Case Study – ONR

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Office of Naval Research (ONR)

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is a matchmaker - matching the research needs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps against hundreds of research proposals from universities, institutions and private contractors.

ONR uses Livelink internally to manage the constant flow of documents – requirements, reviews, contracts, status reports, and research results. Their goal was to expand the use of Livelink to also share information and collaborate with the external research community.

First, ONR used Formark Outside to provide a very easy way for outside researchers to submit research proposals and to automate the handling of the incoming proposals. Formark Outside automatically verifies the documents are in a valid file format, does a secure transfer of the documents, puts the entire submission into the proper Livelink containers for that research request, and sends a confirmation email to the submitter. It’s fast, simple and secure.

Once a research proposal is accepted, ONR then uses Formark Outside to automate the creation and management of a Collaborative Workspace. All interested researchers can apply to participate in the research collaboration through a self-registration web page, and upon approval they obtain (via email) a URL/userid/password enabling them to log into the ONR Collaborative Workspace. Using Formark’s One-Screen Livelink technology, the ONR Collaborative Workspace makes it easy for researchers who have never used Livelink to collaborate with all project participants.

ONR Benefits

1. Much less administrative time and effort
2. Far fewer support calls
3. The collaborative work area ensures fewer mistakes, faster turnaround, and better management of the research project
4. Complete audit trail of entire process
5. Completed projects are automatically "frozen," reviewed and archived for future reference

ONR sums it up in a one sentence: “Interactions that used to take weeks and days now happen in hours and minutes.”

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