All the way back in 2019, OMB/NARA memorandum M-19-21 set an aggressive objective to ensure that virtually all Federal records would be created, retained, and managed in electronic formats with appropriate metadata by December 31, 2022. However, no one could have predicted the Covid-19 pandemic that would shortly sweep the world and delay agency efforts [...]

One upside to electronic records management is the potential to reduce labor and increase accuracy. In fact, one of the core objectives of any organization engaging in a digitization project is reducing administrative burden while enhancing record quality. To that end, electronic records management opens up new avenues for efficiency and effectiveness, and one of [...]

BYOD is a big deal in the modern workplace. Research shows that nearly all (95%) companies permit employee use of personal devices for work purposes, and as many as 87% of organizations actually depend on some level on employees being able to access work-related apps and services from their own devices. Unfortunately, BYOD also introduces [...]

The Section 508 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandates that federal agencies make their technology accessible to people with disabilities. It’s part of a longstanding commitment of the United States government to reducing discrimination against people with disabilities. As more agencies shift to fully electronic records management, it also means records managers need [...]

What is the relationship between records management and compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests? In short, it’s complicated. Obviously, good records management is critical to meeting formal FOIA requests. It’s how staff can even find the information that’s being requested. Unfortunately, according to research published last year from the U.S. National Archives and [...]

Every record has a job to do, and errors compromise their ability to fulfill their purpose. For example, some records provide mission-critical information. In these cases, inaccuracies and errors will reduce their ability to meet objectives and mandates. In other cases, record-keeping is about increasing transparency and public confidence. Here, errors will erode trust and [...]

Once upon a time, organizations had to host and manage all their physical computing equipment themselves to run necessary software applications and store data. That has completely changed: today, almost every organization in the world uses “the cloud,” a network of interconnected servers located in data centers worldwide that can be access via the Internet, [...]

Protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) is no small task for organizations and their records management teams. Government agencies in particular deal with PII and PHI all the time, because they often include mission-critical information like: Full Name Address Date Of Birth Assigned Identifiers (e.g., Social Security Number, Passport Number, Known [...]

One of the key elements of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) emphasis on electronic records management is the collection and transmittal of appropriate metadata. Metadata refers to information about the information stored within the record. As NARA itself says, “Simply put, metadata are elements of information that answer the questions ‘who, what, where, [...]

With NARA placing more emphasis than ever on electronic records management – and already beginning to eye the next set of target goals – many agencies are looking to make sure their existing or proposed Electronic Records Management (ERM) platforms can meet the needs and challenges that lie ahead. Unfortunately, far too many organizations default [...]