WAAL09: Public Records in E-Mail and Winning Strategies for Managing Them

"Public Records in e-Mail and Winning Strategies for Managing Them"
Amy Moran, WI Dept. Administration
Nancy Kunde, retired UW-Madison Records Officer - starting as adjunct professor for SJSU in Fall

• Open Records/Sunshine Law: "...all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs..."
• What needs to be retained? Public record = documentation of public decisions and transactions.
• Gets into area of "appraisal" - setting value of records
• Why save? Administrative, legal, financial, historic, and research reasons
• May only be disposed when authorized by an approved RDA (Records Disposition Authorization)
• Most public records now generated electronically
• Program area determines retention needs - IT has custodial responsibility
• Content determines record status:
• does it: interpret or execute policy? record important meetings? document accountability? facilitate department actions/processes? convey an action? support a transaction? support or convey a decision?

Email in the workplace:

• Continues to grow
• Attachments getting larger
• ~93% of all incoming email is unsolicited
• Most may not be public records - can be deleted right away
• In the past, every department had a "file room" managed by the secretary
• Now, we're all data managers / records custodians - everyone's business
• Focus on major functions of the department (communicating with faculty? students?)

Legal considerations:

• Email retention is the same as for hard copy (public records, FERPA, HIPAA, other privacy acts, etc.)
• May be an overall appropriate use policy for organization - differs from one to another
• Subject to open records requests
• Subject to discovery - federal rules changed recently
• California is the state pushing the bubble
• Legal world just starting to consider metadata (largely invisible)
• For authenticating, metadata are critical (to/from/subject/less visible parts)
• Harder to tell when electronic materials have been tempered with

Saving too little:

• violation of public trust/responsibility,
• not available when needed,
• opposition has copies that we don't,
• embarassment

Saving too much:

• Davy Jones' locker
• cost for storage/migration/retrieval/redaction - CD degradation after 5 years
• "Working in the cloud" - online repository = helps with migration problems
• "Smoking gun" - $2.2 million in damages awarded to women suing for sexual discrimination, when found "10 reasons why beer is better than women"
• Not everyone who receives an email needs to save - sender should always save if meets criteria; receiver should receive if it is actionable
• Delete: transitory material, unsolicited, personal, copies, captured in later messages - weekly

Decision tree:

• Personal? Delete
• Work related? Reply or Retain or Delete
• Outgoing? Retain or Delete
• Retained? For current use, Archive, or Delete

Classification:

• Appropriately named folders
• Either within or outside the client - not both; ex: Thunderbird allows setting # of days to keep
• File related records in the same folder
• Each year, close old folder and start new
• May be able to incorporate retention schedule into metadata
• Administrative Rule 12 - protect access to e-only records over retention life (retrieval/redaction/etc.)
• Xythos - pilot project to use; UW-Madison has records module
• Maximize use of email software "folders" - instead of using "inbox" as a catchall
• Online storage isn't appropriate for secure access
• "Near line"
• Offline - printing to paper, or print to PDF file (still manipulatable, except for PDFa)

Information Life Cycle:

• Designing > Record created > Use of record > Dormant > Long-term storage
• Must maintain accuracy, accessibility, retrievability, reliability throughout life cycle
• Conflicting life cycles of information vs. media

More resources:

• Consult Wisconsin Department of Administration Public Records Board website for general records retention information - http://www.doa.state.wi.us/section.asp?linkid=127&locid=0
• UW System General Counsel - all that apply to university - http://www.uwsa.edu/gc-off/records
  -- new! webcasts on records management
  -- challenge: 40,000 UW System employees
• UW Archives & Records Management - http://archives.library.wisc.edu/records

Questions:

• who can make requests? Answer: Anyone; federal open records/sunshine law was modelled on Wisconsin's - you don't have to say who you are, or why you want it - ex: WI State Journal requested salaries of all employees
• Another example: all the email from one of our deans - you can petition for this to be narrowed, but have to respond in timely manner. "All" might really be "all."
• does this affect non-UW System institutions? Answer: Yes, not just issue for biggest schools.
• other technologies? Answer: Some say "don't use IM for official communications" - but this may not be possible. Some gadgets allow synching, backup, etc. - don't want people walking around with records. Could summarize chat in email or print for offical record. Telephone conversations aren't normally recorded, but exceptions: calling in for unemployment benefits.
• Disintermediation - very few secretaries anymore; no one training and overseeing records management responsibility
• can we ask IT to be responsible? Answer: Backup isn't record retention - they have a role, but can't be the sole managers.