This chapter is the first of two that consider the knowledge, skills and expertise that individual employees required in order to carry out their records management responsibilities – the factors are identified at level two of the ICF (see Figure 2.1). Two main components of this information expertise can be distinguished: information-related competencies and awareness of environmental requirements (a.k.a. legislative/regulatory awareness). The latter is the subject of the next chapter.

Information and digital literacy skills are essential prerequisites for the development of a diffuse recordkeeping culture in organisations. The purview of this area is very wide ranging, from general skills such as the ability to deal with information overload, to the particular training needs associated with specific systems. In keeping with the increasing blurring of the boundaries between work and social life, digital literacy skills in particular will encompass competencies in a broad range of activities.

The chapter begins with discussion of the need to provide training for employees, and the issues and challenges faced in doing so. This is followed by an explanation of the two main perspectives that can be used in relation to recordkeeping training, information and digital literacy. Suggestions for using issues and concerns in these broad areas to focus on recordkeeping responsibilities include dealing with information overload, use of social media and digital continuity. Assessment techniques at level two of the ICF should preferably be undertaken in collaboration with others within the organisation, but suggestions for a solely recordkeeping approach are included here. The section on interventions suggests ways in which training content can be presented, including using employees’ need for skills to manage their personal digital lives as a means of communicating key recordkeeping concepts.

The ‘how to’ of training is discussed in Chapter 6.

The training imperative

There is no question about the need for records managers to be actively involved in providing training to other members of their organisations. The international standard on records management, ISO15489, unequivocally emphasises that the practitioners charged with managing records programmes are not the only ones with duties and responsibilities relating to the creation and maintenance of records. The standard states that:

The twofold purpose of the first edition of this book, Records Management and Information Culture: Tackling the people problem, holds true for this second edition. Firstly, the motivation to do something about the messy and difficult issues which are inevitable when we attempt to manage records in organisations and communities. Why are they inevitable? Because organisations are made up of people, who have different backgrounds, goals and expectations, and whose primary purpose as employees is to perform work as set out in their position descriptions. Each individual will have some responsibilities related to the creation and management of records and information, but in the majority of cases, such responsibilities will not be itemised in their job descriptions. The magnitude of this people problem has been frequently described anecdotally but now there is empirical evidence available in the outcomes of the University of Northumbria's research project into electronic records management issues. The headline findings from this global project included the following:

A further finding from the same project was particularly striking, as it points to some critical features in the way that we work that may in fact prove to be detrimental to achieving our goals:

These findings have been echoed in subsequent studies, for example in Sir Alex Allan's review of electronic recordkeeping in British government departments. Summary findings included the following comments:

This is the second of the two chapters focusing on factors at level two of the ICF, and addresses the extent to which staff are aware of environmental requirements relating to records and recordkeeping, and the need to develop training that focuses on this area.

The phrase environmental requirements is used as an umbrella term to encompass the laws, standards and norms present in the broader societal, jurisdictional and organisational context. They include regional, national and provincial or local legislation, as well as standards and codes of practice. Clearly, the first step in addressing this aspect of information culture is to identify what is relevant to a specific organisation. This is discussed in the first part of the chapter. This is followed by the steps needed to find out if existing organisational policy reflects those requirements, and to identify and take action on any gaps. The final stage is to find out to what extent employees are familiar with requirements and, most importantly, whether they are able (and willing) to put these requirements into practice. This assessment stage may involve surveying users – in contrast to the first two investigative stages, which can largely be explored by researching existing databases. Sample survey questions that can be used to identify training needs are suggested. The final part of the chapter discusses the training-related delivery choices that have to be made, and includes consideration of the relative advantages and disadvantages of different training-delivery modes (for example, group versus one on one, synchronous versus asynchronous) and highlights the need to develop sustainable training programmes.

It is important at this point to recall the ‘soft’ perspective that underlies our approach. Understanding the environment in which recordkeeping activities take place does not simply mean identifying external and internal requirements based on the available formal documentation. The latter will not tell us how the organisation actually works, how it enacts any of the identified requirements, how such requirements influence people's behaviour. Managing records is a social phenomenon that takes place in ‘human activity systems’ (Checkland, 1999), which are inevitably messy and unpredictable because they involve us, human beings who may always choose to act otherwise.

Recordkeepers are faced with enormous challenges: on the one hand, demonstrating their relevance in an information environment that is in a constant state of flux, while on the other attempting to just get on and do their job of managing information as evidence, for accountability purposes. The demands of one may mean that the other is neglected, or only partially addressed. Additionally, in their role as mediators between various subject area experts (who may have very different needs in terms of both evidence and information) and IT specialists (responsible for designing and maintaining the systems used to manage corporate information) records professionals occupy a rather uncomfortable position in organisations, one that requires not only disciplinary knowledge but also ‘people skills’. The latter may be described as the ability to listen and to communicate effectively, thereby building relationships of trust and productive interactions with coworkers (Bolton, 1986). Taking an information culture perspective will assist in cultivating such ‘soft skills’, thus providing a very different view of the workplace and its challenges, which in turn can lead to more creative and innovative approaches to the problems we face.

The purpose of this final chapter is twofold: first, to provide an overview of assessment techniques that have been detailed throughout the book and to consolidate the next steps suggestions for subsequent actions; and second, to consider how information culture perspectives can be included in archives and records education and training courses.

Assessment techniques

As discussed in Chapter 1, the development of new tools, standards and approaches is increasingly being trumpeted. However, the downside is that some seem to be represented as universal cure-alls, and figuring out where and when to apply them is left to the users of these new tools. As seen in Chapter 9, taking a ‘soft’ systems thinking approach may help. Another useful consideration is that existing and future methodologies for calculating metrics, such as the various maturity models and impact calculators, should be used judiciously as part of a suite of tools. We need to be able to assess when, where and how each of these is best used; if a particular approach is going to be most effective in terms of communicating to management, then that could be a very valid reason for using it. Our information culture assessment can be supplemented by using other metrics, but these cannot replace taking an information culture perspective

Every organisation, society, or community, has an information culture, or even multiple information cultures. Being able to analyse and understand these cultures is instrumental in developing records management pro - grammes and systems that take people – the employees of the organisation, the members of the society or community – into account. The purpose of this initial chapter is to provide the background detail which describes and explains the foundations of the assessment framework discussed in the subsequent chapters.

This chapter begins by tracking the origins of the concept of information culture, and explaining why recordkeeping cultures deserve special attention, despite the current ‘convergence’ trends that tend to prioritise the notion of information over data and records (Yeo, 2018). Reporting on efforts to date studying information culture from societal, national and organisational perspectives, the latter perspective is emphasised because of its key relevance to records management in the 21st-century workplace. At this organisational level, two incompatible (alternative) points of view can be identified: one that regards an information culture as being conducive to good information management, and the other that takes the view that all organisations have an information culture, no matter how effective the latter may be perceived to be.

This then leads into the specific theoretical orientation influencing our approach to information culture, which is the records continuum. We explain how information culture is an integral part of a new conceptualisation of records management: recordkeeping informatics. This chapter then provides an overall introduction to the Information Culture Framework (ICF), briefly explaining the different levels, of the Framework and the relationships between them.

Finally, the ICF is clearly differentiated by considering it in the context of other evaluation methodologies and tools, such as information audits, information maturity, DIRKS (State Records New South Wales’ Design and Implementation of Recordkeeping Systems), the Impact Calculator, and ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) International's Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (GARP).

The concepts of information culture and recordkeeping culture

Information culture has been studied from two main perspectives: societal (including national) and organisational. The main focus of this book is on organisational information culture, a concept that we redefine more appropriately as recordkeeping culture; but societal- and national-level consid - erations have to be acknowledged, as these different approaches are not by any means mutually exclusive.

This chapter considers the ICF at level three, the tip of the pyramid. Features at this level are open to change, but are most susceptible if they are approached with good understanding of the characteristics of the features at levels one and two.

Information governance is a very widely used phrase, so this chapter begins by discussing the concept in order to clearly differentiate our focus, which is specifically on the organisational information technology infra - structure and the recordkeeping systems and tools that this infrastructure supports. However, it is not possible to limit consideration to simply what is happening internally, because organisations rely increasingly on external services to carry out their operations. In particular, cloud computing cannot be ignored, as it has massive implications for recordkeeping. Security considerations, the need to manage the delicate balance between protecting records from unauthorised use while facilitating access, are discussed. Recordkeeping systems and tools are considered from the perspective that they need to be embedded in all systems. Assessment techniques are very practical and do not necessitate in-depth expertise in IT. Profiling provides an approach to reviewing corporate IT as reflected in the organisation's approach to information architecture. The coherence of the architecture can be identified by determining the extent to which the information systems in use interconnect. Key questions are: is the same data used by multiple systems? Is data re-entry required at any point? Are multiple logons required to accomplish related tasks?

Also relevant here are the organisation's IT policies and procedures, identifying any which may impact on employees’ recordkeeping behaviours and perhaps motivate unauthorised workarounds. The section on interventions suggests practical tips for working collaboratively with IT departments.

Information governance

Given the ever-increasing capacities to create and store information, information governance is a hot topic for society in general, and has been widely seen by the recordkeeping profession as an opportunity to demonstrate its relevance. As discussed by Geoffrey Yeo in his 2018 book, Records, Information and Data, since the beginning of the 21st century the term ‘information governance’ has been promoted as ‘a response, not just to the explosion of technology or to notions of an incipient Information Society, but also to the growth of what might be called the compliance agenda’ (Yeo, 2018, 66).

This chapter is concerned with two features that can be related to any of the three ICF levels, namely, language and trust. The first part of the chapter introduces the idea of language as a socially constructed phenomenon. After examining the impact of the English language on recordkeeping it considers the local usage of certain terms by the members of specific workplace communities (i.e. their ‘vernacular’) and the relationship among different professional/technical languages, or jargons, within organisations. One of the purposes of this section is to uncover the rhetorical and social aspects of writing and speaking in the workplace. The underlying framework is provided by ideas derived from Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS). Readers who wish to know more about the genre approach will find a dedicated section in Chapter 9 (pp. 160–2).

The second part of the chapter explores the notion of trust in the context of the ICF, in particular, people's trust in recordkeeping systems and processes. In Chapter 3 we considered another aspect of trust as reflected in preferences for different types of information: the likelihood of people placing more trust in their social network as a source of information as opposed to textual resources, and vice versa. In this chapter the focus is on shared practices and perceptions of those practices. In particular we will examine whether employees trust the systems that have been established within their organisations to manage records. The section begins by discussing archival perspectives on trust and trustworthiness, and identifies initiatives that have been developed to demonstrate trust, particularly by the digital preservation community. As our information culture perspectives are concerned with the ways that people feel and behave, our focus then turns to discussion of the consequences of lack of trust in organisational systems. Assessment techniques acknowledge the existing tools and methods that have been developed to address this area, but encourage going further, to find out how users regard the systems that have been set up, and the section on interventions explains the notion of reflective practice.

Another objective of the sections on assessment and interventions, and of the chapter as a whole, is to show how records professionals can contribute to making language more suitable to their purposes.

The focus of this chapter is on the final level one factor of the ICF (see Figure 1.2): the technological infrastructure that allows people and organisations to interconnect at the regional level. This is linked to a cultural layer known as ‘supranational’, which involves ‘cultural differences that cross boundaries or can be seen to exist in more than one nation’ (Karahanna et al., 2005, 5). Some of these cultural differences may not belong to more than one country or portion of a country at any point in time (for example, restrictions to internet access established at a national level); however, political and geographical borders can potentially change and, when they do so, often change quite rapidly, which is why we refer to these features as supranational.

We are still dealing with ICF level one, which means that the features we examine here are deeply rooted in specific socio-historical contexts and can hardly be modified through planned human intervention. People migrations and, more generally, phenomena of globalisation of products, ideas and other aspects of culture have an impact on such supranational factors. However, their consequences tend to manifest over long periods of time and must be taken into account when working across borders or developing international strategies such as standards.

The chapter considers the telecommunication services (primarily the internet) and the hardware and software products that constitute the technological infrastructure we all depend on as creators and users of digital information. The main factors influencing this broad infrastructure are reviewed and used as a basis to discuss possible future scenarios.

In the sections on assessment methods and interventions you will learn how to apply assessment techniques already identified in the previous chapters in order to find out what information and communication technologies (ICTs) are available in different regions.

Dealing with your organisation's broader technological contex

While Chapter 7 discusses technological capabilities and strategies established at the organisational level – that is, corporate IT governance issues which are highly susceptible to change based on internal decisions, and which affect employees’ work practices from within – this chapter deals with the technological enablers and constraints about which you and your organisation cannot really do anything, as they lie outside your control:, for instance, the broadband service that is available in your region, or the internet accessibility established by your government.

The Information Culture Analysis Toolkit (hereafter, the toolkit) that is introduced in this chapter is one of the most significant innovations produced by our research on information and recordkeeping culture. The toolkit was developed thanks to funding provided by the International Council on Archives’ (ICA) Programme Commission (PCOM), which allowed us to conduct a series of case studies where we applied the ICF as presented in the first edition of this book (Oliver and Foscarini, 2014).

The chapter starts with an overview of the ICA-funded research project that resulted in the development of the toolkit as its major deliverable. The components of the toolkit and how they can be applied to a variety of recordkeeping environments will be described. This initial section is followed by a detailed explanation of the cultural indicators identified as key to the analysis of information culture – i.e. genres, workarounds and infrastructure. A brief discussion of the results of testing the toolkit in real organisations is followed by an explanation of the kind of reasoning that informs our culturally sensitive approach to information management and recordkeeping, that is, ‘soft’ systems thinking.

‘Learning to walk the talk’

Immediately after the publication of Records Management and Information Culture: tackling the people problem (Oliver and Foscarini, 2014) we were awarded an ICA-PCOM grant that allowed us to carry out an action research project, ‘Learning to Walk the Talk: Analysing Information Culture’. Through an exploration of the information cultures of archival authorities, the project aimed to help organisational actors to understand and apply the key concepts of information culture as part of next-generation recordkeeping practice. The decision to focus on archival authorities (namely, the national archives of Australia, Fiji, the Netherlands and Brazil) had nothing to do with their core functions, in the sense that we were not interested in analysing the ways they managed their holdings or how they served researchers and the general public. Instead we wanted to study the information culture of communities (archivists and records managers) in different parts of the world that supposedly understand the value of records and are therefore expected to act accordingly (‘walk the talk’).

This chapter is the first of three that consider the level one factors of the ICF (see Figure 1.2). It deals with the area that can be the most daunting and is possibly the most challenging to tackle and to develop strategies for: the extent to which members of the organisation ‘respect records’; or, to put it another way, the extent to which people accept that it is desirable and necessary to manage information as evidence, for accountability purposes. This core value will be reflected in behaviours and attitudes, in resourcing and, ultimately, in the success of the records management programme.

The chapter begins by providing some background to explain the influences that shape this value. It then describes the likely manifestation of differing values towards information as evidence, as reflected in attitudes and behaviours, the recordkeeping infrastructure and IT usage. The next section suggests various methods to use in assessment, including observation, survey and/or interviews, and provides guidance to help select which options are appropriate in different organisational environments. The concluding section, on interventions, suggests ways to develop appropriate responses, which include taking what may be perceived as radically different approaches to traditionally accepted practices.

Cultural influences

The cultural influences that shape people's thinking about information as evidence, i.e. records, are many and varied. Organisational culture theory stresses that attention should be paid to layers of culture – e.g. national, occupational (or professional) and corporate. This has been explored at length in previous work (Oliver, 2011; Foscarini et al., 2013), and so the main points are just briefly summarised here. Organisations and the people who work in them do not exist in a vacuum, therefore it is incorrect to assume that ‘organisational culture’ is an easily discernible characteristic that can be neatly categorised as good or bad, strong or weak. The geographic location of the organisation will strongly influence the way things are done, not least because of the laws, regulations and standards that govern the workplace. The industry or sector to which the organisation belongs (e.g. banking, education, health) will offer similarities in terms of approaches to recordkeeping, understandings of its purpose and any ethical considerations attached to it.