Official Release by the Office of Publication and Information (OPI)
By September 12, 2016, the Office of the Chancellor (OC) will no longer release printed copies of Special Orders (SOs) and Memoranda except for those transactions requiring a signed original copy like international travel.
The distribution of these office issuances will instead be done through email or file-sharing using MSU-IIT’s Google suite of services.
This automation will see the OC saving MSU-IIT yearly around 11,000 sheets of paper – the equivalent of one full-grown tree.
Under this new distribution system, SOs and Memos are now sent straight to the g.msuiit accounts of Institute cost centers and the persons involved.
Institute constituents will now take delivery of office issuances electronically. They also have the option of printing these SOs or Memos themselves should they need a physical copy.
In the event faculty and students do not have access to printers, they can always go to their respective departments, first or dean’s offices, second. In the case of staff members, they should look to their own offices for the printing.
A memo released by the OC on August 31, 2016 mandated all cost centers to print SOs and Memos for their local constituents.
However, the memo emphasized that the service should be given only upon valid request or when the need for a physical copy was absolutely necessitated by the circumstances.
The same memo also instructed departments, colleges, and other cost centers to develop their own filing systems for the electronic copies of SOs and Memos that have been sent to them.
The paperless distribution is seen to significantly reduce the time of delivery of Special Orders and Memos by removing the “delivery boy” from the process.
The OC has traditionally relied on Student Assistants to deliver these documents to the different cost centers of the Institute.
However, due to the dwindling number of Student Assistants and the dependence of their availability to their class schedules, the delivery of SOs and Memos always suffer delays.
The paperless distribution of SOs and Memos is a project of the Institute Communications Group and the OC, and is carried out in support of MSU-IIT’s drive to reduce paper consumption and become a more ecologically-friendly campus.