Email in Higher Education: Policy Issues and Strategies

ECURE 2001 Preservation and Access for Electronic College and University Records October 13, 2001
David A. Wallace School of Information University of Michigan davwal@umich.edu

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Outline

• Evolving C&U ICT infrastructure
• Frames for analyzing email
• Recordkeeping frame
• Content analysis of C&U email policies
• Case study: University of Michigan
• Strategies for capturing and preserving record email

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Evolving C&U ICT infrastructure

• Used to support:
• Administration and support services
• Research and development
• Education
• Factors:
• responsibility (centralized / decentralized)
• policy infrastructure (creation / implementation / evaluation)
• technology infrastructure (hardware / software)
• role of records management & archival programs

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Frames for analyzing email

Appropriate use Etiquette Expectations of privacy Ownership Copyright

Intellectual freedom Security Legal risk (liability) Institutional memory (asset) Communications utility Recordkeeping

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Recordkeeping frame ...1

• Rapid and dramatic increase in email use
• Contemporaneous with:
  • new and emerging organizational forms
  • new and emerging communication forms (aka document genres)
• Shared meaning & practices absent
• Enduser desktop autonomy
• Email a software utility that creates many different forms of “records”

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Recordkeeping frame ...2

• When is email a “record”?
  • university record, public record, non-record...
• How should email records be managed throughout their lifecycle?
  • Creation (initiation, receipt)
  • Use (filing, access permissions, retrieval)
  • Disposition (appraisal, scheduling, preservation, destruction)

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Recordkeeping frame - 3

• Form / function of message more important than its identification as an “email message”
• Policy implementation / evaluation vacuum
• Lifecycle management is essential
• Traditional ARM practices will not scale
• Electronic recordkeeping systems needed

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Content analysis of C&U email policies ...1

• Identifying Records
  • Addresses record status of email?
  • Distinguished records from non-records?
  • Defines what a record is?

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Content analysis of C&U email policies ...2

• Filing and Maintaining Records
  • Print or electronic?
  • Filing suggestions?
  • Discusses how to handle attachments?
  • Discusses how to handle encryption?
  • Link to records schedule?
  • Discusses long-term preservation and archiving?

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Content analysis of C&U email policies ...3

• General
  • Identifies entity responsible for policy?
  • Identifies sanctions for non-compliance?
  • Defines terms used in the policy?

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Case study: University of Michigan ...1

• History
  • Michigan terminal system (MTS)
  • Privacy ascendant over public recordness
  • Access controversies (applicability of FOIA)
  • Shift from centralized to decentralized system
  • Current confusion over public recordness
  • Archiving email

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Case study: University of Michigan ...2

• Policy infrastructure
  • Standard practice guide
  • proper use policy (5/90)
  • privacy of email and computer files (12/93)
  • identification, maintenance and preservation of electronic records (5/97)
  • Guidelines for implementing the proper use policy (6/97)

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Strategies for capturing and preserving record email ...1

• Considerations
  • Existing culture(s) of use & management
  • Evolving legal environment re: recordness and discovery -- legal risks associated with unmanaged email
  • Policies are created, but are they implemented and evaluated?

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Strategies for capturing and preserving record email ...2

• Strategies
  • Clear and definitive records policy
  • Implement and evaluate on pilot basis, edit as necessary
  • Education and training
  • Appraise and retain based on “type” of email, not on “format” of email
  • Recognize applicability of FOIA
  • Recognize discovery risks
  • Adopt electronic recordkeeping

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