[Athen] Document Conversion Costs

[Berkowitz, Daniel J]

This is something Ron has been asked repeatedly at eText Institutes and
I will be discussing at the eText Institute I am leading at Landmark
College next week. This is the type of information we should have on the
ATHEN website - basic tech lab configurations and options. 

In my version of the eText Institute I outline basic and advanced
workstations, basic and production software, monitors, burners and
storage drives, printing and labeling, workspace, scanners, staffing,
playback software and hardware. 

Ron likes to use the following number for budgeting. Once you have a
rough estimate of salaries (staff costs) - multiply that number by 1.24
for a rough estimate of production costs. He told me where the number
1.24 came from but I don't remember. 

 
=========================
Daniel Berkowitz - Assistant Director
Boston University Office of Disability Services
19 Deerfield Street, 2nd floor
Boston, MA 02215
 
(617) 353-3658 (office)
(617) 353-9646 (fax)
djbrky at bu.edu (eMail)
www.bu.edu/disability
 

>-----Original Message-----

>From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On

>Behalf Of Jean Salzer

>Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:48 AM

>To: Access Technologists in Higher Education Network

>Subject: Re: [Athen] Document Conversion Costs

>

>My two cents after completing my first full year of digital conversion:

>

>For me to cost out - and this is minimal as I don't include electrical,

>copy costs and such - I'd include the purchase and maintenance costs

for

>scanners, embossers, computers, software, any other hardware - such as

a

>comb binder - and then time individuals put in to do whatever is

>necessary. I could then do a simple average based on the number of

pages

>or number of books or the number of students who use the service. Where

>that gets me in trouble is I intend to use the equipment for two or

>three years. I believe I'd need to have costs and numbers for at least

>two years before I could come up with a solid figure. I'm tempted to

>cost it out based on student numbers versus pages, because most of our

>campus related stats are based on the number of students in any given

>category.