Search results

The Defence Forces have been in the vanguard of introducing electronic record‐keeping systems in Finland’s public administration when it comes to implementing new technology. Recordkeeping practices, on the other hand, have been left untouched. A three‐year records management development project, headed by the Military Archives, was started in the autumn of 1999. The aim of the project is to guide the Defence Forces’ recordkeeping towards the latest innovations defined as best practices by the international and national records professionals community. The development of recordkeeping practices is based on a functional, not on an organizational approach to the operations of the Defence Forces. The organization, that now consists of over 100 independent records creators, is viewed in corpore, as a single records creator. Provenance of records will be tied to functions and transactions that create them, not to organizational boundaries in carrying out those functions. A recordkeeping schedule or strategy, a new version of the electronic registry system and a metadata standard will be utilized as tools for incorporating recordkeeping practices and business processes and ensuring the evidential requirements of both paper and electronic records.

In the 1990s, North American archivists and records managers shifted some of their concern with electronic records and record keeping systems to conducting research about the nature of these records and systems. This essay describes one of the major research projects at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, supported with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Specifically, the essay focuses on the project's four main products: recordkeeping functional requirements, production rules to support the requirements, metadata specifications for record keeping, and the warrant reflecting the professional and societal endorsement of the concept of the recordkeeping functional requirements.

Information and communication technology rapidly developed over the past decade and provided the means to easily capture, store and distribute documents in vast quantities and at an ever‐increasing speed. To be able to make good use of this information instead of becoming swamped by it, scientific controls need to be applied. Records management provides these controls. This article explains how one software developer combines traditional records management practices with electronic document management features to create an electronic recordkeeping system.

This study aims to present the findings of the first phase of a project entitled Putting the “Fun” Back in “Functional”, which has been investigating the socio-technical issues surrounding users’ interaction with electronic recordkeeping systems. The ultimate goal of the project is to improve that interaction by positively influencing the way in which individuals perceive their work practices and the tools they use to accomplish them. In its first phase, the project considered the implementation of such systems for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the factors and processes that contribute to its success.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 public employees from a large provincial government and a large city government in Canada about two information systems (ISs) – a meeting management system and an Electronic Documents and Records Management System.

Several salient themes emerged from the research data, including the value accorded to information and records, the implementation of electronic recordkeeping systems as a complex process, the appropriation of electronic recordkeeping systems, understanding users, ease of use and information/records specialists as part of the solution. Analysis of these themes shows that many of them can be explained through theories developed in the IS field.

The results show that many themes are common across the records management and IS fields. Further, the results indicate the applicability of theories in the IS field to explain and predict the implementation of electronic recordkeeping systems.

This study is one of few that explicitly draw on IS theories to understand the implementation of electronic recordkeeping systems. The results of this study open up many opportunities for future research on electronic recordkeeping systems.

Australia's approach to electronic records in the 1990s has been characterised by strategic approaches which seek to put in place frameworks for recordkeeping in which there is room for collaboration and experimentation in approaches. In doing so, existing paper paradigms relating to records have been reconceptualised in order to define different ways of achieving our goals of reliable and authentic evidence of business activity. This paper explores the variety of strategic recordkeeping initiatives in the context of Australian records management practice.

It is the rage in the literature today for archivists and records managers to address the issue of recordkeeping in The New Millennium. It is an idea that must be worthy of its own acronym, TNM. It has a nice, seductive ring to it that gives one the sense of joining the ranks of the pundits and visionaries. This author has succumbed like all of the others. And I know I'll do it again — soon. I can't wait. At my age, when one begins to get the idea that it might be the last chance one will have to talk about a TNM, it is downright irresistible. One has to bleed it for all it is worth.

The purpose of this paper is to share the author's opinions on notable electronic records achievements over the past two decades in the USA and current issues and views on the future.

This is an essay that is based on the author's 50 years in the field of information management, technology management, and records management as a researcher, manager, and consultant. It reviews different technologies used by the typically four generations of workers collaborating in the workplace at the same time, and what this portends for electronic recordkeeping.

Information managers, archivists, and records managers can gain insights into current and future issues managing electronic records by becoming good observers of changing technologies and their uses by generations soon to enter the workplace. Suggested options for addressing some of the more critical issues are offered, including approaches to technological designs for recordkeeping and a broader view of the potential for better integration of cultural information of all kinds in archives, libraries and museums, as a means of better serving researchers and society.

Evolving technologies and trends in their social usage have presented and will continue to present newer platforms for both personal and organizational work patterns, communications and record making. Modern information technologies and related analytical practices also offer opportunities for addressing some of the long‐standing issues encountered in planning and implementing electronic records systems in such an ever‐changing business world. Recent recordkeeping professionals can benefit from sharing experiences and stories in identifying and making use of such opportunities to move forward from a planning environment to an enterprise implementation environment.

This paper aims to examine the professional skills and ethical values balanced to generate policies and procedures with significant guidance to give insights into systematic control of integrating simultaneous integrity between the use and maintenance in digital-based recordkeeping.

The investigation was conducted using keywords responsibilities engagement, professional and ethical balance, and records management. Descriptive analysis was applied with the initiative on integrating, evaluating and interpreting the findings of multiple types of research from recent grounded theory.

The finding reveals that determining the potential value of foregoing effort to provide an ultimate application guideline as a counter measure against the emerging challenges of the dynamic records management system needs to adopt appropriate professional and ethical empowerment across the procedural stage in underlying the demand and the response with the express purpose of promoting appropriate and wise usage for the sustainable positive benefit of responsibilities on recording management.

As a pivotal role in determining the potential value of foregoing effort as aimed in this paper, the initiative to provide an ultimate application guideline as a counter measure against the emerging challenges of the dynamic records management system needs to bring along with urging for an appropriate professional and ethical empowerment across the procedural stage proposed referring to the demand and the response with the express purpose of promoting appropriate and wise usage for the sustainable positive benefit of responsibilities on recording management.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from an investigation on the information culture and recordkeeping in two Chinese companies, exploring the interaction between information culture and recordkeeping.

On the basis of systematic literature review, this research investigates the information culture and recordkeeping in two Chinese companies by conducting in-depth interviews with the staff of the two companies.

The attitude of the leadership and the staff towards records and information is different in the result-oriented information culture and rule-following culture. If a company aims to stay innovative and competitive, an information culture that can facilitate the good governance of records and information should be developed, and information professionals can play a key role in working towards this.

As a qualitative study of information culture and recordkeeping in Chinese companies, this paper provides the insight into the interaction between information culture and recordkeeping, demonstrates the impact of information culture on information governance and identifies the factors influencing information culture in an organization.

The purpose of the paper is to present empirical research findings regarding the management of electronic records in selected ESARBICA member countries. It presents background information about ESARBICA and the current state of electronic records management in the region. The challenges posed by electronic records as reported in the literature and the capacity building initiatives and guidelines developed by archival institutions, professional organizations and universities for effective management of electronic records are presented. It proposes suggestions for further research.

The paper is based on a review of literature on electronic records and empirical studies dealing with management of electronic records in the ESARBICA region. The review of empirical research findings is based on selected countries in the ESARBICA region.

The empirical research findings indicate most countries in the ESARBICA region lack capacity and face various challenges in managing electronic records. These relate to: lack of policy and legislation, standardization, authenticity, capacity building, physical infrastructure and lack of awareness among recordkeeping professionals and government authorities on electronic records management issues.

Although ESARBICA consists of 12 countries, the empirical research findings were limited to five countries (South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and Kenya) and selected Sub‐Saharan Africa countries. Further research will be conducted to establish the current state of electronic records management in the remaining seven ESARBICA member countries namely: Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Zanzibar.

It is hoped that the paper will provide useful information and data to educators and trainers, researchers, students, practitioners, policy makers, civil society, and international development partners who have an interest regarding the challenges posed by electronic records and e‐government and governance strategy in ESARBICA region and Africa in general.

This paper supplements previous studies undertaken in the ESARBICA region regarding the management of electronic records. The empirical research findings would be of significance to record and archives management scholars/educators/consultants/researchers and students undertaking studies in management of records, including management of electronic records within and outside Africa.