HOW MANY DOCUMENTS/CORRESPONDENCES DO
YOU HANDLE OA A DAILY BASIS?
HOW MANY EMAILS DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR
MAILBOX?
HOW MANY EMAILS DO YOU SEND AND RECEIVE
ON A DAILY BASIS?
ARE YOUR RECORDS MAINTAINED IN AN
INFORMATION SYSTEM OR MANUALLY?
Why do we need a system for
managing records?
• How many people in your office regularly make use of
records?
• Is your office clogged up with piles of paper?
• As a rule, can you find a document generated two months
ago in less than five minutes? What about a document
generated by a colleague?
• How much time does your colleagues or you spend looking
for a document which add to your overall costs?
• What would happen in the event of a fire or flood on your
agency's premises? Does your office have an off-site storage
of important records?
• Does your office have a back-up system for computer-based
records?
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Statistics
• The average employee sent and received 160 e-mails
per day
• Average of 30% increase in growth in electronic records
per year
• The average worker spends 30% of time searching for or
recreating lost documents
• The average organization makes 19 copies of each
document
• On the average, each employee spends 3.5 hours per
week every year searching for information they can’t
find
WHY DOES IT SEEM SO HARD?
•Records Management today
has to link the past with the
present and preserve for the
future while trying to keep up
with constantly evolving
technologies
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Why Manage Records?
• It makes your office run more efficiently.
• Removes unneeded paper and frees office
and drawer space.
• Makes retrieval of information quicker and
easier.
• Reduces costs - On average, it costs about
$900/year to maintain a single filing
cabinet
A good records system:
• contains complete and comprehensive files thereby
enabling effective decision making
• provides integrity and continuity regardless of changes
in personnel
• facilitates protection and preservation of records
• provides low cost and efficient maintenance of records
• reduces the possibility of misfiling and duplication
• means less time spent searching for files and
documents.
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WHAT IS A RECORD?
• A record is any document (paper or
electronic) created or received by offices or
employees that allows them to conduct
business. This definition includes, but is not
limited to:
•correspondence
•forms
•reports
•committee minutes
•memoranda
•policy statements
•Budgets
•Electronic Record
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ELECTRONIC RECORD
A record generated, communicated,
received or stored by electronic
means.
• E-mail & attachments
• Websites
• Databases
• Text Messaging
• Instant Messaging
• Voice mail
• Digital photos
• Scanned documents
• Outlook calendars
• Handheld devices (PDA’s)
• Spreadsheets
• Word documents
• Wiki’s, Blogs, Twitter
VALUE of a record is
determined by its
CONTENT and FUNCTION
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RECORDS MANAGEMENT
“The field of management responsible
for the efficient and systematic control of
the creation, receipt, maintenance, use
and disposition of records, including the
processes for capturing and maintaining
evidence of and information about
business activities and transactions in the
form of records
Why records management?
• Besides the laws and rules, good recordkeeping
promotes effective and productive business
practices
• Good recordkeeping makes compliance easier
• Audits
• Public Disclosure
• Discovery
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Elements of an Effective Records
Management Program
Inventory & Inventory & Classification
Retention Records Inventory & Classification
Retention scheduling
Records Storage & Conversion
Vital Records Program
Disaster Prevention & Recovery Planning
Disposition
1. Records Inventory &
Classification:
• how and where they are physically stored
• volume of storage
• how they are classified for
• future use and retrieval
• sensitivity of information and access
* Subject
• what its retention period is, if known OR its
legal, fiscal, and/or administrative value, to
determine retention
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2. Retention (Lifecycle) Scheduling
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3. Records Storage & Conversion:
• How do you classify your records for ease of retrieval?
• What are the access procedures for sensitive records?
• Where and how do you store your active records?
• Where and how do you store your inactive records?
• Do you have a "records hold" procedure in event of
litigation?
• What are your procedures for transferring records of
enduring historical value to the archives?
• How are you storing your electronic records?
• Have you identified your Vital Records?
• What are the environmental condition of your storage
facilities?
4. VITAL RECORDS
•Vital records are those
essential organizational
records needed to meet
operational responsibilities
under emergency or disaster
conditions.
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5. Disaster Prevention & Recovery
•A disaster prevention and recovery
plan (DPRP) is a written, approved,
and implemented plan for the
prevention or mitigation of records
loss in an emergency or disaster, as
well as a plan for recovering records
in such circumstances.
6. Disposition:
• Disposition is the final administrative action
taken by an organization with regard to a
records; these actions typically fall into two
categories:
• Destruction via disposal in trash or recycling,
shredding, macerating, incinerating, pulping,
and deleting or other electronic obliteration;
• Transfer to an archives for permanent
preservation
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Why an integrated/computerised
approach to RM?
• Lack of uniform classification and filing system
• Lack of systematic and orderly transfer of inactive
records
• Lack of standardization and control to the creation
of forms and directives
• Loss or misfiling of records
• Lack of storage space and filing equipment
Computerised/Electronic
Records Management
Question: Is ERM
• The electronic management of paper
records?
• The management of electronic records?
Answer: Both
What are the main business
drivers?
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Driver: Effectiveness
•Not losing records
•Sharing records
•Finding records easily
•Getting the complete picture
Driver: Efficiency
• Accessing records quickly
• Space savings
• Reduced handling costs
• Other examples
• Archival costs
• Disposal of furniture
• Consumables
Driver: Continuity
•Records are vulnerable to loss
•Businesses tend to fail if they lose
their records
•Electronic storage may speed
recovery from a disaster
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Components of a Records
Management Program
• Policy and procedure development
• Inventory, appraisal, retention, and disposition
• Inactive files management and control
• Management of active files
• Reprographics, micrographics, digitization
• Vital records management
• Training and outreach programs
Fundamental principles
•Records are created, received, and
used in the conduct of
organisational activities
•Organisations should create and
maintain authentic, reliable, and
usable records
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Access and usage principles
•Records should be accessible to
authorised users
•Users should be able to search and
access records in usable formats
•Records should be organised to
support access and management
Retention principles
• Records must be managed through their
lifecycle
• Records should be kept as long as required
• Statutory requirements
• Legal requirements
• Business or operational needs
• Retaining records longer than required may
increase organisational liability
Disposition principles
• Disposition is an accepted phase of the
records lifecycle
• Transfer/accession
• Destruction
• Records should be disposed of at the
end of the lifecycle
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Checklist - Keep or delete?
• Is it a substantive message or chit-chat?
• Does it have to do with your work, office, or
program and document actions taken ?
• Does it require you to take action ?
• Will someone else need it for operational,
fiscal or legal reasons?
• Will I need this information in the future ?
What is metadata?
• Metadata = “Data about
data”
• For a document or record
this means data such as its
author, its title, the issue
date, and other
information which can
usefully be associated with
it
Perspectives on metadata
• Entering metadata is often called “indexing”
• Different users of an ERM system will have different
views of what metadata can do for them, and what
metadata is required
• Business perspective
• Records management perspective
• User perspective
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Automated metadata capture - 1
• Software can help
• Document templates can contain code to capture
metadata
• Templates can also contain „bookmarks‟, „fields‟ and
other features to “grab‟ metadata
• Software can also be used to look-up details of the
user (as logged on)
• Author name and details
• Job title and department
• Other default values
• Automate if you can!
Classification Schemes
The arrangement, division or categorization of record
objects into groups based on characteristics, which
the objects have in common in order to
accessing/retrieving, storing & managing its
information
• There are typically 3 steps to classifying a record:
[Link] the entire record to determine its purpose (Not just the
subject line)
[Link] to scope notes in the manual and existing file lists to select
the best category for the record.
[Link] the classification code associated with the classification to
the record.
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Purpose of the classification scheme
•A business classification
scheme (BCS) is a
classification scheme based
on an organisation’s business
functions & activities
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