Capturing the History of Chemistry’s Impact on Society
HighOrbit Helps Chemical Heritage Foundation Track Oral Histories
History is best told by the people who lived it, but often important firsthand knowledge is lost before it can be recorded. Turning to HighOrbit Corporation’s workflow automation system, the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) needed additional tracking and accuracy capturing oral histories from many of chemistry’s best minds. With 50 to 70 oral histories active at a time, CHF has benefited from the added structure and control of HighOrbit, during the oral history interviewing process.
"HighOrbit provided us with a cost-effective, easy to use BPM solution that offered the ability to host the software in-house and tie in our existing Microsoft Active Directory structure," said Chuck Hornstein, IT manager for the Chemical Heritage Foundation. "A huge plus for our organization is the concurrent use licensing model, which allows for an unlimited number of named users while purchasing a small number of concurrent user licenses."
Utilizing HighOrbit’s workflow automation software has allowed CHF to reduce the amount of time and effort tracking their oral histories, with management receiving automated weekly status reports and notification of their staff’s completed tasks and time allocation. Before HighOrbit, CHF used spreadsheets and Access databases to track the progress of oral histories.
According to HighOrbit’s Brian Dwyer, the company’s business process management solution was developed to give organizations better control over their processes. "HighOrbit is committed to offering fast, easy and affordable solutions for business process management," Dwyer said. "This is especially important to organizations like CHF, who have many active projects happening simultaneously."
CHF fosters an understanding of chemistry’s impact on society by maintaining major collections of instruments, fine art, photographs, papers, and books. The nonprofit hosts conferences and lectures, supports research, offers fellowships, and produces educational materials. The organization also maintains a museum and other public programs. For more information about CHF, visit www.chemheritage.org. |