Transcript Email Management is not a Natural Act Managing the Digital University Desktop: Introduction and Preliminary Findings Megan Winget - Co-Project Manager.

Email Management
is not a Natural Act
Managing the Digital University
Desktop: Introduction and Preliminary
Findings
Megan Winget - Co-Project Manager
Email As Record
• Email = considered “insignificant” mode
of communication
• Appropriate user decisions
The “insignificant” nature of
either their email or their job…
• “I don't think that I produce the kinds of documents that are
legally of interest, it's not like I am discovering DNA or
anything, [it’s] not of potential relevance to a broad enough
spectrum of people to be worth it” [Sociology Faculty member]
• “[Email is] the equivalent of the pink "while you were out"
notes”
• “No, [archivists] have better things to do with their time”
• “There are a lot more interesting things happening at the
university”
• “I don't think of [emails] as permanent documents”
• “It's not as though I transfer deep thoughts via email.”
Important Emails Printed /
Stored Somewhere Else
• “Things that are truly important typically have
a hard copy somewhere that gets routed
through records retention.”
• “I’d like to believe that everything that we
have this is important we have in paper files.”
• “Whatever I think of as permanent I would
print out, I’ve never considered email to be
archival.”
Technical / Monetary / Archival
Challenges
• “It doesn’t seem like it’s worth spending
resources to save that sort of stuff forever.”
• “My instincts say no…and that’s simply out of a
belief about the relationship of that information
to me. It’s all about context and what’s relevant
at the moment.”
• “You could kind of say that anyone would want
to save anything, but someone would have to
write out a history of it.”
• “I just see that as an insurmountable amount of
data.”
Email Should Be Saved…
•Historical Purposes: “That would be an
interesting thing to look at 1000 years from
now;”
•Legal Purposes: medical, student,
administrative records
•Institutional Memory: “After I leave, someone
will have to know how I did things.”
Document Types
2%
2%
6%
22%
4%
6%
Financial materials
Administrative Records
Student records
Correspondence
9%
Grant materials
Legal materials
Patient records
9%
23%
17%
based on 59 responses
Research papers
Email
presentations
Do You Follow a Retention Schedule?
Other
4%
I don't know
3%
No
63%
based on 70 responses
Yes
30%
Storage, Organization &
Management
1. Reliable Storage and Retrieval Mechanisms
2. Comprehensible Organization Schemas
3. Metadata to Provide Context
Reliable Storage
(digital preservation)
•“the practice of storing email messages with long-term
value on machine readable media such as CD-ROM,
3480 tape, or digital linear tape presumes that the
hardware and software required to read the data will
exist into the future.”
•Reserves the right to “accept into the State Archives
email stored only on those media it has the ability to
read” and that it might “delegate the responsibility of long
term maintenance and preservation to the creating
agency.”
Comprehensible Organization
Schemas
• The email messages must be organized
in a system, so that one may determine
the general topic to which the messages
relate.
How Many Emails in Your Inbox?
I don't know
2%
over 1,000
19%
501 to 1,000
5%
101 to 500
22%
based on 97 responses
1 to 50
40%
51 to 100
12%
Number of Folders
L ow (under 1 0 )
14%
32%
H igh (ove r 5 1 )
54%
M edium (1 1 - 5 0 )
No Folders People
• 25% have over 3000 messages in their inbox,
• 25% have between 200 and 1000 messages
• 50% have fewer than 20
• Tend to be most satisfied,
• None of them reported problems finding an
older email
• Not compliant with state guidelines.
Context / Metadata
For those messages that have
“permanent, archival value…”
• Messages transferred to the Division must
have metadata concerning the email and its
related electronic records recorded on the
Division’s electronic records inventory form.
Attachments
Methods for Preserving Relationship
6% 3%
13%
Store both in email
cut and paste info
print both together
use naming conventions
78%
32 responses. Respondents could give more than one answer.
User Knowledge
• “Users of email must understand the ways
in which email has changed workflow and
business practices in recent years.”
• These users, “as well as information
technology (IT) professionals who will be
asked to preserve [email] over time, must
receive training regarding issues outlined
in these guidelines.”