Accelerating Postitive Change in Electronic Records. Understanding issues and developing practical approaches.

The management of electronic records has been a significant issue for organisations for more than two decades. And, for the last decade records professionals have had access to guidelines, standards and systems developed by national archives, coalitions, professional associations and research groups. But as 2005 draws to a close, the e-government vision of countries such as the UK and Malaysia, is not yet a reality. John McDonald (2005) points out the pace of change has been relatively slow. The question is why?

To realise change in electronic records management we need to address two fundamental issues. First, we need to recognise that the world of work has changed radically and we need a better understanding of the way organisations, in all sectors, do 'business'. Successful electronic records management requires understanding working practices, business processes and organisational drivers. We need standards and practices not only for recordkeeping but also for the way we work today. Second, much recordkeeping theory and practice orginates from the paper world and is being imposed onto the electronic world. We need to challenge the relevance of paper practices for the electronic world.

This project aims to investigate and critically explore issues and practical strategies to support accelerating the pace of positive change in managing electronic reocrds. It will:

- investigate the issues and problems of electronic records management
- develop a comptemporary critical view of the state of ERM globally at both the research and practical levels
- challenge existing recordkeeping paradigms to develop an appropriate practical paradigm for electronic records management and
- develop and share examples of electronic records management strategies, tactics and practice through a series of scenario-based vignettes and a weblog or blog.

Its focus is on designing an organisational-centred architecture from three perspectives: (i) people, including vision, awareness, culture, drivers and barriers; (ii) working practices including processes, procedures, policies and standards; and (iii) technology in terms of the design principles for delivering effective recordkeeping.

Since recordkeeping in the e-environment involves different stakeholder groups (i.e. executives/senior managers, records professionals, IT/systems administrators and recordkeepers) and is trans-disciplinary (involving information managmenet, humanities, social sciences, public policy, history, business management etc), the project will engage people from multiple disciplines and all stakeholder groups in order to build the professional and academic partnerships necessary to succeed.

Benefits of the project are that participants will learn from discussion about issues, approaches, successes and failures; the vignettes will provide valuable scenarios and potential solutions for use in other organisations; the blog will provide a global discussion forum for sharing and learning. The process and outputs will have potential application in the practitioner and academic communities.

McDonald, J. (2005). The wide frontier ten years on. In: McLeod, J and Hare, CE (Eds). Managing electronic records. Facet, p.1-17.
-