Title: Understanding and Empowering the Individual Preserving the Public Record and Institutional History
1Understanding and Empowering the
IndividualPreserving the Public Record and
Institutional History
2Email Management, Electronic Records, and Beyond
- Dr. Helen R. Tibbo
- School of Information and Library Science
- UNC-Chapel Hill
- Timothy Pyatt
- Duke Unversity
- http//www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop
3Thought for the day.
- The end-user manages e-mail.
- -ARMA Guideline for Managing E-mail
-
4Thank You to
- The National Historical Publications and Records
Commission - for funding this project
5Goals for Today
- Project background, goals, and objectives.
- Discussion of the methodologies used for data
collection and analysis in this project. - Overview of findings.
- Presentation of FAQs.
- Training tools slides and tutorial.
6Digital Desktop Project Team
- Dr. Helen Tibbo, Co-PI, Professor, UNC-SILS
- Dr. Paul Conway, Director, Digital Asset
Initiatives, Duke Libraries, Duke - Kim Chang, Co-Project Manager
- Megan Winget, Co-Project Manager, SILS Ph.D.
student - Timothy Pyatt, University Archivist, Duke
- Janis Holder, University Archivist, UNC
- David Mitchell, Records Manager, Duke
- Frank Holt, Records Manager, UNC
- Ruth Monnig, SILS Ph.D. Student, 1st PM
- Russell Koonts, Archivist, DUMC
7Advisory Board
- Deborah Barreau, Asst. Professor, SILS
- Michel Bezy, Program Director, Strategy Autonomic
Computing, IBM - Elizabeth Bunting, Assoc. VP for Legal Affairs,
UNC System - Mark Crowell, Asst. V-C for Economic Development,
UNC Charles Dollar, Archival Consultant Eric
Mlyn, Director of Robinson Scholars Program - Joel Dunn, Director, Networking Collaboration,
UNC - Kelly Eubank, Electronic Records Archivist, NC
Dept. Cultural Resources - Roslyn Holdzkom, Asst. Curator of Manuscripts,
UNC - Madeleine Perez, University Archivist,
UNC-Charlotte - Joanna Carey Smith, Associate University Counsel,
UNC - Jeanne Smythe, Director, Computing Policy, UNC
8Project Goals - 1
- Document how faculty, administrators, and staff
use and manage files and records from electronic
mail and other desktop applications at UNC-CH,
Duke University, and by extension, throughout the
16-campus UNC system and across academia
9Project Goals - 2
- Based on the analysis of user needs and
practices, as well as the North Carolina Public
Records Act, develop optimized e-mail and desktop
management "best practice" guidelines to serve
both public and private higher education in North
Carolina and provide an adaptable model of
practice for other states.
10Project Goals - 3
- Develop educational opportunities (workshops,
FAQs, exercises, web-based courses, etc.) to
optimize faculty, administrator, and staff use
and management of desktop electronic documents.
11Project Goals - 4
- Develop user profiles necessary for a strategic
consideration of electronic records management
systems and use these to evaluate the potential
appropriateness of ERMSs for the UNC-CH and Duke
campuses.
12AndDissemination
- Disseminate information about the best practices
guidelines and instructional units at UNC, Duke,
and across the 16-campus UNC system via a
statewide conference and to other universities
via the records management/ archival literatures
and conferences and the project website.
13Methodology
- In order to learn how faculty, staff, and
administrators manage their electronic materials
we - Conducted campus-wide surveys at UNC-Chapel Hill
and Duke University. - Interviewed 100 individuals.
- Interviewed approximately 15 IT staff.
- We coded and analyzed the data from the
interviews using NVIVO software.
14Best Answer?
- Helping people become information management
literate. - Moving people toward better practice.
- Realizing that telling people to manage
electronic files as paper has not been
effective.
15Who We Surveyed
- 8,334 addresses at UNC.
- 17,327 addresses at Duke.
- About 212 emails bounced at UNC.
- About 1,115 bounced at Duke.
161899 Valid Duke Survey Respondents
171076 Valid UNC Responses
432
18Survey Questions
- Email application most often used
- Volume/time spent on email
- Attachments
- Storage practices
- Importance to job
- Specific Concerns
- Willingness to do further interview
19Interview Protocol Development
- Went back to our original goals.
- To understand how individuals manage their
digital desktops, both email messages and digital
files. - To devise guidelines, aids, and learning models
to support improved user behavior. - What are people doing?
- How can we improve what they are doing both for
their own work and for the university?
20Designing the Interviews
- Started with the concerns that surfaced in the
survey returns. - Generated every possible question we could
devise, in probably as inappropriate forms as we
could. - Pooled our questions.
- Used words like, appraisal, and authenticity.
21Developing the Conceptual Framework
- Categorized our questions.
- Because we are exploring how individuals are
functioning as their own records managers and
archivists, we linked our questions to basic
archival functions.
22Framework for Questions
- Electronic files must undergo appraisal in order
to assess their importance, potential for
long-term preservation, and their recordness. - In order to ensure authenticity, particular
actions must happen and particular information
must be created and preserved.
23Interview Framework
- In order to preserve electronic records, the
digits and their context must be physically
secured and preserved. - Arrangement in a logical file structure can be
useful in making electronic records accessible.
24Framework for Study
- In order for electronic records to be accessible
they must be described clearly and adequately.
Description can involve indexing, abstracting,
and other additional subject analysis or simply
file naming and titling.
25Framework
- How individuals view ownership of electronic
materials and issues of privacy and security will
influence how they handle the items. Thus, we
need to ask individuals to whom they believe the
messages belong, what rights they have to privacy
of the message content, and how secure the
messages/email system is.
26Appraisal questions
- What criteria do you use to decide to keep an
email message? To delete one? - What criteria do you use to decide to keep an
electronic document? To delete one? - Do you think any of the email messages or
documents that you receive or produce in the
course of your daily work should be preserved for
years to come by the university? Why?/Why not?
27Authenticity Questions
- How do you save attachments?
- When you save an attachment, do you save the
email message along with it? - If you store important messages electronically
outside of your email application, does the
header information stay with the messages?
28Arrangement
- Tell me about your email/file folder structure
that we see here. - Get print-out of folder structure.
- Would you say that you use a similar structure in
email and file directories? - Paper file structure?
- Tell us about the file structure on your hard
drive. How have you organized materials?
29Description
- How do you determine subject lines you attach to
work-related email messages you send? - How do you retrieve stored messages if you need
them at a later time? - How do you name electronic files?
- How do you retrieve your electronic files?
30Physical Preservation
- Are your email messages being backed up
automatically? - Do you explicitly back up your email messages?
- Are your electronic files (documents, images,
etc.) automatically backed up? - Do you keep copies of all the messages you send?
If so, where/how do you keep these? - How do you store important messages?
31Privacy Security
- Is your email yours or the universitys? Other
files on your UNC computer? - Who owns your email? (Ownership vs. intellectual
property issues with this question) - Who can has the ability to read your email
without your permission? Your electronic files? - Do you distinguish between "official" and
personal email? Do you manage and store them
differently? - UNC ONLY Have you heard of the Public Records
law in North Carolina?
32Interview Participants
- Goal was to interview a wide cross-section of
faculty, staff, and administrators at both
campuses. - Only selected people who indicated they wished
further involvement after the survey.
33Selection Framework
- Tried to apply Samuels Varsity Letters model
- Confer credentials
- Convey knowledge
- Foster socialization
- Conduct research
- Sustain the institution
- Provide public service
- Promote culture
34Samuels Model Did Not Work
- We could not break all the individuals we had
from the survey into Samuels 7 categories. - Job titles did not reflect job functions.
- We decided we didnt know enough about our
population to apply a model blindly. - We would select from faculty and staff from
various departments and administrative units.
35Interviews
- We conducted 100 interview during spring and
summer of 2003. - Most averaged 45 minutes in length with some over
an hour, some briefer. - One person interviewed another took notes in a
spreadsheet.
36Coding
- Took each interview note session and coded using
NVIVO software. - Developed codes for each question and reconciled
over entire set of questions. - Two people coded all the questions.
- Reconciled disparate codes and coding.
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40Life After Coding
- Next step was to make charts and tables for as
many quantifiable questions as possible. - Highlight useful and telling quotations within
notes. - Explore data topically.
41Building the FAQs
- Looked at Email handling guidelines.
- Looked at FAQs.
- Looked at our data.
- Studied NC Public Records Law.
- Designed preliminary FAQs.
- Held focus group of UNC Duke interview
participants. - Revised and fleshed out FAQs and site design.
42History of FAQs
- Originally we thought the right manual had not
been created but that we would write it! - Many manuals appeared but life was not better.
- Reluctantly we concluded people dont read
manuals. - We hope people will consult the FAQs.
43Findings Lots of Behaviors
- Pilers and filers.
- Obsessive-compulsive organizers.
- The mess-tolerant.
44Lots of Different Practices
- Different email applications.
- Different capabilities of each system.
- Different understanding of security, backup, and
privacy.
45The Times They Are A-Changin
- How do people manage email after GMail?
- No file
- No weed
- How does this influence management of other
materials? - Records management in the day of extreme
personalization????
46Implications for Archivists Records Managers
- Powerful search engines.
- Successful searching/sorting in email and our
other large files depends on personal knowledge
as well as search engine. - Archival community, partnered with the IT
community must come up with new retrieval
paradigms.
47Next Steps
- Make useful changes to the tools you will see
today based on your input. - Write articles for American Archivist and other
journals. - Input what we learned into the design of
electronic records management at UNC and Duke. - Final report to NHPRC.
48Regrets Future Studies
- Regret we couldnt interview enough people to say
definitively - Faculty to this staff to that
- Dukies do this Tar Heels do that
- Need to study behavior now and see influence of
new software. - Data mining techniques need to be developed.