[Reference]: Documents Preservation

As a student, preserving your documents should be one of your top priority. What is a document? A document is an original or official paper relied upon as the basis, proof, or support of anything else, including any writing, book, or other instrument conveying information pertinent to such proof or support. Any material substance on which the thoughts of men are represented by any species of conventional mark or symbol. As a student, your important documents could be your Jamb result and admission letter, Authority to pay, School fee and accommodation fee receipt, among others.

Most students have problem on how to preserve their educational documents. There are a lots of ways to preserve documents, however, the most common way is arranging the documents in a file. Filing your documents is good, although that's not enough in terms of preservation because your file can be misplaced or stolen. Also you can lose these files in a single fire outbreak. Some students would make photocopies of their documents and give their parents the originals and keep the photocopies. This method is good but let's imagine a scenario whereby you are far away from home, and something just came up, like you are asked to present your originals urgently, and you have only the your photocopies, you try to contact your parents that moment but all efforts to reach them prove abortive, what do you do in such situation?

We can also preserve our documents in the bank, however, not everyone will be able to access this method of preservation because of the cost. This method could be expensive, and therefore not affordable for all. Also we can preserve our documents by laminating them but it is still prone to be lost, stolen and not safe from fire.

It should be noted that all the methods discussed earlier have it disadvantages and advantages too.

Although, these methods cannot be absolutely depended upon. Let's talk about the method of preservation via the email. A lots of people have an email, but not all of them know the important features of a mail box. What most of them know about the email is just to send and receive messages, in fact, some may not even know how to compose and send messages via the email.

Apart from the communication feature of the email, preservation of documents is another important feature. To create an email account is as simple as ABC for anyone who can read and write. Without wasting time let's outline the processes involved in the preservation via the email account.

PROCESSES OF PRESERVATION VIA E-MAIL ACCOUNT.

1. Sign up / create an email account, (yahoo mail, gmail etc) one may have an email account already, but it is advisable to sign up for a new one which will be known to you alone since the primary aim is to save and preserve your personal documents.

2. Have a strong password and write down all the account details in a secret and safe place. Make sure your recovery phone number and email are always active and functioning in case you forget the password.

3. Log in to the email account and create a folder. The name of the folder could be "Educational documents" "Personal documents" or what ever name you may like.

Step 1-3 may not cost you money if you have a good mobile phone and data to carry out these steps, because these processes can be done with your mobile phone.

4. Arrange all your original documents and scan them, (birth certificate, FSLC, testimonial, Jamb admission letter, school id card etc), then upload to your email account and save them in the folder you have created (Educational documents), you may also save them as draft. (Scanning of documents is done in the cyber cafe and will cost you money ).

 ADVANTAGES OF PRESERVATION VIA THE E-MAIL.

1. Having your documents in your email is very helpful because you can access your documents any time and from any parts of the world you may find yourself, as long as you have your mobile phone, computer and internet connection. You can log in to print them out any time.

2. Your documents cannot be stolen or lost from your email account, as long as nobody except you alone have access to your email account. Fire cannot burn them in your mail box.

3. If you forget your password, you can use your recovery phone number or email to get access to your account and choose a new password.

4.Your documents will be preserved for many years as long as you don't have any problem with your email account.

DISADVANTAGES OF PRESERVATION VIA THE E-MAIL.

1. This methods could be too expensive for some people.

2. Not everyone is familiar with the email.

3. We cannot get access to our documents where there is no device and internet connection.

In closing, the preservation via the email account is very useful in time of emergency because with your device and internet connection you can print it out any time and anywhere. Having your documents in your email account make it easy for you to apply for scholarship program because with your mobile phone you can view your documents, download to your phone and have a screen shot of it. It then becomes a jpg format and can easily be uploaded when applying online for scholarship or any other application that demand your documents. Your email also serves as a memory card because there is enough space to save your important documents and even music.

The important documents that a student is expected to have in his or her email account could be passport photographs with different backgrounds, birth certificate, certificate of origin, attestation letter, Jamb and school admission letter, school and accommodation fee receipts, school id card etc. This is not however a new or strange method as it is analogous to the way we preserve our pictures via facebook, music and videos via memory card etc.

*Samuel O.A daniel*
*©2017*