How would you go about mixing electronic and traditional/wet/handwritten signatures?

Question

I am interested in your comments about my suggested solution and in hearing about solutions that you feel might also work out well in everyday practice, even if not without legal doubt (kind of like faxed signatures work: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/fax_signatures_1.html).

Traditionally, the process went like this: A scientist in our test facility creates a study plan. After a review process, he prints it out on paper in duplicate and signs it by pen. He then walks with the paper bundle to the test facility manager, who also signs it by pen. The whole stack is then sent by traditional mail to the study sponsor, who signs one of the plans and sends it back to our test facility (again by traditional mail).

Interestingly, there is another variation already in use: The scientist converts the study plan (which is a word document) to a PDF file (by printing it to a PDF printer). He prints out the last page of the study plan (the 'signature' page). He signs the signature page by pen, walks to the test facility manager who also signs it by pen. The signature page is scanned in and then the last page of the study plan PDF is replaced with the scanned-in signature page (using Adobe Acrobat). The altered PDF is then emailed electronically to the study sponsor. The study sponsor prints the last page and signs it by pen. He then either sends that page to us by traditional mail, or by fax, or scans the page and sends it to us via email (as an image or after converting the scanned-in image to a PDF, depending on his technical skills). The problems with this process are: People have trouble converting word to PDF, they have trouble scanning in a paper, and they have trouble replacing a page of a PDF with Acrobat (actually only one person has the Acrobat license, which is another problem).

My current plan of implementation: The scientist writes the study plan and uploads it to our server application (the 'system'). He plugs in his smartcard USB token and clicks 'sign'. The system converts the word document to PDF and signs it electronically. The test facility manager gets notified by the system, plugs in his smartcard USB token and clicks 'sign'. The system adds his signature to the PDF. The study plan is then made available via web to the study sponsor, who can then decide on any of the actions described in the old process (print and sign, then mail/fax/scan+email). If he is really technically up-to-date, he can even choose to sign the PDF electronically as well and return it via email. How does that plan sound to you?

Answer 1

This might or might now help, but DocuSign can handle the mixture of wet signatures (via fax) and standard eSignatures for you.

For full disclosure, I work for DocuSign, however I am recommending this as a solution rather than a sales tactic.