First Expert Panel Meeting

The AC+erm Project’s First Expert Panel Meeting was held on 23^rd October at Northumbria University. The role of the Expert Panel is to peer review the research process and ongoing findings.

The Panel is drawn from Northumbria University staff, Visiting Professors, and the local area, plus two international RM experts, one from Australia, one from Canada. The 14 Panel members cover all the four stakeholder groups in recordkeeping (i.e. executives/senior managers, records professionals, IT/systems administrators and recordkeepers). They represent a wide range of disciplines and public and private sectors, i.e. the disciplines of Built Environment, Business/Finance, Computer Science, Design, Engineering, Health, History, Information Sciences, Information Systems, and the sectors of Higher Education, Central Government, Consultancy, IT, Law, Local Government.

The topics discussed at the meeting comprised:

• Overview of Project
• Systematic Literature Review
• Methodology
• Summary of Interim Results
• Designing an architecture
• Next Stages of the Project
• Inputs - Engaging Participants
• Outputs – Engaging Vignettes
  

1. Systematic Literature Review Interim Results
See the previous post for details.

2. Designing an architecture?
The focus of this project is designing an organisation-centred architecture for electronic records management (ERM) from three perspectives: (i) people, including vision, awareness, culture, drivers and barriers; (ii) working practices including processes, procedures, policies and standards; and (iii) technology in terms of the design principles for delivering effective recordkeeping. The members of the Expert Panel were asked: But what does architecture mean in the context of the problems and issues we are investigating? What do we need to consider in designing an organisation-centred architecture? What do you see as architecture from your perspective (representing a specific stakeholder group / discipline)? What does it mean to you?

If you want to answer these questions add a comment to this post or email us on eb.acerm@northumbria.ac.uk

(2) Engaging participants?

In the next phase of the project, starting in January 2008, we will be exploring the people perspective of ERM. We will do this via electronic/telephone Delphi studies and face-to-face colloquia. We will be wanting to have participants from all the stakeholder groups (i.e. senior managers, records professionals, IT/systems administrators and recordkeepers) and from a wide range of disciplines and sectors. The Expert Panel were asked for any suggestions on engaging such participants in the project. This could be named individuals/organisations that could act as contact points, or strategies to engage a specific stakeholder group, e.g. for executive managers we would need to demonstrate how they would benefit from participating in our project, or ways of contacting a specific stakeholder group, e.g. some people prefer face to face/telephone contact others email.

If you have any suggestions, please add a comment to this post or email us on eb.acerm@northumbria.ac.uk

(3) Engaging our audience?
We aim to output our interim findings at stages during the project so we can engage our audience and enable positive change in ERM. We plan to produce a series of vignettes, i.e. stories or pictures, that present our findings about the important issues that need addressing and any practical solutions identified. These vignettes could be e.g. a textual narrative, a set of images, a 'rich picture', a sound bite from a discussion. They could be presented e.g. via our blog/Web site, or emailed to organisations/discussion lists/individuals, or produced as leaflets. The Expert Panel were asked for any suggestions on the format/style/method of dissemination of such vignettes for specific stakeholders/disciplines/sectors.

If you have any suggestions, please add a comment to this post or email us on eb.acerm@northumbria.ac.uk