A real grab bag - additional uses of eDocs at UIS

Here are some additional uses of eDocs at UIS:

• Bill Carpenter (English Department) - Bill uses eDocs not only with his Eng 101 course but also in his Bob Dylan course. This semester, he created a wiki in eDocs for students to collaborate on Bob Dylan's life.
• Dave Turner (Educational Leasership - EDL) - EDL students create portfolios as a culminating project, aligned to the state standards. These portfolios used to be bulky, binders that took up enormous amounts of physical space as they are required to be kept for a certain number of years. They had also used TaskStream in the past. Starting this year, they used eDocs for these portfolios. This not only eliminates the storage problem, but also makes these portfolios accessible for the students to share in interviews with potential employers.
• Library staff - As one of many ways the library uses eDocs, they now share meeting minutes via eDocs - as opposed to e-mailing attachments to their large staff. They have also used eDocs to share extremely large files with outside organizations that would otherwise have been too large to e-mail as attachments.
• Journal staff - The staff of the student newspaper (The Journal) has begun to use eDocs. Previously, someone had made the weekly 60-mile round-trip to Virden, IL, to deliver a CD to their printer. The contents of the CD were much too large to e-mail as attachments. They are now sharing these files with their printer via eDocs, thus saving both weekly trips to Virden and CDs.
• GPSI program - The Graduate Internship program makes many student applications/resumes available to state agencies for GPSI positions. This process used to involve making multiple paper copies of these applications and someone(s) personally delivering the copies to these outside agencies. They are now sharing these files in PDF format via eDocs.
• Vickie Cook (EDL) - Vickie was an early adopter of eDocs and helped us test its limitations. Last summer, she moved all her course files to eDocs and linked them in Blackboard. She did not upload a single file to the Blackboard server - they were all linked from eDocs. This process has made it easier for her to access/revise these files - multiple class sections in Blackboard accessed the same eDocs files.
• Many students are using eDocs to post websites and/or resume information for job searching. This allows them to not only have a web presence, but also a place to store projects that can be shared with potential employers. As an example, UIS has a student showcase page highlighting some innovative projects - many of which are stored on the students' personal eDocs space.