Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Benchmarking Information Management Practice and
Competence in Swedish Organizations
Karen Anderson 1 , Göran Samuelsson 1 and Marie Morner Jansson 2
1
Mid Sweden University, Härnösand, Sweden
2
InfoGain, Stockholm, Sweden
karen.anderson@miun.se
göran.samuelsson@miun.se
marie@infogain.se
Abstract: As organizations transform towards e-service provision and operations sophisticated, organizationwide
approaches to information management are required. However, there is reason to believe that few
organizations have developed a fully holistic approach to thinking about developing and managing their
information assets to ensure their current and future accessibility and usability. There is an increasing awareness
of the need to design systems that ensure information is accessible and re-usable, yet vital information often
becomes increasingly inaccessible over time, to the disadvantage of business intelligence, business needs,
customer service and regulatory requirements. An extensive survey of the state of the art of information
management within Swedish organizations was undertaken to gain an understanding of current approaches,
what competence is currently available within organizations and what competencies are perceived to be lacking
or need development to ensure sustainable management of information as a business asset. This paper presents
insights into how well or poorly records managers’ and archivists’ expertise is incorporated into whole-oforganization
strategic planning for information management. It was rare to find collaboration between enterprise
information architects and IT professionals with the recordkeeping professionals, who have expertise in
structuring information and metadata as well as system requirements that contribute to ensuring long-term
preservation, which would potentially minimize the proliferation of legacy systems from which records and
information are very costly or impossible to migrate or extract. Many archivists considered that it is not their role
to participate in wider information management strategies, preferring to focus on the capture of records into an ’earchive’
without recognizing that information in the archive is a potentially re-usable business asset. This initial
research contributes to an understanding of information cultures within organizations. It is intended to be used as
a benchmark: follow-up studies are planned at regular intervals in the future to measure change in practice,
attitudes and professional alliances to improve information management.
Keywords: information management; recordkeeping competencies; e-service transformation; long term
preservation; sustainable information management
1. Introduction and background
As organizations transform towards e-service provision and operations sophisticated, organizationwide
approaches to information management (IM) are required. There is, however, reason to believe
that few organizations have developed a fully holistic approach in their thinking about developing and
managing their information assets to ensure current and future accessibility and usability. In a 2010
survey conducted by Lundell and Lings, 40% of all 290 Swedish municipalities could not produce
council minutes from 1999, often because they were dependent on old proprietary software and
systems that had been phased out. They conclude that "After only ten years there are problems with
accessing or reading files that are known to exist", (Lundell & Lings, 2010). Of equal concern are the
findings of a survey of national government authorities conducted by the Swedish National Archives in
2010 on the current status of their electronic recordkeeping which achieved a 97% response rate. All
had electronic documents, but 64% revealed they had no strategies for long-term preservation. 22%
were working on a strategy (Riksarkivet, 2010, pp.6,8,17). A 2009 case study of electronic document
management in a large Swedish railway project revealed there were inadequate preservation
strategies for many vital records necessary for future railway maintenance (Borglund & Anderson,
2010a; 2010b). McDonald, McCulloch and McDonald (2010) found little evidence of existing work
using IM to further the Green ICT agenda in their JISC-commissioned report from the University of
Strathclyde. Their findings were based on a literature survey and four case studies in the United
Kingdom. The AC+erm (Accelerating +positive Change in ERM) Project at the University of
Northumbria focused on 3 aspects of electronic records management: people, working practices and
technology. AC+erm undertook an extensive literature survey, conducted case studies and used
electronic Delphi studies and face-to-face colloquia. The Delphi studies are particularly noteworthy, in
that they allowed harvesting of expert opinion unlimited by geography and inclusive of academics and
practitioners alike, thus extending the reach and reducing the limitations of the research. Their data
provides the largest set of evidence available on ERM systems, particularly on the interrelationships
28