Abstract
Electronic records of government organizations are becoming increasingly important for accountability. Managing electronic records, however, proves to be difficult since information and communication technologies confront organizations with various opportunities and risks. In this paper the findings of an international expert survey on electronic records management are presented. These findings identify opportunities and risks for e-mail systems, database management systems, office systems, web technology systems and smart systems. They also point to five crucial questions that must be addressed in order to guarantee the availability of electronic records for accountability.
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References
I.Th.M. Snellen and W.H.B.J. van de Donk (eds.),Public Administration in an Information Age. A Handbook (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1998).
L. Duranti, “Concepts, Principles, and Methods for the Management of Electronic Records”,The Information Society 17(4) (2001): 271–279.
Bekkers, “New forms of steering and the Ambivalency of Transparency”, in I.Th.M. Snellen and W.H.B.J. van de Donk (eds.),Public Administration in an Information Age. A Handbook (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1998), pp. 341–357.
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It may not be easy to determine who is to be held accountable for certain situations. Complex organizations often present the ‘problem of many hands’.
M. Bovens,The Quest for Responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organisations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) p. 86.
See for accountability also: B.S. Romzek and M.J. Dubnick, “Accountability in the Public Sector: Lessons from the Challenger Tragedy”,Public Administration Review 47 (1987).
A. Meijer, “Anticipating Accountability Processes”,Archives and Manuscripts 28(1) (2000): 52–63.
M. Weber,Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tübingen: Mohr, 1947).
For an overview: Snellen and Van de Donk, 1998.
Huber.
Meijer, 2000: 52–63.
See A. Erlandsson,Electronic Records Management, A Literature Review (Paris: International Council on Archives, 1997); D. Bearman,Electronic Evidence. Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994); L. Duranti,Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 1998).
DLM-monitoring committee, ICA/CER — Committee on Electronic and Other Current Records.
European Experts' Meeting on Electronic Records, June 18 1997, The Hague, Netherlands; Electronic Records research and Development, June 28–29 1996, Ann Arbor, USA; Working Meeting on Electronic Records Research, May 1997, Pittsburgh, USA; Playing for Keeps Conference on Electronic Records Management, November 1994, Canberra, Australia.
Experts from the following countries took part: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.
B. van den Hooff,Incorporating Electronic Mail. Adoption, Use and Effects of Electronic Mail in Organizations, (Amsterdam: Otto Cramwinckel, 1997), p. 8.
G.B. Davis and M.H. Olson,Management Information Systems. Conceptual Foundations, Structure and Development (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985).
The term ‘office systems’ is used only for software applications to support the work of individuals like text editors and spreadsheet applications. Software to support groups such as document management systems, workflow management systems and groupware are excluded form this category (see Laudon and Laudon, p. 437) for another perspective).
Interesting ideas about records management in the electronic work environment have been developed at the National Archives of Canada (www.archives.ca/06/0603_e.html). These ideas start from the vision of the integration of records systems with automated work processes. Records of automated work processes are then automatically captured based on rules built into the design of the processes.
K.C. Laudon and J.P. Laudon,Management Information Systems. Organization and Technology in the Networked Enterprise, (Upper Saddle River, Prentice-Hall, 2000), p. 17.
Extensive guidelines for electronic records management of information available on websites were developed by R.C. McClure and J.T. Sprehe,Analysis and Development of Model Quality Guidelines for Electronic Records Management on State and Federal Websites, Research Study Sponsored by The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (1998). A central element in their approach is an ‘Accountability Exposure Analysis’: ”(...) an appraisal of the extent to which the agency is or is not fulfilling its legal and other responsibilities under recordkeeping statutes and other obligations, and the real possibility the agency will be called to account.” They draw parallels between this approach and risk analysis.
Laudon and Laudon, 369.
The expert survey was conducted in 1998 en 1999. Since technological developments are fast, an expert survey conducted in 2002 could have yielded different results. In Europe, for example, websites are now also widely used for interactive communication. Multimedia e-mail is now also more widespread than it was in 1998 and 1999. In spite of technological developments, however, most of the findings of the expert survey still seem valid. Significantly: the five ‘crucial questions’ which are presented in this section have not become obsolete by new technological developments.
E. Mayo,The Human Problems of an Industrial Organization, (New York: McMillan, 1933).
H. Mintzberg,Structure in Fives. Designing Effective Organizations (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1983).
M. Jarke, “Requirements Tracing”,Communications of the ACM, 41(12) (1998): 32–36.
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Meijer, A. Accountability in an information age: Opportunities and risks for records management. Archival Science 1, 361–372 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438902
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438902