Office Automation in the University: Technical Issues

Abstract

Faculty of the Wharton School of Business have been involved in office automation. Investments of the Wharton office automation system to provide personalization and history have been successful. The topic of office automation (OA) is much broader than word processing, although word processing facilities are almost always a part of an office automation system. Early research results suggest that it is important not to narrowly restrict one's view of office automation to only activities related to word processing. The OA system also keeps two kinds of historical records, active and passive. Active histories can be used to control user interaction in complex program situations. Passive histories are simply records of use for logging and usage control. While research in the representation and description of office processes is barely under way, some preliminary results are worth mentioning. One of the most foolish early claims of researchers on office automation is that OA will mean less paper.