Embracing records management is not easy

Just another view to ponder with.......

The theme of my discussion is "embracing records management is not easy". Indeed, its look simple but it ain't easy. It is even harder when you are alone, me myself alone and we 'the records professionals' are all do thing 'in silo'. 

Someone just take up records management as his or her focus of study, never come across about it before and slowly climbing up the uphill tasks of understanding the term 'records' and 'records management'. So much so in the case of Malaysia and its education. It is not that the education system is not right, it is not that no focus is given during the primary and secondary years of education. It is just that......some missing links here and there. The awareness is not given properly and thus appreciation is not developed for records and archive. 

History was learnt, studied and explored but to the extend that it is mere 'spoon feed' approach. Students were not exposed to exploration and researching, and such initiatives were rare. Only many years back when the education policies were changed and things started to change there on. Awareness and realization set to pour in. 

Can one just imagine that, someone who is having background in geology or mathematics or whatever specialization, educated in different background and later is given task to run and manage records department. What a worse thing could happen?? 

In other instance, can one just imagine that, in situation where the sole purpose of existence for newly set up company or organization is to make it run, move it and capitalize on every possible chance in order to make it grow, making and reaping profit as much as possible in order to sustain; during which time does records management is a major concern?? 

Suddenly, when establishment has been achieved, organizations be it private or public organization begin to realize the importance and critical role of records management. More so when the public organization was inherited from the British administrations (in the case of Malaysia), there are some standing policies, rules and procedures governing records. Such is a blissful things to happen, with limitation on the manpower and expertise who knows about records management and professionals who can really understand and manage records and run records management program in organization. Government agency like Arkib Negara Malaysia (National Archive of Malaysia) has stand still and strong from the very beginning of Malaysia in keeping up historical and long standing Malaysia records materials. Such pivotal role of Arkib Negara of Malaysia must be recognized and appreciated. 



In the case of private organization, logic and reasons becomes a benchmark for records management. Best practices from other organizations are emulated and absorbed prior to the setting up of the company. Such is the normal case of private organizations in Malaysia. (this require in depth discussions, this statement is written for the purpose of putting some views which is not conclusive, some data are needed to compensate it). 

Each and every single organization has its own records management policies, standards and practices, implemented, derived and inherited from???....such practices is continued for many years until........one fine day, a young man comes in to work for the organization. After several years of study and graduated from local or international university. Having trained and specialized in records management,  the young man comes to work with full of energy, motivation and commitment when suddenly he realizes that whatever he LEARNS is not what being PRACTICED! He tries many ways and many times to make some improvement but the situation keep on the same. 

A 'VICIOUS CIRCLE' and long standing WORK CULTURE  are difficult to amend. The young man faces a very uphill tasks to make CHANGE. He is alone, and to some extent he is considered as too ambitious by his colleagues, he lost pride and respect and the middle and top management does not even take a look or listen to him. More so his immediate superior who keeps on telling him to proceed with the existing practices. He now realizes that embracing records management is not that easy!

What happen then??........YOU FIGURE IT OUT!!

From Records Management to ERMS #3

Dear all.....

Assalamualaikum wrt wbt......and "Salam Sejahtera"!

Change is difficult to occur in organization with long history of establishment. It is cumbersome to change working culture and work processes when practice becomes habits. Old style is difficult to make way to the new one. However, for some reasons, old ways remains because they have already proven meaningful and effective even though it may not be efficient. Then, technology comes in. Like or not, we need to embrace it. It changes and paves the way how people do their work, how things should work, how organizational objective, vision, mission and work processes need to be achieved and how things are managed.

This occurrence takes place everywhere. The same goes to records management. Manually done, the work process in managing records were proven effective. However today, communication technology and information technology have changed the 'modus operandi' of how things work. Communication is rampant, therefore, transaction is also rampant. Business to business transactions, business to people, business to government, government to people transaction or vice versa becomes the main concern. People begin to talk about service delivery. People want high standard of service delivery more than before. Slow response, overdue and "red tapes" no longer the order of the day with the coming of information communication technology (ICT).

The above factors and recent development put stress and tighten burden to information professionals and records professionals. Accountability and efficiency remain the utmost concern. Service delivery need to be efficient, effective and fast while at the same time concern on the 'recordness' of the record remain critical. It was before the choice of procedures and work process that determined the effective ways of keeping the records while maintaining its integrity. Today, that same objectives remain with added priority; the choice of integrated electronic records management system that complied with all work processes, national acts, records and archive acts, fulfilling technology requirement and maintaining the integrity of the records which is created more in digital @ electronic format rather than paper format.

This new trend; the so called digital records or electronic records are born in that manner as compared to previous way where records were born in printed format. It is a huge challenge to people, staffs, employees to handle such 'born digital records'....

It is easier to create electronic records or electronic document, but difficult to manage it. The fact that we can create any document and records using ICT easily than before does not mean that it is easier to manage it. New challenge arises, 'on how to maintain integrity of the records on the basis of evidential value, its authenticity, accountability and integrity of electronic records. A major question arises "how are we going to manage electronic records similarly with its predecessor-paper records, while maintaining its authenticity, validity and integrity?" This is the major concern in managing digitally born records of today.

The records management practices in capturing organizational memory

The records management practices in capturing organizational memory

By : Alwi Mohd Yunus

Faculty of Information Management

Universiti Teknologi MARA

Shah Alam

Selangor, Malaysia

Records management is an integral part of the organization work processes. Without records, organization faces the consequences of loosing their transactional evidences, proof of conducts, facing probable litigation, and historical memory of its conduct. Nit only limited to that, organization faces losing valuable information in the form of knowledge, best practices and lesson learnt from its daily conduct (explicit knowledge) and its human capital (tacit knowledge). Hence, it is important for organization to strive in managing its records and play critical role in identifying and capturing its knowledge into records and maintaining them accordingly, and by doing so safeguarding the organization’s intellectual assets, moving human capital into structural capital. Nonaka emphasizes that knowledge especially tacit knowledge is a main source for creating new knowledge and continuous innovation. The need for, and ability of, organizations to capture tacit knowledge remains a disputed academic issue. Considering Nonaka’s hierarchy of data, information and knowledge, the need for an effort to capture knowledge seems to be a fair and logical conclusion. Making the case for capturing tacit knowledge, this paper goes on to discuss some of the implications for records management and records managers. There are no easy solutions on offer for the successful capture and re-use of knowledge but questions are raised about the role of records managers. Developing relevant skills and taking responsibility for helping organizations with this strategic goal, thereby contributing to some core aspirations of employers, should be an exciting prospect and worthwhile activity. Since information and knowledge management is encompassing to every aspects of data, information and knowledge in organization, one has to look at the practices of records management and its relation to knowledge management holistically as a continuous efforts and processes of capturing critical knowledge be it tacit or explicit knowledge possessed or owned by organization. Within this context, the practices of records management and knowledge management varies from achieving better organizational administration to producing innovative products and better services. It is tantamount to say that records management play a critical role in the operation of administrative work of an organization. Records bring evidence in organizational transactions. And not only limited to that, records is the source of organizational information and knowledge. It is where the documented lesson learnt, best practices, expert documentation and past mistakes are referred to in learning organization. Whereby, within the context of knowledge management, records is prime resource for organizational improvements in operations, development of innovative products and services thus adding value to organizational knowledge asset. However, the practices of records management initiatives in organizational context, knowledge management initiatives and knowledge capturing specifically is yet to be determined. This is due to the fact that records management by itself is an ignored aspect in organization, and not focused on dollar and cents rather on intangible benefits to organization. Therefore, it requires in depth study with regard to the practices of records management in relation to knowledge capturing. The relationship between the practices of records management in the process of knowledge capturing in organizational context is due to be explored. This study looks into deeper understanding of the function of records management practices in knowledge capturing activity. It seeks to explore the neglected but critical functions played by records management in identifying explicit knowledge and turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by way of documenting it and keeping it as corporate memory of an organization.

Stumbling block for Records Management

Dear all,


Organizational culture and individual perceptions on records management are two main stumbling blocks for the spur of records management in Malaysia. If organization does not recognize records as key performance driver for the success of organizational operations and service delivery, an organization will always have problem in delivering utmost customer satisfaction while determining the root cause for such lackluster performance of their staffs are of constraint. No documentation are taken care off properly while slow response to attend to customer's complaints are among the main indicator. While customers expect their loyalty to the service offered by an organization is given due recognition, this is not prevail in today's most organization when their service records are no where in the organization due to failure of record keeping and filing system.


Individual perceptions add more injury to the acceptance of records management as a key driver for performance. This occur from top level management to low level management personnel. The accountability is mostly by the top management. Records management is considered secondary and this perception exists in most organization. Some data on this would be provided later!


Think about it!


It is a hope that records management graduates from the Faculty of Information Management would be able to promote proper record keeping in their organization they work for. In as much, the Faculty of Information Management of UiTM has produced many batches of graduates in records management, and many of them currently work for variety of organizations and government agencies in Malaysia. It is highly hope that, it is them who would be able to penetrate, giving awareness and explaining records management to others. They are the ambassador of records management in Malaysia!


Please respond to the call! O! Records management graduates!

Knowing Data Archive...

Dear all...Salam ukhuwwah!

Some excerpts from my thesis......

Background to the UK Data Archive
The UK Data Archive at the University of Essex is one of a worldwide network of data archives which had their origins in preserving and providing access to social science data for use by the academic community. Like many of these archives The Data Archive has expanded its role beyond social science data and it now services users outside of the academic community. It was established 30 years ago and is located at the University of Essex, a university with especial strengths in social science and economics. The Data Archive exists to promote wider and more informed use of data in research and teaching and to preserve these data so that they continue to be accessible over time. Its holdings are acquired from a wide variety of sources including central and local government, academia, independent research agencies and commercial sources such as market research agencies. Many of the activities of The Data Archive will be familiar to librarians and keepers of more conventional paper archives. They include:
- establishing user needs to determine what data should be acquired
- negotiating to acquire the data and to determine the conditions of access
- clarifying any confidentiality restrictions
- assisting data providers to create documentation required by secondary users
- validation of data and documentation
- supplementing documentation by adding information on format, media, conditions of access, and on the outcome of quality checks
- preservation of the data and documentation on different media and the establishment of a programme to check for data corruption, to refresh existing media and to migrate onto new media
- cataloguing and indexing by professional staff
- reformatting the data, digitising documentation and delivering data and documentation to users promoting use and supporting users.

DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION MANAGE THEIR DATA???

DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION HAVE THESE?

IF NOT........get ready towards it! Let me know, I will help as necessary!