The BORG as an ADMINISTRATIVE TOOL:
The BORG incorporates all of the policy statements, forms, letters and other literature that a teacher supply agency ought to have. These include not only those items which might well be used every day (e.g. reference requests) but also contingency items that are only going to be required in rare instances (e.g. letters to the Secretary of State and others where a teacher has been involved in a serious incident). Every item is carefully written and, because of that, an agency need not worry too much about the literacy of its consultants.
The BORG is also designed to enable consultants to reduce the time they spend on generating letters or locating other materials. By doing so it can free them up to spend more time selling and servicing the needs of both schools and teachers alike.
Finding your way around The BORG is simplicity itself. The system is entirely intuitive although a tutorial is provided. The entire resource is also searchable. But experience has shown that consultants find their way around it in minutes. So there is no learning curve and therefore no training cost!
Essentially every item is given a serial number which ties it to one of the 19 REC / DCSF standards. Hence, if the hard copy of a document is floating around the office, any user can identify precisely where the document emanated from on The BORG in moments. If the document number is BORGDOCA0123 then it is an agency-side document (hence the A), it is to be found within Standard 01 (hence the 01), and within that folder it is document 23 (hence the 23).
All documents must be designated as being school, agency or teacher-side items (thus bearing the letter S, A or T, although such designations can seem a little arbitrary at times). All documents are also from a standard numbered between 01 and 19.
Thus a document BORGDOCS0403 is a school-side document within Standard 04 and, within that folder, it is document 3. In the same way BORGDOCT0843 would be a teacher-side document from Standard 08, and the 43rd document within that folder. Nothing could be simpler.
Consultants should use most of the items within The BORG (purely informational items such as the policy statements apart) as templates. If they need to write to a teacher or school, for example, the chances are that The BORG contains exactly the letter they need. All the consultant has to do is locate that letter, save it in template form to the appropriate teacher or school folder, and then add any necessary detail (e.g. the addressee’s name and address, and perhaps a teacher’s name).
Lastly, although The BORG is a comprehensive tool that should suit every purpose, it can still be further customized by the client. Any files may be edited and yet they will continue to be found via the hyperlinks on The BORG’s document lists – just as long as (a) the document filename is not changed and (b) the file remains in the same place i.e. within its original folder. Agencies may also add further documents to their edition of The BORG, just as long as they (a) use compatible document filenames, (b) insert the file in the appropriate folder, and (c) create the appropriate hyperlink within the document list using a hitherto-unused document filename.
