Step One - agreeing a strategy for record keeping
You are referred to the DIRKS Manual, Step E - Strategies for record keeping for a detailed review of exactly what a record keeping strategy is and what options you need to consider.
Your record keeping strategy should include developing or adopting policies and procedures; developing or adopting standards and implementing new system components or complete new systems and practices. The key is that the strategy ensures that your education organisation meets its record keeping requirements and meets the business objectives set for the project.
You are referred to the JISC infoNet records management infoKit for a generic records management policy.
The DIRKS manual states that to complete step E you need to have completed four tasks:
Investigate the broad range of tactics available to satisfy record keeping requirements
Identify appropriate tactics to satisfy your organisation’s record keeping requirements
Assess factors that may support or hinder the adoption of these tactics in your education organisation
Adopt an overall design strategy to bring the tactics to fruition
The overall result of this step should be an agreed planned and systematic approach to the creation, capture, maintenance, use and preservation of records in your education organisation that will achieve the following objectives laid down in the DIRKS manual in step E:
Provide the basis for good record keeping practices throughout your education organisation
Assist with the design or redesign of your education organisation ’s record keeping and information systems
Contribute or respond to related education organisation al objectives (business process re-engineering; e business; streamlined administration; compliance; space savings etc)
The DIRKS manual defines two key deliverables from this step:
A documented range of tactics that satisfy your organisation's record keeping requirements and meet organisational constraints and
A report for senior management recommending an overall strategy to improve record keeping in your education organisation
Obviously you cannot conduct this step unless you have gone through stages one, two and three of the toolkit beforehand. Also if you are completing the tasks listed in the stages in a roughly chronological manner then you should have already drawn up a corporate classification scheme and a retention schedule and you should have created an audit of records held and documented existing record keeping procedures in detail. Hence key parts of your records management strategy will already have been completed. What we are considering here is how to use the tools created to date and the information gathered to date to achieve further improvements in record keeping and meet the specific record keeping requirements and the specific business objectives agreed for this project by your education organisation.
The DIRKS manual usefully identifies four broad approaches that can help an organisation satisfy its record keeping requirements. These are:
Policy tactics - principles, statements, instructions and other corporate instruments
Design based tactics - the definition and specification of system functionality and the development or selection of technological solution;
Implementation - specific tactics - practical user-oriented solutions
Standards development and compliance tactics
Such tactics can be applied separately but are usually needed in combination to meet an education organisation's requirements. As indicated above this toolkit is primarily focused on successfully implementing an EDRM solution so the second approach is singled out and covered in much more detail in step two below. This step continues to consider all four approaches at a high level.
