Email and Records Management

1
E-mail and Records Management

• Identifying, Organizing, and Preserving E-mail
  records

2
E-mail and Records Management

• 90 of all new records created electronically
• E-mail comprises majority of new e-records
• E-mail records subject to same laws and
  regulations as paper records
• NOT ALL E-MAIL IS A RECORD!

3
The Problem With Email

• Theres so much of it!
• Used for business AND personal reasons
• Used for ephemeral or informal purposes
• Random deletion creates legal liability
• Example White House emails Arthur Andersen
• Keeping all email maintains legal liability
• Example Enron Microsoft Bear Stearns
• Must be discoverable (litigation, open records,
  etc.)

4
E-mail Problems Personal

• Volume of email received by most people becomes
  unmanageable
• Searching difficulty
• Accidental deletion of important email
• Exceeded quotas for inboxes
• As a State employee, you are responsible for the
  contents of your inbox!

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Goals of this Presentation

• Identify e-mail records and non-records
• Utilize PantherLink and other tools to create and
  organize e-mails
• Determine appropriate retention and disposition
  of record e-mails
• Explore strategies for long-term e-mail
  preservation

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Part I Identifying E-mail records
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What is a record?

• Records Recorded information, in any format,
  that allows an office to conduct business
• Does NOT include unofficial records
• Duplicate Copies
• Drafts and Informal Notes
• Routing Slips
• Personal Correspondence
• Does this document help me perform the duties in
  my job description?

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Is it a Record?

• Does your file
• Support or document a transaction?
• Document the formulation or execution of a
  policy, interpretation of a policy, or change of
  policy?
• Document Actions taken in response to an inquiry?
• Relate to the substantive business of your office
  or work unit?
• Provide information regarding the historical
  development of UWM programs or people?
• If yes to any of the above, it is a record!

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Record vs. Non-Record Examples

• E-mail to contractor clarifying terms Record!
• E-mail from department head to staff giving
  committee assignments Record!
• Sender must retain as record recipient(s) may
  delete as appropriate
• E-mail asking for draft comments Non-Record!
• If attachment is not record, neither is routing
  email

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Copy of Record

• The official record, for business and legal
  purposes, of a business transaction
• If you take any action on a document, that
  document becomes YOUR record, even if other
  copies are maintained elsewhere
• EXCEPTION Convenience copies may be discarded
  freely

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Copy of Record Examples

• If you create a document as part of your everyday
  work, you are the record holder
• If you manage or lead a committee, project, or
  program, you are the record holder
• If you are holding a received record for
  reference, you are NOT the record holder
• Sender usually record holder in these cases

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Personal Email?

• Two Rules of Thumb
• 1. Try not to send personal e-mails from your
  university account if you do, though, keep them
  separate from your work e-mails.
• 2. Never send work-related e-mails from
  personal e-mail accounts!
• Do not put anything in an email that you would
  not want made public via litigation!

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Decision Tree for Records
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Part II E-mail Creation and Maintenance
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E-mail Creation Key Considerations

• Use descriptive subjects!
• Bad Project Info
• Good Project XYZ 9/08 Parameters
• Consider your audience!
• Do you need that cc recipient?
• Include signature file!
• Assists with paper trail

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Tagging and Classifying

• Benefits of tagging and folksonomy
• Develop office-wide categories to describe
  documents
• Working with other users on this allows
  categories to work on broader scale, more
  consistently
• From there.?
• Tag/Categorize documents as they are created

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Tagging in PantherLink
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E-mail Filing Systems

• Keep all emails in your inbox
• Advantages Easy computer-aided searching
• Disadvantages Inbox clutter, manual searching
• Foldering Scheme
• Advantages retain context manual searching
  reduces inbox clutter
• Disadvantages Large implementation and
  maintenance requirement

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Hybrid System for Email

• Delete non-record email as needed
• Manually file emails for reference/retention, OR
  set up filters
• Filter by sender, subject line, recipient, etc.
  partially automates filing
• Leave emails in inbox that require quick
  follow-through
• File appropriately once responded to

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Hybrid System Example
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Filing Methodologies

• Retention Schedule-based (Big Bins)
• Good for dealing with multiple series fire and
  forget for retention
• Low organizational control bad for day-to-day
• Chronologically
• Good for activity tracking, financial recs, etc.
• Useful for keeping track of disposition
• Subject
• Good for administrative/reference files
• Most versatile, requires most vigilance

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Hybrid Filing

• Combining one or more of the filing archetypes to
  fulfill reference/retention needs
• Example
• Reference Correspondence
• FY2006
• November
• Smith, A
• Smith, K

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The Cardinal Rule of Filing/Naming

• Be Consistent!!!!

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Part III E-Mail Retention and Disposition
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Why do I need to keep e-mail?

• To document the operations of your office
• To document important programmatic decisions
• To preserve the history of your office and UWM
• To provide legal protection for your office
• To comply with Wisconsin state law!
• Wis. Stats. 16.61 Wis. Stats. 36.19

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Why do I need to DESTROY E-mail?

• To use less server space
• To reduce the clutter in your inbox
• To avoid confusion about which file is the record
  copy
• To provide legal protection for your office

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RRDAs to the Rescue!

• Records Retention and Disposition Authority
  (RRDA)
• Retention period (minimum)
• Final Disposition
• Record Series description
• When followed, RRDAs, or Records Schedules,
  simplify decision-making process on
  keeping/destroying records
• Required by state law!

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Sample RRDA
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What if an RRDA doesnt exist?

• Non-record emails (drafts, notes, etc.) may be
  deleted immediately
• Official Records may not be destroyed without a
  schedule
• If an e-mail would be part of a series as a
  letter, use that series retention schedule!
• Contact Records Officer to arrange for e-records
  survey and scheduling

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Business Communications GRS

• Approved by the Public Records Board in August
  2008
• Apply to all forms of electronic communication,
  NOT just email
• Provide guidance for correspondence existing
  outside of established record series
• DOES NOT supersede existing RRDAs

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Business Communication Routine

• Normal communication of transaction of business
• No historical value varying administrative value
• Examples decision-making correspondence
  response to inquiries for information comments
  on reports
• Retain Six months and destroy

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Business Communication Transitory

• Communication with little value beyond immediate
  response
• No historical value minimal administrative value
• Examples Setting time for appointment
  campus-wide mail received ready-reference
  requests (hours, etc.)
• Retain Seven days and destroy
• Why even this long? Liability reasons

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Business Communication Historical

• Not strictly covered by GRS, but most important
  category of emails
• Set policy, provide evidence of transactions,
  explain decisions
• Consult UWM Archives re what constitutes
  historical value
• Retain As needed for admin. value, then transfer
  to Archives

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Exception Litigation Holds!

• Applied by official in advance of lawsuit
  potential
• If a litigation hold is placed on a record series
  or email group, no records from that series may
  be destroyed
• Supersedes all existing records schedules
• Records outside scope of hold follow normal
  disposition
• Also applies to Open Records Requests
• Contact Records Management or Legal Affairs with
  questions

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General Disposition Tips

• Set aside a little time each day/week as purge
  time
• Purge day at end of FY or in slow times?
• Set up date search for archiving
• PantherLink can do this via advanced search
• Consider separate areas for active and
  inactive emails
• When in doubt, hold on to it!

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Part IV E-mail Preservation
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Long-Term E-Mail Preservation

• UWM Archives does not currently have a dedicated
  E-Records Repository
• A few stop-gap solutions in motion
• Preservation problems Medium
• CD-ROMs? Magnetic Disks? Server?
• Preservation problems Data Format
• Obsolescence? Proprietary Formats?

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Geof Huths Three Ms

• Message Is the content of the document
  adequately preserved?
• Media Is the storage medium durable enough to
  retain its integrity over time?
• Metadata Is there enough supplementary info to
  contextualize the document?
• If you lose even one of these components of an
  electronic record, you have not adequately
  preserved it.

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A Brief Sidenote on Metadata

• Metadata A characterization or description
  documenting the identification, management,
  nature, use, or location of information resources
  (data)
• Inherent metadata (email headers, date of
  creation, document author, etc.)
• User-supplied metadata (tags, categories,
  abstracts, etc.)
• Critical for document search, context

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Email Metadata

• Subject
• Recipient(s) and sender
• Date/Time sent/received
• Attachments
• Signature block
• E-mail headers (usually hidden)

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Preservation Solution 1 Printing E-mail

• Avoids problems of obsolescence, mutability
• Most office managers better equipped to deal with
  paper records
• UWM Archives can accession paper records more
  easily
• Disadvantage No searchability or reusability
  onus to print on user wasteful

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Preservation Solution 2 In-client retention

• Storing documents as created by applications
• Easiest option for most users, particularly if
  well-organized
• Disadvantage Affects e-mail quota harms system
  performance no backup puts data at risk
• UWM Archives is NOT equipped to handle emails
  directly from PantherLink

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Preservation Solution 3 Neutral Format Storage

• Files converted to non-proprietary format (TIFF,
  XML, PDF/A) and stored remotely
• PantherFile, Dept. LAN, CD-R
• Reduces/eliminates need for migration or
  emulation
• Provides backup and transfer options
• Disadvantage Conversion may be labor-intensive
  onus on user for now
• PantherLink does this to a limited degree Zimlet
  (hopefully) coming soon

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A Few Special Notes on Email

• Archive your email on your computer or server
  space, not on the email server
• Think about it do you check out books from the
  Post Office?
• Convert archived email to neutral format
• TXT files are easiest XML files preserve
  metadata better
• Keep attachments associated with email files

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Email notes, cont.

• Include original message and reply inline when
  possible
• Allows for complete documentary record
• Only need to save last message in thread
• Include all relevant information in printout
• Header information
• Body Text
• Attachments
• Signature blocks

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Above all else

• As much as is possible, consider record e-mails
  to be normal university records, and treat them
  as such!
• Stay on top of managing your e-Records, and they
  wont spiral out of control!

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For More Information

• UW System Policy on Use of University Information
  Technology Resources http//www.uwsa.edu/president
  /communications/publicat/itpolicy.htm
• UITS Short Courses (The Email Management course
  is particularly useful)
• https//www4.uwm.edu/uits/services/training/course
  s/index.cfm

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Wisconsin Information

• State of Wisconsin E-Mail Policy and Guidance
• http//enterprise.state.wi.us/home/email/Default.h
  tm
• Wisconsin DOA Electronic Records (See especially
  the training links)
• http//enterprise.state.wi.us/home/erecords/
• ADM Ch. 12 Electronic Records
• http//www.legis.state.wi.us/rsb/code/adm/adm012.p
  df

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UWM Records Management

• New Records Management Home Page!
• http//www.uwm.edu/Libraries/arch/recordsmgt/
• Includes links to UWM and UW-System General
  Records Schedules, webcasts, this presentation
• Or, Contact Records Management directly
• houstobn_at_uwm.edu (Brad Houston)
• 414-229-6979

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Questions?