Slop University researchers apply forensic document examination to the office farewell card, finding proxy signatures concentrated in the final white space of the card's route.
Examiner-grade attribution across 61 workplace cards traces most stand-in signatures to the colleague who organised the card
Roughly one in four of the signatures on a circulating office farewell card was not penned by the colleague it names.
Attributing the Well-Wishers, a paper released today by the School of Continuous Improvement, brings examiner-grade forensic document examination to a document most workplaces produce and none have audited. Dr Sten Okwuosa, Dr Thandiwe Solberg and Dr Bram Ntuli examined 1,438 signed inscriptions across 61 donated cards, comparing each against writing samples volunteered by the well-wishers themselves. The team harmonised three streams of handwriting evidence into a single attribution protocol and reconstructed each card’s journey through the workplace, showing where stand-in signatures enter the record: overwhelmingly in the white space that remains once the route has closed, where the card’s organiser completes the page.
A card is a small archive, and an archive is kindest to whoever holds the pen last. We are pleased the School could give a familiar object that much attention.
— Dr Sten Okwuosa, Senior Research Fellow and Convenor, Impact Pathway Atlas
The study continues the School’s careful attention to what everyday records quietly attest. “The value of the work is that a familiar object can now be described with some precision,” said Dr Thandiwe Solberg, Senior Lecturer and Convenor, Demo Quarter. A participating workplace is now piloting a witnessed-signing arrangement informed by the findings.
The full paper is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.u1gpuf.