Academic administration

The documents an institute redoes every semester

Nothing they contain is new. The form does not change, the figures already exist. And still, at the end of every semester, it all starts again.

5 September 20266 min readBy the GEERD team

At the end of every semester, the same small pile comes back. A certificate a former trainee asks for again, a recapitulative table per programme, a summary document for the board, individual reports. The exact titles vary from one institute to the next. What does not vary is that they come back, and that they come back in a precise form.

Nor does the way of making them. You open last semester’s file, delete the names, type in the new ones, correct the dates, copy the averages across from another sheet. Two days later, someone notices one figure was still last year’s.

This is not carelessness, and it is not a people problem. It is the only method available as long as the shape of the document, the figures inside it and the rule that computes them all live in the same file.

What comes back, every time

We name them here the way a director names them out loud, not the way an official form does: every institute knows the exact titles better than we do. The list holds no surprise, and that is precisely what makes it countable.

The certificate people ask for again

A former trainee, an employer, a file to submit: the request arrives at any moment, and someone has to dig out the record, the dates, the programme. It is rarely difficult. It is simply always urgent.

The recapitulative table

By programme and by session: continuous assessment, practical, theory, averages, decisions. It is the most expensive document on the list, because it gathers what several people entered separately, each in their own file.

The summary document

The one prepared before the board meets. It contains almost nothing new: it summarises what the other documents already say. It is still rebuilt from a blank page, and it is the first to drift away from the figures it summarises.

The individual reports

One per trainee, with their marks, their averages and the decision that follows. Multiplied by a session’s headcount, this is where a calculation error travels furthest, and most quietly, since each report goes to one person only.

The attendance returns

Attendance over the period, by group and by trainee. When it has not been recorded in the session, it is reconstructed at the end from signature sheets, that is, at the moment when nobody can check it any more.

Why the work never shrinks

When a document is made by starting from the previous one, three things are copied in a single move: the form, the data and the calculation. All three have completely different lifespans, and it is that mixture which manufactures the work.

The form does not move from one semester to the next. The data has already been entered somewhere: by the trainer in the session, by the assistant at registration. The calculation follows a rule that does exist, but usually only in the head of the person applying it.

That is why experience does not help. An institute that has been producing these documents for ten years still produces them just as slowly. It has not built on nineteen semesters: it has started again twenty times.

Three things we all call “doing the paperwork”

Separating them costs nothing, and it changes the conversation.

What we mean	What it is	What ought to happen
The data	Names, groups, attendance, marks. The institute already holds them, entered session by session.	Nothing beyond the entry already done, provided it is done in one place only.
The template	The form: letterhead, sections, columns, wording, signatures. It almost never changes.	One piece of work, once, per programme. It is nonetheless redone at the end of every semester.
Production	The act of issuing the filled-in document, for one trainee or for a whole group.	The only one of the three that should occupy anyone, and the one that occupies least, once the other two are separated.

What changes when the template is written once

Separating the three does not require a project. It requires taking one document, just one, and removing everything in it that will change next semester. What is left is the template; what was removed is data, and it already exists somewhere else.

From there, producing a document is no longer writing but an operation: you pick a trainee, or a whole group, and the document comes out filled in. Averages are no longer retyped: they come from the rule, written once (if the average reaches the threshold, the decision is this one), and they are identical in the report, in the recapitulative table and in the summary, because they come from the same source.

That is how EasyClass handles an institute’s documents: your Word templates stay yours, with your letterhead and your signatures, and the variables are filled into them. GEERD sets those templates up with you, programme by programme, during the set-up. After that, your own team produces the documents, whenever it needs them, without calling us.

Five checks before signing a document

A document that comes out fast is not necessarily a correct one. These five checks need no tool: they need two files opened side by side.

Is the average printed on the report the same as the one in the recapitulative table, to the last decimal?
Is the calculation rule written down anywhere, or does it rest on the memory of whoever applies it?
Is the template being used the latest one, or a copy of a copy sitting on one workstation?
If a trainer corrects a mark afterwards, how many documents have to be redone, and who knows which ones already went out?
Was the attendance behind the return recorded in the session, or reconstructed at the end of the semester?

What to take away

An institute’s documents are not a writing job. They are three things stacked together: data already entered, a form that does not change, and an act of production. As long as they stay mixed in one file, they are paid for again in full at the end of every semester.

You need nobody to start. Take the last recapitulative table you sent out and highlight everything that will be different next semester. What is not highlighted is your template: you have just written it, in ten minutes. The rest (where those figures come from, who enters them, and how many times) is what we look at during the diagnostic.