ARMA Liberty Bell Chapter Sponsored MER Sessions

 

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December 2011 – Electronic Records Management Boot Camp

For those new to electronic records management or not sure where to start, this web seminar from the 2011 MER Conference provides an introduction to ERM. For seasoned practitioners, this web seminar provides a pulse check, providing “key consideration” checklists for electronic records initiatives for structured, “semi-structured” and structured data systems. It concludes with a risk-based approach for project prioritization.

This web seminar will help participants to:
• Develop a comprehensive view of their organization’s systems and applications
• Categorize the systems and applications in a manner that facilitates comparison
• Develop an integrated framework of ERM initiatives.

This web seminar provides participants with an “ERM checklist” of topics including:
• Structured Data Systems: The discussion of structured data will focus on the suitability of information processing systems as “official” electronic recordkeeping systems.

This part also will also explore how to work and communicate collaboratively with IT.
• Unstructured and Semi-Structured Data Systems: Possibly the greatest challenge facing the RIM professional today is the management of unstructured data and documents stored on shared drives, in document management systems, in SharePoint and other collaborative tools, etc.

This part will focus on the records management governance requirements critical to managing this ever-growing volume of content.
• Messaging Systems: After 15+ years of struggling with email management, it is still the scourge of records management for many organizations. In addition to email, the management of instant messaging, text messaging, etc. will be discussed.

The web seminar concludes with considerations for developing a prioritized, strategic plan with the objective of comprehensive ERM throughout the organization.

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January 2012 – Information Management Architecture

 

To find solutions for managing massive volumes of information, organizations are increasingly using an Information Management Architecture (IMA). Historically, information management, including records management, has been primarily defined by existing and planned technology capabilities.

With IMA, information management solutions are the product of a two part process: first, define the information needs of the organization’s business processes and second, overlay those needs on the technology architecture.

IMA is designed to accommodate both a diversity of business needs for information and also the many different types of information-related risks that organizations have. The key benefit of IMA is that it directly connects the management of information to the work being performed by the business – at the enterprise, business process, and local levels.

Regarding RIM, as part of the normal work process, IMA automatically culls obsolete information, declares records, and stores knowledge for future reference.

Consider these examples of benefits:
• Legal receives a simple guide to where all of the organization’s information is located
• IT gets valid and consistent guidance to business rules and technology opportunities
• Senior Executives finally see results from their information management investments.

Learning about IMA will help your organization save valuable deployment time and improve the probability of success.

Participants in this web seminar from the 2011 MER Conference will learn how to design and implement an IMA.

This will include:
• Segmenting component business processes and building out the information needs of each
• Overlaying this architecture over the existing and planned technology architecture
• Analyzing and developing priorities for better aligning technology and information management needs with the business processes of the organization.

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February 2012 – RIM Performance Standards: Achieving the Right Mix of Great and Good Enough

RIM principles and standards establish goals for excellence that can help your organization achieve greater success in records management. However, neither the courts nor your organization's leaders expect perfection everywhere. In fact, the key to RIM success is to define where your organization must achieve RIM great, and where RIM should be good enough.

The right balance of great and good enough varies by industry, and it varies by business area within industries as well. Demonstrating the right balance of these two will enable your organization to meet the legal tests of good faith and reasonability.

This web seminar from the 2010 MER Conference demonstrates how RIM Tools for Excellence have evolved to embrace a more holistic approach to RIM to meet the new challenges of electronic records management.

This web seminar addresses:

·         The different types of RIM "tools for excellence" and how to view them in the context of your organization.

·         Why we need to move from "records management" to "information governance", and what that means for achieving the right mix of good enough and great RIM.

·         How to apply two tools in particular - Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (GARP) and Assured Records Management (ARM) to implement effective information governance for your organization.

·         How this approach supports good faith and reasonability.

During the session, we will leverage GARP and ARM to explore a hypothetical case study to demonstrate RIM tools for excellence and information governance in action. You will learn:

·         The value of using a consistent "industry agnostic" metric to evaluate how your organization's RIM performance "stacks up".

·         How to align cross-functional stakeholders around a clear vision of where your organization must be great and where it can be just good enough.

·         How to translate that vision into the GARP maturity model, and define the maturity levels that are optimal for your organization.

·         And how to implement ongoing information governance that will help your organization achieve its RIM goals year over year.

Whether you are just getting started with your RIM program, or you face the challenges of improving an existing program, this session will help you will learn how the appropriate application of RIM tools for excellence - and specifically GARP and ARM -- can be used to achieve the right mix of great and good enough and support the legal tests of good faith and reasonability.

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March 2012 – Case Study: Toward the Future: City of Toronto Digital Preservation Initiative

 

This web seminar from the 2011 MER Conference is a case study of the 2010 City of Toronto (www.toronto.ca) initiative to address long-term preservation of and access to the city's growing volume of digitized and born digital records and information assets.

The City of Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario, and the largest city in Canada. The City of Toronto recognized that digital information technologies and electronic records were transforming the way the city’s information was being created, used, and preserved. As a result, the City undertook the development of a long-term digital preservation strategy that could be aligned with the City's infrastructure for enterprise information governance.

The City began the long-term preservation of digital information initiative by engaging outside professional expertise to:
• Define relevant standards and requirements from the worldwide community of memory institutions and government archives
• Apply a capability maturity model to assess the City’s electronic records and information management capabilities
• Define target capability levels and a five year implementation “roadmap” to ensure the long-term preservation and access to the City's digital assets.

This web seminar is a case study that includes:
• An overview of City of Toronto's information management goals and enterprise governance structure
• An assessment of the digital preservation capability maturity model used during the project
• Perspectives on the City's five year strategy to integrate digital preservation practices into business processes, technical infrastructure and the enterprise information management governance framework
• A progress report on implementation efforts and plans.

This web seminar will benefit individuals who realize they need to develop a long-term plan for preserving and accessing their digital assets, but may not know how to begin.

It presents the City of Toronto’s “how to” experience of facing the challenges of technology obsolescence and developing a strategy for integrated, incremental investments in its people, core business processes and enterprise information management systems and technologies to establish and sustain trusted levels of digital preservation capability.

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April 2012 - Applying Retention Schedules Successfully – To Both Paper AND Electronically Stored Information

 

Despite their best efforts, many companies haven’t been able to devise retention schedules that can be applied to both their paper records and electronically-stored information (ESI). Records categories that are too broadly written can lead to unnecessary records retention, make finding specific information time-consuming, and result in higher recordkeeping and discovery costs. Conversely, retention schedules that are too detailed aren’t easy to maintain or use. Having the right blend of specificity and universality isn’t impossible – it just takes understanding some key considerations.

This web seminar from the 2011 MER Conference addresses:
• Integrating conflicting statutory and regulatory requirements from different jurisdictions in ways that address different organizations’ unique cultures and needs.
• Learning when to limit the number of different retention time periods.
• Recognizing different options to handle “event-based” retention periods.
• Incorporating helpful tools so that employees can easily find the retention periods that apply to their most frequently used records.
• Balancing IT’s seemingly contradictory needs: Fewer retention periods that can be applied to broader groups of records and sufficiently detailed retention specifications that can be applied to specific tables of data within large, integrated business systems.

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May 2012 – The Revolutionary Implications of Search Processes on Electronic Records Management Programs

As electronic data volumes increase, the corporate enterprise is faced with challenges it may not have imagined even five years ago -

·         Operationally, they include: increasing compliance mandates and burdensome e-discovery requirements and

·         Technically, they include: the myriad of new technologies for data sharing, access and storage.

All of these factors drive the need to search, locate, and organize information accurately in efficient and cost-effective ways.

The benefits of an effective search methodology also can extend deep into the domain of Records Management and therein dramatically improve the ability to manage Electronic Records with unprecedented levels of precision and compliance.

This web seminar addresses the topic of search in its many aspects - practical, functional, and ethical - as it becomes an increasingly crucial element in Records Management:

·         What kinds of search methods exist and suited to which purposes?

·         What separates a search engine from a search query?

·         Can a search be deemed successful without measurement?

·         How can success even be measured?

·         Can effective search tools revolutionize the world of Records Management?

Using the judicial opinions as a guide for the appropriate ethical considerations of search in general, we will discuss the roles and responsibilities of those who employ search to achieve their Records Management goals, as well as the standards against which search should be measured.

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June 2012 – The Disposition of “Stuff” – Three Judicial Perspectives

Closing Keynote from the 2011 MER Conference

 

There are three operational reasons why the disposition of Stuff (no longer needed e-content) is a very important issue.
• There is so much e-stuff – with an ever-increasing rate of growth
• The cost of storing e-stuff is skyrocketing – with unsustainable budgetary impact
• The operating risks of having unwanted e-stuff are unacceptable – and contrary to good governance.

From the legal perspective, there is a corollary challenge:
• There is so little legal guidance – due to digital world’s relative newness. 

This web seminar from the 2011 MER Conference brings the operating and legal issues together before three federal magistrate judges with extensive knowledge and case law experience regarding electronically stored information (ESI).

The judges address a special “hypothetical”:
The general counsel of a company – which is regularly sued and has accumulated lots of Stuff – presents to the judicial panel an escalating series of “real-life” operating issues that have legal implications and, as such, would benefit from legal input/guidance.

This hypothetical has been specifically created for this MER’11 Keynote session.

The goal is threefold:
• Present the judges with challenging operating issues that organizations (especially businesses) are experiencing
• Foster a public dialogue that results in a better understanding of the legal and operational problems created by Stuff in the new digital world: how Stuff has been created, why the Stuff problem is so complex and large, and what are the real costs of preserving and accessing Stuff
• Discuss the operational and legal options available – respecting both the law and the operational risks/needs.

Are solutions to be best found in future case law or the next revision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or do they exist today?

In the tradition of MER keynotes, registrants will have an opportunity to ask questions and share thoughts with the presenters.