(posted on behalf of Silver Hinckley)
Hello! My name is Silver and for the past 11 months I have been the Records Management Student Assistant at the Centre for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL). This project has been challenging, fun, and has helped me grow in many ways. Before beginning this project, I had limited project management experience and, aside from one class, little to no records management experience. At times I felt like a sailor lost in the data sea and now, even though I may not have completely figured out how to steer the ship on my own, I have definitely found my sea legs. You can follow along my journey in the following 7 parts:
Part 1: Set adrift
To start, I needed to understand the CCEL department’s roles and functions and run a magical inventory generator tool created by a previous Work Learn Student, Morteza Rezaei. These steps would help me gain a better idea of the records. CCEL is a complex Centre with many different interdisciplinary programs and projects happening simultaneously. These programs, grants, and projects involve UBC students and faculty as well as local community members, groups, and organizations with some of these intertwining. This inspiring web of collaboration made many records management processes sticky – and required updating multiple documents often as I discovered more about the department and its records. Understanding the records’ provenance and purpose ended up being one of the largest and most repetitive challenges I faced. Luckily, the entire CCEL team was always kind, helpful, and happily answered my many repetitive questions.
After running the magical inventory tool, I was left with a beautiful, intimidating, massive itemized list of all folders and individual files within the CCEL Shared drive (thank you Morteza). The inventory tool creates an Excel document that separates each individual file and folder on its own row with columns listing helpful data for each. The columns include date of creation, date last accessed, date last edited, file type, file path and byte size. Like I said, magic. After running this tool, the CCEL shared drive had over 140,000 lines of files and folders for me to wade through.
Part 2: From the Crow’s Nest
My next step was to explore the file system and use my new inventory to begin doing high-level categorizing (“bucketing”) and applying retention schedules. This process was at first very overwhelming and took a long time as I would have to re-bucket and readjust files after continuing to understand the retention organization that aligned with the CCEL work being done. However, as my understanding of the retention schedules and CCEL work deepened, I was able to quickly navigate and apply both. This part became fun and extremely satisfying as some difficult-to-categorize records made the search for the correct retention schedule and category feel like solving a puzzle!
As I now smoothly swam through the records (mostly), labeling them in their proper “bucket” and retention schedule, I also marked file paths that were over 200 characters. This was necessary to warn the team of potential data corruption and bit rot. I began discussing best digital records management practices with coworkers to prevent further issues. All of this was possible through exploring the file structure, my inventory, and meetings with willing-to-learn and supportive coworkers.
Part 3: Part of the crew, part of the ship
As I classified the records, I worked on the Visio chart that would represent the new file structure I would be creating that aligned both CCEL work and retention schedules. I also began developing naming conventions for the unit.
After completing my initial swim through the depths of files and folders and applying retention schedules, it was clear that over half of the records were past their retention. Sorting through the massive amount of data to appraise records for archives or destruction was extremely difficult and had me questioning the archival value of emails from 2012 (as well as my own sanity). One involved a student explaining they were going to be late to an event because of “allergies”. If the record makes you laugh, does that add to its archival value? Probably not.
After many meetings and discussions with CCEL staff, I identified approximately 90,000, of the records as ready to be destroyed and another 5,000-ish ready to be sent to the archives. It was at this stage that I began using the remaining records to finalize the structure and the corresponding Visio chart. It was also at this stage that I began working on every Records Manager’s beloved compass: the Records Governance Documentation.
Part 4: Establishing landmarks
At this point, the Naming Conventions were finalized and I created and delivered a workshop for the team that included promises (not threats) that locating, saving, updating, and many other processes would go much smoother once used collectively. Since this workshop, the naming convention I designed has been adopted and has helped the team significantly.
After completing the initial drafts of CCEL Records governance documentation and Visio chart, I socialized them to the team for feedback and updates. This documentation was also adjusted as I went, particularly as we figured out which high-level folders were needed. Creating this documentation was, much like other aspects of this project, overwhelming at first. However, it quickly became grounding and a reliable compass when navigating and developing other aspects of the project.
Part 5: Bailing the boat
After following specific processes and procedures, including a disposition plan, I was able to destroy over 95,000 files and folders that were past retention. The other records outside of their retention were sent to archives. The idea of destroying that many records at once is terrifying. However, after spending months meticulously and repeatedly going through them, an understanding of the retention schedules, meeting with team members to ensure what has value is saved, and sending itemized lists of “to be destroyed documents unless you say something now”- type emails, it was extremely satisfying and a weight off the department’s data chest.
As a side quest for the department, at this stage I also began developing a Governance document for CCEL’s MS Teams environment and channels and circulated MS Teams best practices.
Part 6: All hands on deck!
The next phase of the project was to migrate all of the files to their new structure within a new shared drive. This required me to coordinate and plan between myself, UBC IT, and CCEL. This was accomplished through a lot of collaboration between myself, the CCEL Associate Director Yusuf Alam, and with an IT person named Evan Burrows. Due to the depth of the CCEL file paths and amount of records that needed to be re-categorized, the process required a lot of preparation work and for me to manually move most of the records to the new file structure before Evan could copy them over to the new shared drive. Once most of the records had been manually placed in their new folders, Evan would use a data copy tool, RoboCopy to move the records.
After a few weeks of constant communication and collaboration with Evan, support from Yusuf, and my own blood, sweat, and tears (no actual blood, no sweat because the office is freezing, and only a few tears), the data migration was done successfully!
Part 7: Dead men tell no tales… but the living blog about them
Seeing all of the records cozily settled into their new folder homes within the new shared drive, all of which I designed and made happen, was extremely rewarding. The shared drive and MS Teams Records Governance documentation and Visio Chart were finalized, records were moved to archives, the drive cleaned up, and the data migration was successfully completed. My job was done and ready to be passed to the CCEL team to maintain.
Being tossed into the Records Management world was at times an intimidating, difficult journey that required multitasking, self-reliance, and learning. However, I was always supported and given the guidance and tools I needed to complete each step of the project. It was also the most fun, satisfying, and professionally-developmental job I have ever had. If you are considering boarding the Records Management ship through a project, job, or internship, at UBC, I highly recommend it.
