Jan Jalloh
Senior Documentation Officer at the Pan-African Parliament, in Johannesburg, South Africa
Can you tell us a bit about you?
My name is Jan Jalloh and I am 52 years old.
Since college I have been working as a document controller, first at a health facility, then an international NGO, and later the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union, a continental union consisting of 55 member states headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia).
During my time I have been able to build my portfolio through supporting, designing and management of document control activities.
My experience at the African Union has built up my proficiencies in document control, and it has also allowed me to participate in a variety of document control activities to share best practices, learn about new tools, and network with colleagues.
What is your current role?
I am currently the Senior Documentation Officer at the Pan--African Parliament, the legislative organ of the African Union, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
My role concerns the overall control of parliamentary documents, including objectives, policies, procedures, and services.
Specifically, I ensure that the working, administrative and information documents for all parliamentary sittings are available in the working languages and are in order.
These vast number of documents generated demands highly creative and knowledge intensive tasks, especially as each document for a parliamentary sitting must be drafted, coded, edited, translated, formatted, proofread, finalised, printed and distributed to the highest professional standards and in a timely manner.
This process further involves different aspects and a multi-disciplinary team - usually made up of authors, drafters, translators, interpreters, editors, desktop publishers, print production officers, and document managers - is responsible, and these different professions use their own unique procedures to undertake their tasks, but often must rely on information supplied by others.
Can you describe your professional experience?
I have spent 29 years working in an in information intensive environment serving in a document control capacity as well as a variety of other functions.
As the current Senior Documentation Officer to the Parliament, faced with diverse and geographically distributed operations, my years of experience have prepared me well with the vital skills and fundamental knowledge requisite to manage all stages of the document control life cycle and focus on results and desired outcomes and how best to achieve them.
Which Consepsys course did you attend and when?
I attended the Certified Document Controller Course from 18 to 22 January 2021 (live online classroom).
What did you think about the Consepsys course? How did it help you in your current role and career development?
Given my experience, I would say the Course was excellent and I really enjoyed it.
In terms of contents, it covered the fundamental aspects of document control, providing extensive hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge and understanding. In terms of organising, I found the course equally brilliant.
The time schedules, modules, practical exercises, video lectures, and the instructor's enthusiasm were all appealing to me. I am now looking forward to taking more online courses.
This course has presented a prime opportunity to expand my knowledge base. Since January 2021, I am seeing improved productivity and adherence to quality standards.
