Managing the Digital University Desktop

ECURE 2004
Tempe, Arizona

http://www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop

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Thought for the day….

“The end-user manages e-mail.”
-ARMA Guideline for Managing E-mail

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Thank You to

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission

for funding this project

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Thank You to

• 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 Archvist

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Project Overview

• Understand how faculty & staff at a public & private universities manage their email & other electronic files.
• Create guidelines based on records requirements & observed behaviors.
• Create learning tools based on guidelines.
• Disseminate findings & training.

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1^st Year Methodology

• In order to learn how faculty, staff, and administrators manage their electronic materials we
  • Conducted campus-wide surveys at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.
  • Interviewed 100 individuals.
  • Interviewed approximately 25 IT staff.

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2^nd Year Work

• We are in the midst of coding the data from the interviews using NVIVO software.
• Starting to analyze filing arrangements we captured from interviewees' computers.
• Matching capabilities of software used with responses to interview questions.

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How This All Began

• Collaboration between myself and UNC Records Management Program, starting in 1999.
• Records Management Program but no real work in electronic records.
• Recognition that UNC employees might be mishandling electronic records.

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Original Vision

• Application submitted in May 2001.
• Original work plan called for collecting data at UNC and some of the other 15 UNC campuses.

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Addition of Duke University

• In October 2001, the UNC Records Management Program was dismantled due to the budget crisis.
• November 2001, NHPRC indicated they would fund grant if UNC maintained a records manager.
• Records manager's position moved to the Library, February 1, 2002.
• Duke University brought in to maintain cost share.

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Benefits of Duke Involvement

• Duke's addition has provided:
  • Extensive and diverse expertise;
  • Records practice at a private institution to compare with the 16-campus UNC System;
  • Digital information management behaviors at an institution without any RM program and a highly decentralized structure;
  • An institution developing a campus records management program as well as a digital archives initiative.

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Information Context

 

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Digital Landscape

From How Much Information? 2003:

• Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about 5 exabytes of new information in 2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard disks.
• http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/execsum.htm

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Storage Media

• Hard disks store most new information. Ninety-two percent of new information is stored on magnetic media, primarily hard disks. Film represents 7% of the total, paper 0.01%, and optical media 0.002%.

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Information Explosion

• HMI estimates that new stored information grew about 30% a year between 1999 and 2002.
• The amount of information printed on paper is still increasing, but the vast majority of original information on paper is produced by individuals in office documents and postal mail, not in formally published titles such as books, newspapers and journals.

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Email

• Email generates about 400,000 terabytes of new information each year worldwide.
• Email ranks second behind the telephone as the largest information flow. Email users include 35% of the total U.S. population (source: eMarketer), and accounts for over 35% of time spent on the Internet (source: Forrester Research).

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Primacy of the Individual

• "Tip" O'Neill: "All politics is local."
• Desktop e-mail management and subsequent archiving of material from the university environment presently depends on the individual, his or her specific information management behaviors, and the software being used.

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The Situation

• Most staff, faculty, and administrators, especially the latter two groups, have little or no training in information management.
• Electronic records are inherently fragile. If they are not "preserved" early in their lives, they will not endure.

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Starting Assumption

• Successful electronic information management guidelines must take into account how people are presently managing their digital information.

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Project Goals - 1

• Document how faculty, administrators, and staff use and manage files and records from electronic mail and other desktop applications at UNC, Duke University, throughout the 16-campus UNC system, and by extension, across academia.

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Project Goals - 2

• Based on the analysis of user needs and practices, as well as the North Carolina Public Records Act, develop optimized e-mail and desktop management "best practice" guidelines to serve both public and private higher education in North Carolina and provide an adaptable model of practice for other states.

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Project Goals - 3

• Develop educational opportunities (workshops, handbook, exercises, web-based courses, etc.) to optimize faculty, administrator, and staff use and management of desktop electronic documents.

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Project Goals - 4

• Develop user profiles necessary for a strategic consideration of electronic records management systems.

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And... Dissemination

• Disseminate information about the best practices guidelines and instructional units at UNC, Duke, and across the 16-campus UNC system via a statewide conference and to other universities via the records management/ archival literatures and conferences and the project website.

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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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Selected Survey Findings

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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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1899 Valid Duke Survey Respondents

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1076 Valid UNC Responses

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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 Department Responders

Duke DCRI Library Pediatrics Psychiatry & Behavioral Sci Anesthesiology

UNC — CH Library Medicine School of Business School of Social Work FPG Child Development Center

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Number of Email Messages Received/Day

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Number of Email Messages Received Daily According to HMI

• 60% of workers with email access receive 10 or fewer messages on an average day.
• 23% receive more than 20.
• 6% more than 50.
• 73% of workers spend an hour or less per day on their email.

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Average Minutes/Day Spent on Email

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Most Used Email Applications at UNC

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Most Used Email Applications at Duke

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Top 10 Concerns Regarding Email at UNC

% of Respondents:

23% Unsolicited email 21% Confidentiality 16% Time 15% Usage 14% Software limitations

14% Retention 13% Security 11% Management 10% Deletion 10% Viruses

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Top 10 Concerns Regarding Email at Duke

% of Respondents:

21% Unsolicited email 19% Software limitations 18% Confidentiality 17% Security 14% Volume

13% Time 12% Usage 10% Viruses 8% Retention 7% Lotus Notes

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Selected Interview Findings Concerning Appraisal, Retention, & Deletion

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Did Anyone Ever Tell You What to Save?

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Did Anyone Ever Tell You What to Save?

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Did Anyone Ever Tell You What to Save?

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What were you ever told?

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Who told you?

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Are There Records You Know You Have to Keep?

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How Do You Decide What These Records Are?

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What Types of Documents Do You Have to Keep?

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Criteria Used to Keep Email

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Criteria Used to Delete Email

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Do Your Email Messages Undergo Automatic Destruction?

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What Do You Do When You Get An Imminent Destruction Message?

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Criteria Used to Keep Electronic Documents

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Criteria Used to Delete Electronic Documents

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Do you keep copies of all the messages that you send?

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Where Do You Store Messages You Send?

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How Do You Store Messages You Send?

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Next Steps

• Finish analyzing data.
• Create "guidelines."
• Get feedback for guidelines.
• Create learning materials.
• Test guidelines and materials.
• Spring 2005 dissemination conference.

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