Information matters – transcript download (PDF 296 KB)

Welcome to 'Information Matters – understanding your information responsibilities'. A short video from the National Archives of Australia. In this video we'll help you learn to recognise business information, understand why information matters and your responsibilities in managing it.

While carrying out your work, you're creating, sending and receiving business information which provides evidence of work performed by your organisation. Most of this information exists in a variety of systems and locations including: Business systems and databases, for example, client management systems, content management systems and transactional systems, such as payroll and accounting systems; email accounts; websites; social media and cloud-based services and applications; mobile devices and laptops; and USB drives and other storage devices.

With the volume and variety of information in today's digital world, more than ever you're responsible for ensuring the information you create, send or receive as part of your work is available in your organisation's approved systems.

In many systems, capturing business information won't happen automatically so it's important to be aware of your responsibilities when creating and capturing it. For systems not designed to fully manage information, it may be more appropriate to capture it in your Enterprise Content Management System or Electronic Document and Records Management System.

Your Information Management Responsibilities

Everyone working for an organisation, regardless of their level, is required to keep and manage information about their work.

Some business information is created automatically: [Date Created: 15/09/2015 11:45 AM] [a year ago] or it's already created when you receive it from someone else, while other information will only exist after you make a conscious decision to capture it.

You may decide to keep information when you need to show:

• what advice or instruction was given
• what was decided or recommended,
• what happened at a particular meeting.

If you're not sure whether you need to keep specific information, consider:

• Did you write, send or use the information in the course of your work?
• Are you (or someone else) required to act on the information? or
• Is it likely anyone, including you, will need this information in the future?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you should keep the information.

So why should information matter to you?

In your everyday work, creating and managing accurate information helps you to:

• find and use it to complete business tasks and processes
• share it with colleagues and stakeholders
• reuse good work done in the past
• use it to support system workflows and approvals
• make better informed decision-making through quicker access to accurate and trusted information, and
• be accountable for your actions as an Australian government employee.

You may ask: why does information matter to your organisation?

Information matters to your organisation, because it's a strategic asset and an economic resource. It's as important as money, property and equipment. Without it your organisation wouldn't be able to carry out its business.

When information is accountably created, managed, described and stored, its potential value increases, enabling it to be shared more easily, and used for other purposes in the future. Like any asset your organisation owns, information needs to be protected from any risks that will make it unreliable, irrecoverable, unusable or able to be accessed by those without need.

Information also provides evidence of decisions and actions taken by you, or your organisation.

Your organisation's information exists within a regulatory, legal, risk and operational environment that includes:

• Legislation
• Privacy and security requirements
• Government policy
• Stakeholder expectations, and
• Obligations to ensure citizens' rights and entitlements.

Now we know why information matters, let's move on to how we manage it.

How to manage Business Information

Your organisation's information governance arrangements, which include policies, processes, standards and people, will help manage information effectively and accountably.

There are also some simple rules you should follow in your day-to-day work when creating and managing business information. Make it full, reliable and meaningful.

When creating information, it's important to build context that helps us understand why it was created and how it's used. Much of this context will automatically be captured by the software when it's created. For example, the creator, the date of creation and who has accessed and edited the information.

But most of the time, you will need to add a title. Adding a title that is meaningful, unique and consistent will help you and others find the information again. 

Correct way to write a title: 

• Finance Steering Committee – meeting agenda and minutes – January – June 2016.file 

Incorrect way to write a title: 

• Committee minutes.file

Use approved locations

Always keep business information in your organisation's approved locations and systems. This is usually your organisation's Electronic Document and Records Management System but may be any system that has authorised information management capabilities. Information in approved locations and systems can be:

• readily accessed by those who need it for their work
• secured from unauthorised access, tampering, deletion or loss
• related to other information to give context; and
• backed-up or protected from corruption or damage.

If you keep information in corporate locations and systems approved by your organisation, you don't need to worry about how long it needs to be kept, as the information will be managed as part of your organisation's official business information.

If you need to destroy information, ask your supervisor or information management area for further advice. It's also important to remember that information created digitally should remain in digital format, and not be printed and managed in paper.

Understanding the role of supervisors in supporting information management

Supervisors and managers can also play an important role in helping to improve information management practices within your organisation by promoting information management as an essential element of conducting business.

If you're a supervisor or a manager, you should:

• know your organisation's information governance arrangements
• provide training and guidance for staff
• support and encourage good team practices, and
• understand your delegation to approve information management related decisions.

In summary:

We're all responsible for creating and managing information of our day-to-day work by simply:

• titling your information meaningfully
• keeping it in your organisation's approved locations, and
• understanding your organisation's operating environment.

You'll be creating good quality information that everyone can find and use.

What is metadata? – transcript download (PDF 267 KB)

Welcome to 'Meta …. What? Metadata!' A short video from the National Archives of Australia.

When most people hear the word metadata their first reaction may be 'Meta … what?' or 'what ... data?' It might surprise you to know this first reaction of 'what?' is not far from the meaning of the word 'metadata'. In today's world, we're all familiar with data which we access, use, send and receive all the time. Before data is accessed, metadata can tell you many things about the 'what' might be contained within that data. It can also answer questions of 'who', 'why', 'when' and 'where' about the data. An example of how metadata describes the content of a physical object will help give a basic understanding.

The title, slogan and barcode on the wrapper of this chocolate bar [image of a chocolate bar] are all examples of metadata that describe. The weight describes how much and, the ingredients and nutrition information help us understand more about its contents and makeup. 

Metadata can be helpful in our personal and business interactions with all types of content and data.

We can show this by picturing a music collection, either one you own, or access online. [Image of a music album, showing songs from the band ACDC album, 'Black Ice']

The Content here is audio data, the music we hear when we hit the 'Play' button. Before you hit 'play', the Title is the name of the song and may include words repeated throughout the song, or words to describe the mood. The Artist is the musician who recorded and released the music. If you're familiar with the artist's name, you'll have an idea of what to expect.

Metadata can be used for grouping content making it more efficient to retrieve during a search. This is one of the most common uses for metadata.

For example: All the music by the same artist can be found because each piece of music has matching metadata.

Keywords in a title can help you locate the one you're looking for, or others like it.

Tags applied to the music to indicate genre, music style or points of interest, can also help with grouping. The number of times music has been played or liked also helps grouping according to the most popular trends.

[Images of looking through music tags such as title and genre, a window pops up and begins playing music]

Metadata can be used on all data formats, for example, the National Archives' own Twitter feed.

[Image of National Archives Twitter feed: @naa_digital, dated 2017]

Individual tweets grouped together by their metadata show they've been created by the same user and follow a theme, indicating the interests of that user from day to day. Each user is also described by their username.

Followers' usernames and their reply tweets tell us who else is interested.

Hashtags can also demonstrate connections between the data and users. As metadata shows different connections between the data and its users over time, these relationships build context around data. In fact, one of the most useful and powerful things about metadata is that it helps us understand the context in which data is created and used.

Organising content and building context with metadata automatically by a system or manually applied by users is especially important to show how information is used to complete a business task. For example, [Screenshot of logging into CCMS (Council Case Portal), and person proceeding with a case as described in the audio] to find out how a case for a service request has been managed: A client submits their request, and from this a record is created, assigned a case number and associated with the client's username.

As the case progresses, metadata showing the current status can be updated. Messages and documents supporting the case, can be related by the case number.

As each user in the system is associated with their username, this can help show which users are involved with the case and also authenticate actions related to the case. Details of other cases can be retrieved by searching for the metadata associated with them such as case number, client or category. Although all cases will have the same properties, meaning all cases have a case number, contact, status and so on, the values of those properties will be different for each specific case.

Because metadata offers many benefits to us, it's worth the effort to ensure its quality. For example, a precise title or name will ensure that you'll find the information you need in an efficient way. Fortunately, good quality metadata can be maintained by making decisions, doing some preparation and a taking a little care.

To ensure good quality metadata: standardise metadata. 

Standards will help you review the important information you use and assess whether it has suitable metadata properties to help understand and make use of it.

1. Core Identifier/Creator/Date created.
2. Additional Title/Protective marking/ Disposal class/Format.
3. Transfer Rights/Integrity check.

Standards also guide how well your metadata can work when information is shared across multiple systems, providers or locations. Automate the creation of metadata wherever possible, ensuring the systems that generate it are configured to do so according to relevant standards. Validate metadata that can be used by systems or users by customising controlled lists of metadata from which users can select. Provide guidance to users if they need to make decisions about metadata.

In Summary

• Metadata helps you describe, use, find and manage content and data.
• Determine essential metadata properties needed to control and use business information.
• Use standardised metadata to support interoperability and information sharing.

Managing email – transcript download (PDF 337 KB)

Welcome to Managing Email. A short module from the National Archives of Australia. This short video will show you the basics of managing email effectively and will help you to understand the value of email to your agency's business. Decide which email you need to keep. Decide which email can be deleted. Correctly save and title email and use email as reliable evidence of decisions and approvals.

We use email to share information, make decisions and approvals and arrange meetings and appointments. But we often don't think of the value of individual emails we send and receive.

Email provides important evidence of decisions or actions which have been taken, documents advice and gives context to various aspects of your agency's business.

Under the Archives Act 1983, email relating to your agency's business must be kept and managed according to its value and should not be deleted without following your agency's policy and procedures.

Email relating to your agency's business should be saved in an approved location such as your agency's EDRMS ([Electronic Document Records Management System) or case management system.

Regularly capturing email relating to your agency's business will help ensure the information and documents remains available for you, your colleagues and your agency in the future.

How do you know which email to save and which to delete?

As with all information, email should be managed based on its value to your agency's business and consistent with your agency's policies and procedures.

To decide whether to save or delete an email, ask yourself:

• Does the email relate to my work or my agency's business?
• Does it provide approval for an action?
• Does it provide advice or give a direction?
• Does it relate to something which records a decision or needs further action?
• Is this information likely to be needed in the future or likely to have any other benefit to my agency's business or the community?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you should consider saving the email in your agency's Records Management system or other approved location. Once you have saved the email you can delete it from your inbox.

If you're unsure whether an email should be kept check your agency's information and records management policies and procedures or ask someone from your information and records management area.

Of course some email won't necessarily be valuable to your organisation and may not need to be kept.

Unimportant Emails

This often includes:

• Messages received for information only.
• Trivial information such as meeting reminders and room bookings.
• Copies of information already in a Records Management system.
• Copies of documents for reference purposes only.
• General notices to staff; and
• Personal and social messages.

These emails can often be simply deleted from your inbox once you've decided they have no business use.

If you're unsure which email can be deleted, check your agency's information and records management policies and procedures or ask someone from your information and records management area.

When you are saving email you need to make sure it has a title or name that will make it easy to find later. 
[An example: NAA001 eLearning quote Swain to Karl 2015 09 01]

Titles should be meaningful, consistent and unique. Please see the National Archives' video 'What's in a name' for further titling advice.

When you create and send email, follow these titling guidelines for your subject headings and you won't need to enter a new name or title when saving the email later on [example: Identifying Feature, Summary of Subject, Author and Recipient, Date Information].

Email can be used to authorise decisions or actions within your agency often replacing the need for traditional 'wet' signatures. This reduces the need to print and manage records in paper format saving you and your agency time and money.

There are many benefits for recording business decisions and approvals digitally. Digital information takes up far less space and is easier to access, share, review and check.

There is often more detail available within digital formats than in a paper equivalent providing more context and validity for decisions recorded digitally. Email can be relied upon as evidence in court proceedings and other forms of enquiry, provided it is accountably managed in accordance with your agency's records management policies and procedures. This is supported by the Electronic Transactions and Commonwealth Evidence acts.

If you would like to implement a digital authorisation process within your agency, you should ask your agency's ICT security, and records and information management areas to ensure that the process takes into account your agency's policies and procedures, as well as relevant legislation and standards.

In summary, email relating to your agency's business must be kept and managed according to its value and should not be deleted without following your agency's policy and procedures. Business email should be saved in your agency's Records Management system or approved location and be titled meaningfully so it can be found easily by others.

What's in a name? – transcript download (PDF 270 KB)

What's in a name? A short module from the National Archives of Australia.

Shakespeare said that 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'.

Maybe. But what if you go looking for your rose which someone's put it in a box marked gladioli? Or flower? Maybe there are boxes for roses but the rose you're looking for is special. Or maybe it's not that sort of rose at all.

Do you ever find yourself struggling to find documents you're looking for or struggling to understand what a record is or what a file contains, based on its name?

Looking for a document with a poor title can be time-consuming not to mention frustrating for you and your colleagues as well as costly to your organisation. Some estimates put time spent searching for information at 20 percent of total work time or higher!

Making good titles for your documents or files is not rocket science [example: Inter-Departmental Committee – Meeting agendas and minutes – Jul – Dec 2014] [and] it may be one of the easiest things you do in your working day. Good titles will make life easier for someone in your organisation. It might even be you!

If your agency or work area has agreed naming or titling rules or guidelines, you should follow those.

If not, here are three simple rules to help you. You could use these rules to develop naming guidelines for your work area or agency.

Rule 1 … Make it meaningful

Keep it succinct and include all information necessary for others to find and understand its contents. To do this you need to capture what it contains such as the topic, subject, or project as well as the action.

Avoid using generic terms such as miscellaneous, correspondence or general jargon that is specific to a project or business area.

Abbreviations including acronyms and initialisations. These can mean different things to different people and lose their meaning over time e.g. RAOB has several meanings.

However, you may have some terms that are so commonly used or understood within your agency it may be appropriate to use them. For example: OH&S or WH&S [ABC, ANZAC, GST, NSW]

You should keep an easily accessible list of authorised abbreviated terms approved for use in your agency.

The second rule is to make your title unique

These details should ensure it can be distinguished from all other documents or files. For example, when did it happen or what period does it relate to? It might be a calendar or financial year. First, second, third or fourth quarter or a date. Depending on your local requirements, it might look something like this:

• Attendance record Wilson 08-Dec-15

You might need to include who the document or file is about including the names of individuals, business areas, organisations involved or a case number.

If there are a large number of case files, it might be best to use a unique number for each case to avoid confusion between people with similar names.

• Smith A.doc, Smith D.doc, Smith G.doc, Smith K.doc
• 01SA Smith A.doc, 02SD Smith D.doc, 03SG Smith G.doc, 04SK Smith K.doc.

Including the version can also help make it unique. For version control you may use something like these or a numbering system:

• 01SA Smith A v2.Doc
• 02SD Smith D v1.Doc
• 03SG Smith G v1.Doc
• 04SK Smith K v3. Doc.

The third rule is all about keeping names consistent

• Logo – ABC – Colour.jpg
• NSW – colour logo.jpg

Using a consistent approach to naming throughout your agency will help you and other people find and understand records more easily. Keep the elements in the same order.

• Records Authority PowerPoint 2015 02 01
• Exec Minutes May 12 2015
• DRA for external (PowerPoint) 2015 08 02
• DRA for external (PowerPoint) 2015 08 02
• NAA Meeting Minutes 2014 01 25
• Developing a Records Authority 09 06 2015
• Archival description – final 20150811
• National Archive Minutes 15 10 18.

Make the format of dates, versions, names or other details consistent.

• NAA Meeting Minutes 2014 01 25
• Exec Minutes May 12 2015
• National Archive Minutes 15 10 18
• Records Authority PowerPoint 2015 02 01
• Developing a Records Authority 09 06 2015
• DRA for external (PowerPoint) 2015 08 02
• Mediaflex Guide 6th February Archival description – final 20150811
• National Archives of Australia – Board meeting minutes 2014 01 25
• National Archives of Australia – Board meeting minutes 2015 12 05
• National Archives of Australia – Board meeting minutes 2015 10 18
• Records Authority Presentation – external distribution 2015 02 01
• Records Authority Presentation – external distribution 2015 06 09
• Records Authority Presentation – external distribution 2015 08 02.

For example, dates can be used in different ways.

• Mediaflex User Guide – final version 2015 02 06 Mediaflex User Guide – final version 2015 08 11

Keeping the format consistent will make it easier to sort and find what you're looking for. Dates can appear different in a number of combinations:

• DD MM YYYY: 16 02 2015
• DD MM YY: 16 02 15
• DD Month YYYY: 16 Feb 2015
• YYYY MM DD: 2015 02 16.

All of these rules can be determined according to your workplace's preferences however the only date order that will ensure chronological order is: YYYY MM DD. Names should also be in the same format:

• John M Smith, John May Smith, Smith John, Smith John May, Smith J.

It's that easy.

Think about how you might let other people know these simple rules. For example: share this module. Discuss and agree a consistent approach with your colleagues. Include the rules into local procedures or style guides.

In summary:

You should follow your agency's rules and procedures, or speak to your Records Management area for titling advice specific to your agency.