o concept retrieval uses thesauri and word concurrence analysis to select documents that use similar, but different words to represent a concept o Queries can result in a list of selected documents ranked in order of likely relevance.

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

Transmission and Routing : Email systems are moving beyond
simple text messaging to become the primary transport mechanism for electronic documents and forms. Other functionality required for business transport of electronic documents includes: 1. Authorization - assuring that the correct user is accessing the workstation and documents 2. Authentication - assuring that the "digital signature" of the user is valid 3. Encryption - coding and decoding documents for security 4. Filtering - automatically routing messages or documents according to their content

Technology Architecture for EDM (Contd)

Print and Display : For display of documents, an important
technology is the wide variety of digital printers and copiers on the network. Printers significantly reduce the need for pre-printed forms. Desktop printers permit distributed printing of richly formatted documents. Network of printers requires a set of software to manage the distributed printing. Print services on the network will include, for example, usage and activity reports, downtime and repair reports.