In the mid 1990’s records management simply transferred its paper practices over into the electronic world; building classification structures and folders into network drives or Electronic Document and Records Management (EDRM) systems. Web 1.0 didn’t make any significant difference to EDRM strategies. Staff passively consumed websites, but they were still dependent for theor own work on the systems provided, policed and controlled by their organisations. Now Web 2.0 is here, colleagues can create, share and store information in any number of web-hosted applications: Google docs, blogs, wikis, Slideshare, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook etc. The information is not held on the organisation’s servers. Web 2.0 is tilting the balance of power away from the organisation towards the individual. There is a dichotomy between organisation-centric information management and user-centric information management, which is not being recognised or given sufficient priority by Records Managers. It will be interesting to see how future disclosure if information under the Freedom of Information Act will be addressed where significant parts of the ‘evidential record’ are distributed across different applications, many of which are outside the firewall, and many of which are potentially unknown to CIO’s.I presented on this dichotomy between the structure and control as enforced through traditional electronic document and records managements systems (EDRMS) and the almost freeform environment of Web 2.0 at a recent Public Sector Forums event. Perhaps the title of the presentation is a little over-dramatic, but my intention was to evoke some interest and reaction from what appears to be a very laissez faire attitude to all this from Records Managers and other information management professionals. I don’t profess to have all the answers to the issues, but it might go some way to thinking about how these issues are going to be addressed if there was at least some recognition that current IM policies and standards are at best out of date and at worst, completely irrelevant in a Web 2.0 world. Perhaps this blog might at least raise some awareness!
Edrm And Web 2.0 Where Two Worlds Collide Slideshare Mar09
View more presentations from Steve Dale.
[…] EDRM and Web 2.0 – where two worlds collide. […]
[…] A better checklist of survival initiatives I cannot imagine. Similar sentiments are being expressed elsewhere, from Clay Shirky’s Ontology is Overrated a few years ago, to the challenge posed by Web 2.0 to structured information management disciplines like Records Management (see e.g. Steve Dale’s recent blog entry EDRM and Web 2.0 – where two worlds collide). […]