Technology: Tools for Managing Information.

More than ever before, computers and related advances in office technology enable individuals and organizations to create higher quality products, to deliver information services more quickly, and to store vast reservoirs of documents in easily accessible formats. Many new enterprises, such as Internet-based "electronic-commerce" businesses, exist solely because of the creation of an international computer-networking infrastructure that supports the exchange of electronic business data and documents. However, as computing technology becomes increasingly vital to conducting business and communicating with associates, new and more complex issues must be resolved. Among them is the need to ensure that the benefits derived from using computers are not reduced due to accompanying information management inefficiencies or to the creation of new business risks.

Will electronic business records be available when needed? Will electronic files and data be managed in a manner that assures their synthesis into a fertile knowledge base of documented enterprise actions, findings, and insights? Will these information assets be adequately preserved to enjoy long-term viability and usefulness? To answer these questions positively will require, the creation of new tools and methods for managing documents and records in electronic formats.

This issue of The Information Management Journal focuses on five critical professional areas that will require technology innovation and methodology development to ensure successful information management activities in the 21st century.

Creating Trustworthy Records Requires Standards

Computer software tools used to manage electronic records must be capable of systematically categorizing, classifying, and organizing all electronic documents in a standardized manner to preserve the context, content, and structure of electronically recorded information. A major tool for accomplishing this goal is the creation of standard metadata that can be used to describe documents in a globally acceptable manner, greatly enabling the creation of authentic and trustworthy electronic records.

In "Recordkeeping in the 21st Century: Can Computer System Metadata Aid in the Creation of Trustworthy Electronic Records?" Jason Baron, a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, illustrates how computer-system-recorded information about records (metadata) can be used as a tool to manage records as authentic and trustworthy documents. Through a brief review of recent important litigation, legislative enactment, and federal program initiatives, Baron shows why certain electronic documents must be systematically declared to be important records for preservation. He also demonstrates how emerging technologies and tools such as digital signatures and metadata languages can support the creation of trustworthy electronic recordkeeping systems in the next century.

Recordkeeping Software: Addressing the Enterprise

As electronic mail messages and documents produced by personal computers become primary sources of business records, electronic document management systems (EDMS) and workgroup software become the primary repositories of corporate data, information, knowledge, and memory. A traditional records management system (RMS) that focuses on paper records may not encompass those electronic records being created in computer databases and repositories. For records and information management principles and practices to be extrapolated into computer-based work environments, more powerful and capable software tools will be required, those that present a unified approach to document control in an organization.

Software vendors marketing paper document tracking systems and vendors of EDMS software are beginning to realize that many organizations need tools to track business records throughout their entire life cycle -- and without limitations imposed by records storage media or physical location. To practice seamless integration of information management principles and procedures such as retention schedules requires software tools that are interoperable between systems that store electronic records (an EDMS) and systems that track and apply retention policies to records (an RMS).

In her article, "Integrating EDMS Functions and Records Management Principles," Karen Strong reviews how EDMS, RMS software tools, and business functions are being integrated into new solutions for managing electronic records. Strong shows how the specific vendor solutions of today compare to software industry strategic directions, and she delivers needed insight into the proper interaction between EDMS document repositories and records management policies.

Electronic Records and Retention Policies

A major concern in the management of electronic records is the difficulty of effectively assigning retention periods to documents that reside largely invisibly in computer systems. The constantly increasing volume and variety of electronic documents requires additional measures beyond those that may suffice in less complex -- but more visible -- paper-based records systems. In "Applying Records Retention to Electronic Records," Donald Skupsky examines how the method one uses to implement records retention concepts can influence the success of attempts to discard electronic records according to retention schedules.

During the last decade, we have seen a transition in business process modeling and software development away from viewing all departmental operations as discrete and unique to a more generic "functional" view of organizational activities. The result of this change in perspective has been the development of more generalized solutions to business automation at a functional level so that computer systems can be more generally useful and require less maintenance. Although traditional systems that assign retention periods to each records series may work when collections are small, a more effective method of dealing with electronic records would be to use functional areas (e.g., accounting, personnel, marketing) to assign retention periods that are then attributable to records series. Skupsky illustrates how the implementation of retention scheduling concepts is currently being used in many contemporary computer software modules to reduce the effort required to maintain and schedule electronic records.

Media for Archiving Electronic Records

All electronic records must reside on some form of electronic media, and this fact creates concerns about the longevity of information stored in digital formats. Compared to paper and other hard copy media that might last for thousands of years, computer disks and tapes are more susceptible to degradation from environmental factors. Even normal degradation of the media itself creates concerns about any electronic records that must be stored more than about five years.

Charles Dollar, an archives and records management consultant, offers insight into the complexities and variables in decision making that surround the storage of electronic records in specific media formats. In "Selecting Storage Media for Long-Term Access to Digital Records," special concerns such as long-term media compatibility with equipment, data transfer rates, and data recording methods are presented as they affect records' viability and reproduction. However, an even more important aspect of planning for data migrations is addressed: how does one balance the importance of deleting electronic records according to retention schedules when the media on which they are recorded prevents actual destruction of the records? Dollar suggests that when storing electronic records collections known to contain candidates for long-term retention, it may be best to consider widely accepted standard magnetic media rather than media that complicate the destruction of electronic records or drastically increases the effort required for records migrations.

Records Are Repositories of Knowledge

Most information professionals know -- at least intuitively -- that documents produced by organizations have a greater value than simply serving as the "who, what, where, and when" of transactional evidence used in self-defense or for prosecution in litigation or regulatory proceedings. Although documenting business activities is useful in determining root causes of quality defects, planning future marketing strategies, or building better project plans, many organizations also view their documented business experiences as a critical resource base for innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives.

In "Knowledge Management: Capturing the Essence of Know-How and Innovation," The Delphi Group's Stacie Capshaw and Carl Frappaolo show how technology tools can be used to build the knowledge content of documents into high-value decision support repositories of organizational experiences and insights. They present examples of how software and methodologies will work together in the future to build on the knowledge base captured in electronic documents. This important value-added of recorded information to organizational activities is often not apparent to individuals responsible for assuring the long-term maintenance and proper management of records as records. An understanding of this growing value for organizational records will give information managers an opportunity to assure that records with high-value content will be preserved for appropriate periods of time such that they will be an available resource of significant use in creating new and innovative products and services.

Into the 21st Century!

At the beginning of the 19th century no one thought much about speed limits on highways, registering vehicles, educating drivers, installing traffic signals, or developing "rules of the road." Driver training requirements, societal expectations of drivers, and legal impacts related to driving were minimal due to the limited use of a new technology -- the automobile. As we enter a new century, vehicle registration, driver education, traffic regulations, and automobile insurance are accepted societal norms, norms that are simply taken for granted. How could anyone living in those earlier and simpler days have possibly foreseen the new and complex social, cultural, and business changes created by the automobile?

We may find similar social, cultural, and business-environment changes occurring in the new century as "paperless" systems continue to proliferate and become more mission critical and more valued than the paper-based business processes that they increasingly replace. New capabilities for individuals and organizations must be accompanied by new responsibilities. Without a clear and firm understanding of the implications of using computing technology to create, store, and manage documents and information, the price of automation may be very high. In addition to the distinct possibility of losing priceless cultural and historical documentary treasures, we may find that enterprises -- public institutions as well as private organizations -- can not operate effectively to create products or services due to lost documents or questions about the authenticity and trustworthiness of records.

The development of new technology-based tools and methods for implementing professional practices in computer-driven business processes is vital to the continued management and preservation of information contained in documents and records. I would like to thank the authors invited to contribute to this issue of the Journal for assisting with this endeavor through their personal research, their professional writing, and their continued contributions to such efforts in education and knowledge as The Information Management Journal.

John T. Phillips, CRM, is the owner of Information Technology Decisions, a management consulting firm. He has more than 20 years' experience in information resources management, specializing in automated records management systems and other technology-related areas. He can be contacted at [e-mail].