XEROX DOCUSHARE 
AND XEROX FLOWPORT 
University of Missouri - St. Louis
College of Education
“DocuShare 
is changing 
the culture 
on campus 
dramatically.”
Dr. Charles Schmitz,
Dean of the College 
of Education 
University of 
Missouri - St. Louis
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - ST. LOUIS 
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
FOCUSES ON THE FUTURE.
THE ENVIRONMENT:
? Higher Education
THE CHALLENGES:
? Purchase advanced 
digital solutions for the
Technology and Learning
Center, and then show 
students, faculty, and the
community how to use them
effectively
? Develop a workflow that
will ease the sharing of
knowledge
THE XEROX
SOLUTION:
? Xerox DocuShare
? Xerox FlowPort
? Xerox Document Centre 332
THE RESULTS:
? An improved way of 
managing documents
? An easier, simpler means 
of exchanging ideas, information 
and best practices
? A versatile system 
that can be used by 
people of a full range 
of technological skill
? The College of Education
has become a source of
pride for the University of
Missouri - St. Louis
CLIENT PROFILE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - ST. LOUIS (UM-ST. LOUIS)
Step inside the E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center and the 
first words that come to mind are high technology. You’re surrounded by it—
a fully networked Xerox Document Centre 332 multifunction device; a room
filled with brand new Macs and desktop PCs; and a futuristic meeting area 
with a myriad of two-way audio and visual devices.
Using Technology Effectively
There’s no doubt that the
Technology and Learning Center 
is state-of-the-art, but Dr. Charles
Schmitz, Dean of the College of
Education, who sits proudly in the
Center’s Cyber Lounge, admits that
it wasn’t always like this. Schmitz
says that just four years ago, they
were grossly behind the times. They
simply didn’t have the technology
they were going to need for the
future. Schmitz says that “one of
today’s greatest dangers is the
widening
gap of technological haves and 
have-nots. To be successful in the
21st century, it’s imperative to have
access to technology, and know how
to use it. That’s what the Center is
all about.” 
The College’s mission was therefore
not only to equip the Center with the
most advanced technology, but even
more importantly, to teach students,
faculty and the community how to
integrate the technology into their
everyday work processes to become
better at what they do. “After all,”
says Eric Aplyn, the Center’s
Assistant Director, “it’s one thing 
to go out and buy technology… it’s
another to develop its capabilities
and get people to use it to be more
efficient.”
The first part of the mission was
easy. Dean Schmitz and Dr. Carl
Hoagland, Emerson Electric
Endowed Professor of Technology
and Learning, met with Xerox
Central Region Sales Executive Mark
Rice who researched different solutions, 
and recommended the most
cutting-edge technology available.
Based on Rice’s suggestions, Dr.
Hoagland says that “the Center 
has become the envy of the entire
University. We have the first wireless
network, the first Document Centre,
the first center equipped with a nonlinear 
editing lab and CD burners,
and the list goes on.” 
“ The Center has 
become the envy of
the entire University.”
Dr. Carl Hoagland
Director,
E. Desmond Lee Technology 
and Learning Center
“.DocuShare provides
use of state-of-the-art
technology to people
who are not state-ofthe-art 
users.”
Xerox DocuShare
One of the Center’s most promising
technological solutions that was
recently implemented—one that the
entire staff is enthusiastic about—is
Xerox DocuShare. DocuShare is a
Web-based document management
system that lets individuals and
groups share and control knowledge
freely. With DocuShare, electronic
files of any type can be uploaded to
a document repository on the Web,
or paper documents can be scanned
into the repository using the
Center’s Document Centre 332.
Authorized users then have instant
access for viewing, downloading and
editing, printing, or posting revisions—from 
anywhere, at anytime. 
Although DocuShare has been in
place for less than a year, the Center
has already implemented DocuShare
in various ways:
Student Portfolios
Before receiving teaching certification, 
the State of Missouri requires
students to submit a comprehensive
portfolio to be reviewed by at least
three professors. The portfolios contain 
ten different sections of lesson
plans, presentations and research
papers, and generally consist of
more than 20” of paper. Aplyn
explains that if they were to stack
the 500 portfolios that the UM-St.
Louis College of Education needs to
review each year, the paper mountain 
would stand higher than the 
St. Louis Gateway Arch.
In the past, professors would be
forced to sit in a room and pass portfolios, 
and all the paper documents
they contain, back and forth. And
while this method worked satisfactorily
, DocuShare provides a better
way for all involved in the process.
In the future, professors will enjoy
DocuShare because rather than
being holed up in a room for hours
at a time reviewing the material,
they can access student portfolios
from the DocuShare website at anytime, 
from anywhere. They will be
able to review the information
online, or download the documents,
make revisions, and upload the files
back to the website. Faculty can post
the latest revision, so if one professor 
edits a document, the next professor 
will view the most recent file.
Aplyn points out that DocuShare can
also “reduces the paper mountain
and makes things more functional.”
That is, rather than forcing professors 
to deal with a mess of papers
that are easily misplaced or misfiled,
DocuShare divides each portfolio
into ten different electronic folders,
divided by subject. This organization, 
plus DocuShare’s full text
search engine, makes retrieving 
specific documents quick and easy.
Dr. Hoagland explains that there 
are benefits to students, as well.
“DocuShare makes everything 
accessible and available. Students
are crazy about it.” Students can add,
edit, and update documents to their
portfolios from any Internet-ready
computer at their convenience. This
ensures portfolios are ever-evolving,
“living” documents that continually
improve. A new technique learned
one semester can be added to a lesson 
plan posted the semester before,
and so on.
DocuShare can be beneficial to students 
because many times, they will
use their portfolios when interviewing 
for jobs. Now students can provide 
school districts with the URL
and password to their online portfolios 
as opposed to photocopying sections 
of the portfolios and delivering
them in paper form. School district
representatives are grateful because
they, too, can then access the student 
portfolios at their convenience,
and are also impressed with the 
students’ use of technology.
Dr. Carl Hoagland
Director,
E. Desmond Lee Technology 
and Learning Center
KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING.
SHARE THE KNOWLEDGE.
©2000 Xerox Corporation. XEROX©, The Document Company©, Keep the Conversation Going. Share
the Knowledge., and the digital X® are trademarks of XEROX CORPORATION. Other product and/or
company names used herein are trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
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Sharing Best Practices
One of the Center’s key objectives 
is to help teachers integrate technology 
into their lessons. 
DocuShare facilitates the communication 
between teachers. Teachers
using DocuShare can collaborate on
lesson plans in real-time, if desired—
sharing ideas and best practices, 
and crafting the very best lessons
together. Dr. Hoagland states that
“DocuShare can reduce isolation. It
expands the ability for professional
development because education is
more interactive… and because no
one has to work alone anymore.”
In-Home Childcare Training
Dr. Hoagland explains that the
Center is proposing to work with
people who don’t have extensive
computer knowledge, and a key
requirement of DocuShare was that
it had to be easy enough to use with
little or no training. For example, 
the Center is developing a course 
to enhance the skills of in-home
childcare providers, many of whom
don’t even own PCs. 
Using DocuShare, the Center will
upload training materials, like videos
and interactive documents to the
DocuShare site. In-home childcare
providers will then be able to easily
download the content on Web TVs
that will be provided by the Center.
Aplyn is especially excited about the
opportunities and sheer number of
people that can be positively affected
because of DocuShare’s ease of use.
“DocuShare provides use of stateof-the-art 
technology to people who
are not state-of-the-art users.”
Xerox Flowport 
The Center has had so much success
recently, they decided to complement 
their current technological
configuration with Xerox FlowPort.
Even before FlowPort’s full implementation, 
the Center’s staff has
devised ways in which to use it. 
Streamlined Internal Work Processes
Any time a new course or program is
added or amended, documents must
be created and approved by a multitude 
of people in different locations,
with multiple revisions along the
way. A faculty member recommending 
the new course would have to
print out the documentation after
each revision, and have it signed 
and re-signed. 
With FlowPort, however, users simply
create a PaperWare cover sheet and
scan it, along with the documentation
using the Document Centre 332. 
With the mere check of a box on 
the PaperWare sheet, the FlowPort
server sends the file as requested to
any individual or group of individuals
as e-mail or Internet fax. The user
may also send the file to print on any
networked printer across campus or
store the file in a DocuShare folder.
Hardcopy documents with the appropriate 
signatures are easily scanned
and sent along to the next person for
review. 
On the Right Track
DocuShare and FlowPort have had
profound effects on the Technology
and Learning Center—and not just
because of their advanced capabilities. 
True, the Center is now
equipped with some of the world’s
most cutting-edge technology, making 
it the pride of UM-St. Louis; and
true, this technology will go a long
way in improving the College of
Education. But just as importantly, it
has spread an invaluable enthusiasm
among the people who are using the
solution. They see a glimpse of what
can be accomplished using
DocuShare and FlowPort, and they
also see that they haven’t even
scratched the surface of the solutions’ 
full capabilities. Now their goal
is to use the technology—and teach
others how to use the technology—
to its maximum potential. 
“ DocuShare reduces 
isolation. It expands the 
ability for professional 
development because… 
no one has to work 
alone anymore.”
Dr. Carl Hoagland
Director,
E. Desmond Lee Technology 
and Learning Center