Large-Scale Paper-To-Digital Conversion?

An anonymous reader writes "I've just been asked to digitize several dozen sets of lecture outlines at the university where I work. Basically, professors want to hand me a big (often 100+ page) stack of their handwritten lecture notes (with messy text, equations, and diagrams; sometimes double-sided) and expect me to post a PDF-or-something-similar to their course's web page. However, every desktop scanner I've ever used takes 1-2 minutes of user-attention per page and the resulting files end up Huge, impossible-to-read, or both. All I have at my disposal is my PowerBook, Acrobat, a couple hundred dollars of department funds for a new scanner (this maybe?), and, if I ask nicely, overnight use of the secretary's Win2k box. Any ideas? Sheet-fed scanner recommendations? Better file formats than PDF (or better PDF settings)? Do any of you students have usability advice?"

Comments

Get stuffed

[October_30th]

Uh. How about telling your prof. to get stuffed and get a real secretary.

Re:Get stuffed

[djplurvert]

In addition to the points already made it is not unreasonable to simply tell the prof that his/her expectations are unreasonable. Perhaps "get stuffed" is a bit over the top but I've found that employers (even professors) will listen to reasonable explanations.

I used to have a boss that would say things like "this should only take you about five minutes". I finally told him, "nothing takes just five minutes, if I have to stop what I'm doing there is a startup/teardown cost for every task." I convinced him that there was a granularity of 1/2 hour for every random task he wanted done. The discussion was fruitful for both of us, he was more reasonable about his expectations and put a bit more thought into what he wanted to distract me from my primary task to do.

Now, the original idea is a reasonable proposition, however, it isn't really the sort of thing that should be done for just one prof. Perhaps several departments can combine their resources to setup something that will allow this type of thing to done in a reasonable time frame.

plurvert

Re:Get stuffed

[Adian]

On the contrary, it's your job as a professional and as an employee to keep your employers in tune with what is possible, and what is most efficient for the manhours/money involved. As employees you are also responsible to your employers to keep them informed of ways to actually save money also if there is a place this can be done. If this particular job would require hundreds of manhours to do, versus paying a place that actually specializes in these services to do it. Which I'd guess the university either has this equipment on campus, or has contracts with some company already for something similar.
Besides the fact, it sounds like they are not aware of the time involved in scanning off 10's nonetheless hundreds of pages. It doesn't sound like they are too anxious to make it easy for him to get the job done either (not buying him new equipment, using the secretaries Win2k box after hours??).
I've volunteered my efforts before on a simple scanning job that required hundreds of regular photos to be scanned in at relatively good quality (why else do it otherwise), and ended up taking forever. Upon informing the client of the amount of time required, they adjusted the way the job was being handled.
I think being straight with your employers, and clients is the best approach to any situation where too much is being expected. The times I've had these instances come up, and recommended different approaches that resulted in money being saved, or manhours on a task being reduced, I saw benefit in my paycheck through raises or promotions.

If you're being 'asked'

[Space cowboy]

Just say 'No'. (If you're being told, it's a different matter, of course).

It sounds to me like a damned hard job to automate (which is the only way it's not going to be a constant drain on your time), and you're being given next-to-no resources to even come up with a creative solution. Sometimes the best answer is in fact 'No' - it forces people to re-evaluate what they're asking. It comes with the danger of being sacked if it's you that's being unreasonable, of course....

Simon.

Re:If you're being 'asked'

[malia8888]

I really agree with Space cowboy. My former husband was a college professor. He was very brilliant in his field, but anything out side of his narrow realm daunted him. He wanted to put pennies in our fusebox when the lights went out. He stared at a breaker box in the condo like it was the control panel of an alien spacecraft.

Explain the enormity of this scratched note-to-finished Pdf to this educator. Use crayons, mirrors, yarn and tape if necessary to get your point across. Just be diplomatic :P

Re:Knee to the grindstone...

[Exocet]

"Ummm yeahhhh... if you could just do that..."

Faust7 is right about this one. Frankly, OCR is ok, but not great - on nice text on book-or-better paper. Handwritten notes? With equations? No. Not unless your profs have some damn fine handwriting and we all know that that is absolutely not the case.

My advice is the same as Faust7's with these additions: spend some of that money on a really nice keyboard, wrist-rest and/or maybe a nice monitor. You are going to be needing all three. If there are any left over funds, get some really nice tea. I suggest Twinnings English Breakfast or Prince of Wales, if you're going to go bagged.

Re:Outsource it

[cloudmaster]

Maybe he *is* the cheap manual labor / unpaid intern...

Re:Simple.

[GothChip]

I know the parent post was funny but he's thinking along the right ideas.

Take the few hundred you have to spend on equipment and spend it hiring a few temps.

A good typist should be able to type up hand written notes faster than scanning them all in and manually fixing all the mistakes.

All you can do...

[cliffiecee]

Is say "Sure. I'll get this done- when I can. Don't expect it to be done for at least a few weeks, maybe longer."

DON'T CLEAN UP THE SCANS. Don't even look at the scans. DO NOT RETYPE ANYTHING.

With the kind of volume you say you're receiving, the only way you're going to survive is to:

1. close your eyes,
2. load the documents into the feeder,
3. press 'scan'.
4. Make sure everyone knows this policy.

PDF of handwritten notes is DUMB!!!

[madstork2000]

It makes no sense at all to me, to have a PDF created of handwritten notes. Since most students will probably just download and print out the PDF anyway. The only adavntage is it may save a few trees not everyone will print them out.

It sounds like the school wants to shift the production costs (i.e printing) to the students. This seems inefficient because the old way where the instructor could go to the copy center and have the notes copied the at the schools expense (I know these expenses are often passed along to the students anyway), rather than at the students DIRECT expense of their time for downloading, then printing out on their own equipment or using their own printing accounts at the computer center.

If the notes were being OCR'd and then made available on-line, or post processed in such a fashion (where they are searchable, indexed, etc) where they were searchable, it would be useful. Otherwise this seems like a waste of time and money.

-MS2k