How good have government agencies in Australia become at social record keeping?

An interesting study has come across my desk from Rebecca Stoks, who is working on a Master of Information Management at Victoria University in New Zealand.

She sought in the report to answer the following question:

Recordkeeping is essential to the democratic process, but how can governments maintain public records when they are being created outside their realm of control?

To answer this, earlier in 2012 she conducted a study of government agencies in Australia to discover the extent to which they were capturing public records created on third party social media sites.

She approached agencies at local, state/territory and federal level, receiving 63 responses, about half from state government agencies and about 25% from local and federal.

Of these respondents 54 used social media, with 41 having used it for a year or more. However only 26 had a social media policy in place, with another 23 in the process of developing social media policies.

Of the 26 with a social media policy in place, only 13 of these policies mentioned the recordkeeping implications of using social media.

At the same time, 32 of the 63 respondents had been approached internally for advice on social media recordkeeping. As a result 11 had developed a procedure on social media recordkeeping, while another 19 were in the process of developing a procedure.

Rebecca found that of the 54 respondents using social media, most did not feel confident they were meeting their legal obligations to keep records, only 18 were capturing records.

Of these 18, some captured everything while others only capturing selected records – with most capturing records created and received by their agency as well as basic metadata associated with social media records, however only a few captured social media interactions such as ratings, tags and re-postings.

The agencies capturing social media records mostly used more than one method, with the most popular being taking screenshots, subscribing to syndication feeds or using a third party archiving service.

Only half of those agencies capturing social media records thought their methods were sustainable, with most who felt they were using more automated capture methods such as archiving services and syndication feeds.

Rebecca’s study also found that most respondents to the survey had consulted their local public records office about social media recordkeeping and found their advice useful. However, she says,

when asked what gaps existed in the current guidance on social media records, several respondents expressed a desire for practical and sustainable solutions for what to capture and how to capture.

In a review of Public Record Offices in May 2012, Rebecca found that six of the nine Australian Public Record Offices had published guidance, however most had only been first published in the last year and the depth and approach of the guidance varied enormously across jurisdiction, despite the goals being very similar.

To illustrate this, I’ve included a table from Rebecca’s report below

11.3 Common themes in the guidance on Social Media Recordkeeping

Practical and Procedural Advice	Public Record Office
	NAA	SRNSW	QSA	TRO	TAHO	PROV
Consider and mitigate the risks of using a cloud service		Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
Create policies and procedures for social media that detail recordkeeping requirements	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
Conduct a risk assessment of social media records		Yes	Yes	Yes
Identify which records need to be captured and create a strategy for how and when they will be captured	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collaborate with the business	Yes	Yes			Yes
Make a file note		Yes	Yes
Only capture/retain original records	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
Export data/Take screenshots	Yes	Yes	Yes			Yes
Create a “bridge” to internal systems		Yes		Yes
Use in-house solutions where possible		Yes			Yes
Attach minimum metadata to records			Yes		Yes	Yes
Use automated solutions where possible		Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
Promote awareness/provide training			Yes		Yes	Yes

If you’re interested in more information or a copy of Rebecca’s study – which is packed full of more juicy information (90 pages long), email me and I can put you in touch with her.