Celebrate Electronic Records Day October 10!

Electronic Records Day

Please join with the Council of State Archivists to celebrate Electronic Records Day. Electronic Records Day is an opportunity to raise awareness among government agencies, related professional organizations, the general public and other stakeholders about the crucial role electronic records play in our world and the need to manage and preserve them. More information and resources are available at the Council of State Archivists’ website. Also, when looking for resources to share with stakeholders, don’t forget about the OhioERC’s tip sheets!

Free Online Social Media Training Still Available!

If you are looking for training that can be completed remotely, the OhioERC still has spots available for its free online training module Social Media: The Records Management Challenge.  This training delves into topics such as:    

  • Government use of social media – through both public and personal accounts
  • Capture, management and disposition factors of records created on social media
  • Citizen interaction with government through social media

This training is geared toward governments that have social media accounts as well as elected officials and public employees who may find themselves balancing a personal social media presence with their public roles.  This is a great resource to have Human Resources bookmark and make available to newly hired staff or newly elected officials.  It is especially important for department heads and those in elected offices to be aware of the issues brought up in the training.

The training registration can be found at http://go.osu.edu/ohioerc-socialmedia. After registering, you will be taken to BuckeyeLearn to access the training.  The training will take approximately 30 to 45 minutes.  Upon completion of the training, you will be able to print a certificate of completion from BuckeyeLearn. 

Grant funding from the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB), through the National Historical Publication and Records Commission (NHPRC), has provided for up to 2000 unique registrations.  Since the number is limited, act fast to take this online training! Please share this exciting opportunity with others that you feel would benefit from the training.

NDSA has released Levels of Digital Preservation v2.0

Of interest to our Ohio electronic records community, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) has released Levels of Digital Preservation v2.0!

Originally minted in 2013 (original Matrix at NDSA’s OSF site), the Levels of Digital Preservation provide a matrix by which to assess and guide one’s digital preservation program from a technological point of view. In early 2018, the NDSA sent out a call to the larger digital preservation community asking for interest in updating the Levels of Preservation.  Response was high – 125 individuals responded from across North America and beyond! NDSA then convened the Levels of Preservation Working group, which divided up into subgroups to tackle the many areas the community wanted to see addressed in a Levels Reboot. These subgroups included:

  • Revisions: charged with updating the Levels Matrix, including the normalization of language across the functional areas and levels.
  • Implementation: surveyed the community to see how the Levels had been used in the past and what people did and did not liked about its structure and content.  This information (survey results at NDSA’s OSF site) was one of the sources used to assist with the revisions.  This subgroup collaborated with the Revisions subgroup on an implementation guide Using the Levels of Digital Preservation: an overview for V2.0.
  • Assessment: explored how the Levels had been used to assess digital preservation efforts (report at NDSA’s OSF site), and have developed an Assessment Tool based on the updated Levels Matrix. 
  • Curatorial: charged with identifying and crafting the basis of a series of discussion and decision points around how collections materials can be mapped to the Levels and other elements within an organizations’ preservation strategy.  

The next steps will be to create a subgroup to address the development of strategy and additional materials to support the Levels of Digital Preservation v2.0 educational and advocacy efforts. Please contact Bradley Daigle at ndsa.digipres [at] gmail [dot] com if you are interested in working on this or being added to the Levels of Preservation Google Group.