Transcript Researching the Researchers: Finding Out How University Employees Manage their Digital Materials NHPRC ERR Fellowship Symposium November 19, 2004 http://www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop.

Researching the Researchers:
Finding Out How University
Employees Manage their
Digital Materials
NHPRC ERR Fellowship Symposium
November 19, 2004
http://www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop
Thank You to
The National Historical Publications and
Records Commission
for funding this project
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Today’s Presentation
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Overview and background of the project.
Discussion of the methodologies used for data
collection and analysis in this project.
FAQs.
Preliminary results.
Challenges for archiving in distributed digital
environment.
Conclusions.
Managing the Digital Desktop
NHPRC-funded, 7/1/2002-6/30/2005.
 Collaboration of SILS, UNC Libraries, and
Duke University Libraries.
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Thought for the day….
“The end-user manages e-mail.”
-ARMA Guideline for Managing E-mail
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The team!
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Tim Pyatt, co-PI, Duke University UA
Kim Chang, Co-Project Manager
Megan Winget, Co-Project Manager
Paul Conway, Duke Library IT Director
Janis Holder, UNC UA
Frank Holt, UNC RM
David Mitchell, Duke RM
Russell Koonts, Duke Medical Archivist
Project Goals & Overview
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Understand how faculty & staff at a public & private
universities manage their email & other electronic
files.
Create guidelines based on records requirements &
observed behaviors for file and email management.
Create learning tools based on guidelines.
Consider the place of electronic records management
systems on the campuses.
Disseminate findings & training.
1st Year Methodology
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In order to learn how faculty, staff, and
administrators manage their electronic
materials we
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Conducted campus-wide surveys at UNC-Chapel
Hill and Duke University.
Interviewed 100 individuals.
Interviewed approximately 20 IT staff.
2nd Year Work
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We coding the data from the interviews using
NVIVO software.
We started to analyze filing arrangements we captured
from interviewees’ computers.
We began creating guidelines and settled on FAQs.
Held focus group to review initial draft of FAQs.
3rd Year
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We are essentially finished with FAQs for both email
and file management.
http://ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop
We are creating web-based and in-class learning tools.
We will more thoroughly analyze filing arrangements
we captured from interviewees’ computers.
We will match capabilities of software used with
responses to interview questions.
Write articles!
Best Answer?
Helping people become information
management literate.
 Moving people toward better practice.
 Realizing that telling people to manage
electronic files as “paper” has not been
effective.
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Who We Surveyed
 8,334
addresses at UNC.
 17,327 addresses at Duke.
 About 212 emails bounced at UNC.
 About 1,115 bounced at Duke.
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Survey Questions
Email application most often used
 Volume/time spent on email
 Attachments
 Storage practices
 Importance to job
 Specific Concerns
 Willingness to do further interview
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Top 10 Concerns Regarding Email at
UNC
% of Respondents:
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23%
21%
16%
15%
14%
Unsolicited
email
Confidentiality
Time
Usage
Software
limitations
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14%
Retention
13%
Security
11%
Management
10%
Deletion
10%
Viruses
Top Concerns Regarding Email at Duke
% of Respondents:
 21%
Unsolicited
email
 19%
Software
limitations
 18%
Confidentiality
 17%
Security
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14%
13%
12%
10%
8%
7%
Volume
Time
Usage
Viruses
Retention
Lotus
Notes
Interview Protocol Development
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Went back to our original goals.
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To understand how individuals manage their digital
desktops, both email messages and digital files.
To devise guidelines, aids, and learning models to support
improved user behavior.
What are people doing?
How can we improve what they are doing both for
their own work and for the university?
Designing the Interviews
Started with the concerns that surfaced in the
survey returns.
 Generated every possible question we could
devise, in probably as inappropriate forms as
we could.
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Pooled our questions.
Used words like, “appraisal,” and “authenticity.”
Developing the Conceptual Framework
Categorized our questions.
 Because we are exploring how individuals are
functioning as their own records managers and
archivists, we linked our questions to basic
archival functions.
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Framework for Questions
Electronic files must undergo appraisal in
order to assess their importance, potential for
long-term preservation, and their “recordness.”
 In order to ensure authenticity, particular
actions must happen and particular
information must be created and preserved.
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Interview Framework
In order to preserve electronic records, the
digits and their context must be physically
secured and preserved.
 Arrangement in a logical file structure can be
useful in making electronic records accessible.
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Framework for Study
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In order for electronic records to be
accessible they must be described clearly and
adequately. Description can involve indexing,
abstracting, and other additional subject
analysis or simply file naming and titling.
Framework
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How individuals view ownership of electronic
materials and issues of privacy and security
will influence how they handle the items. Thus,
we need to ask individuals to whom they
believe the messages belong, what rights they
have to privacy of the message content, and
how secure the messages/email system is.
Appraisal questions
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What criteria do you use to decide to keep an email
message? To delete one?
What criteria do you use to decide to keep an
electronic document? To delete one?
Do you think any of the email messages or
documents that you receive or produce in the
course of your daily work should be preserved for
years to come by the university? Why?/Why not?
Authenticity Questions
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How do you save attachments?
When you save an attachment, do you save
the email message along with it?
If you store important messages
electronically outside of your email
application, does the header information stay
with the messages?
Arrangement
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Tell me about your email/file folder structure that
we see here.
Get print-out of folder structure.
Would you say that you use a similar structure in
email and file directories?
Paper file structure?
Tell us about the file structure on your hard drive.
How have you organized materials?
Description
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How do you determine subject lines you
attach to work-related email messages you
send?
How do you retrieve stored messages if you
need them at a later time?
How do you name electronic files?
How do you retrieve your electronic files?
Physical Preservation
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Are your email messages being backed up
automatically?
Do you explicitly back up your email messages?
Are your electronic files (documents, images, etc.)
automatically backed up?
Do you keep copies of all the messages you send?
If so, where/how do you keep these?
How do you store important messages?
Privacy & Security
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Is your email yours or the university’s? Other files
on your UNC computer?
Who owns your email? (Ownership vs. intellectual
property issues with this question)
Who can [has the ability] to read your email without
your permission? Your electronic files?
Do you distinguish between "official" and personal
email? Do you manage and store them differently?
UNC ONLY: Have you heard of the Public
Records law in North Carolina?
Interview Participants
Goal was to interview a wide cross-section of
faculty, staff, and administrators at both
campuses.
 Only selected people who indicated they
wished further involvement after the survey.
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Interviews
We conducted 100 interview during spring and
summer of 2003.
 Most averaged 45 minutes in length with some
over an hour, some briefer.
 One person interviewed; another took notes in
a spreadsheet.
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Life After Coding
Next step was to make charts and tables for as
many quantifiable questions as possible.
 Highlight useful and telling quotations within
notes.
 Explore data topically.
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Preliminary Conclusions
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People do not, in large part, manage their electronic
files as their print files, at least not at universities.
Telling folks to manage digital assets as they do their
paper files appears to have little effect.
We have lost the largest cadre of records
professionals – many, many secretaries.
Unlikely most universities will have enterprise-wide
ERMS or that there would be a high degree of
compliance.
Management for Now, Not Later
People have little problem finding their own
materials, although this situation may be
deteriorating.
 Archival theory has been built on existing
information retrieval systems and naturally
occurring metadata.
 Computer searching, in large part, negates the
need for folders, whether archivist like it or
not.
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Challenges
Distributed document creation.
 “Capture” important material before it dies.
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A “living” archive where records go from the
moment of their creation?
 ERMS?
 Training
creators?
 Combination?
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Challenges
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Preservation of context and authenticity.
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Metadata, metadata, metadata.
Distributed metadata creation (or automated) with
centralized control of records.
Challenges
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Need for people to be information
management literate.
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Need for responsible appraisal.
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If not ubiquitous archiving then
Ubiquitous pre-archiving.
Distributed implementation of organizational
policy.
If we don’t need it don’t ask someone to take the
time to curate it.
Challenges
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Recognition that record creators are partners in
this enterprise
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Not the enemy
Generally not evildoers
Frequently overworked
Smart enough not to want to waste their time.
Archival Response
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Archivists, in conjunction with the IT
community – researchers and software
developers – must devise mechanisms to
preserve context over time when creators don’t
provide it.
Triangulated Solution
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A digital archiving “solution” must involve:
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An understanding of how individuals manage
electronic records in various settings.
Inexpensive, ubiquitous software that factors in
human information behaviors and the needs
inherent in the archiving process, i.e., preserving the
bits over time; maintaining context; and preserving
authenticity.
Triangulated Solution
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A focus on dealing with the most important
and most risky records and materials, i.e., a
90/10 rule where individuals are taught
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to carefully maintain the most important
evidential/historical/mission critical materials and
to delete (within legal and regulatory requirements)
the most risky materials.
Project URL
http://ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop
Thank you!
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