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Emails as Records

From Creation to Curation Maureen Pennock Digital Curation Centre. Emails as Records. Today’s talk. Introduction to emails Origins of email & background Emails as records When is an email a record? Which emails are records? Curating email records Principles

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Emails as Records

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  1. From Creation to Curation Maureen Pennock Digital Curation Centre Emails as Records

  2. Today’s talk Introduction to emails Origins of email & background Emails as records When is an email a record? Which emails are records? Curating email records Principles Technical solutions addressed in later presentations

  3. Introduction to emails Origins of email ARPANET – Advanced Research Projects Agency Network File transfer protocol developed Could send messages to any computer on ARPANET network First email – internal - sent in early 1970's Widespread public and private usage by early 1990’s. Between 30 and 60 billion email messages now sent daily Average office worker handles 75 a day

  4. What is an email? • An electronic document transmitted across a computer mail system • Conforms to a standard transmission format • Comprises contents, possible attachments, and metadata • May be 1-1 or 1-many

  5. What is an (electronic) record? • Evidence of transaction • Stored information • An original or primary or sole version of a document • An authentic document • The content, not the format in which it is stored, determines the status of record or non-record

  6. When is an email a record? Organisational email records Not all emails are records Neither necessary nor desirable to keep absolutely everything Generated or used in the course of business and contains evidence of business activities, decision-making processes, or documents corporate memory Valuable content in the message body OR in an attachment Varying retention periods Can include emails on home PCs! Personal email records Any email considered valuable by the creator/recipient

  7. Email record content types 100% of businesses use email for business purposes (AIIM Survey 2003) Administrative and commercial activities Contracts and agreement negotiations Financial issues Legal issues Project records Tendering processes Retention schedule should identify categories of records

  8. Curating email records Problem: Emails often created & managed in ad-hoc manner Users perceive email as personal domain Ad-hoc creation & management hinders effective curation Solution: Curation Encompasses active management and appraisal of data over the entire life-cycle Includes creation stage Maintains and adds value to records Can ensure records are authentic and reliably managed Enables other users to reliably re-use the information

  9. Benefits of curating email records Facilitates compliance with legal discovery requests Encourages more efficient use of email Enables shared access to messages Achieves organisational retention requirements Reduces storage requirements Provides trusted and reliable email records for future use

  10. Curation 1 – Life-cycle management • Creation • Active Use • (Disposal) • Archiving • Preservation • Access • (Disposal) • Re-use

  11. Curation 2 - Policy Policy framework Policy reflects organisational commitment Must address various components: Acceptable use and unacceptable misuse Content and creation practices Retention and storage Preservation and curation Responsibilities May require more than one policy to cover all aspects

  12. Curation 3 - Integration Integrate email records management into overall record-keeping infrastructure May require change to existing infrastructure Tackles perception of individual ‘ownership’ Enables shared access to messages Allows access to all messages and related records from a single location Very useful when dealing with discovery requests

  13. Curation 4 - Collaboration Communicate and collaborate: a large number of stakeholders play a role in email management Creators – create, receive, store messages Records managers – provide guidance, advice, training IT staff – provide technical infrastructure, access to stored messages Management – reinforce policy All stakeholders must take responsibility for their part in successful email management

  14. Summary Emails are records and may require long term curation and preservation Preservation begins at source Good creation practices build persistent messages Persistent messages can last through time with appropriate care Appropriate steps must be taken by appropriate stakeholders at all stages of the life-cycle Records management and curation provide a sound framework for life-cycle management

  15. Thank you. Questions? Maureen Pennock m.pennock@ukoln.ac.uk Join the DCC Associates Network at http://www.dcc.ac.uk

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