the following was made in response to e-mail that Rosey sent to Charley. She queried him about metrics for measuring the work group's success. I offer it here for your reveiew and comment.

Rosey,

I appreciate your insight, You have raised some issues that will become critical as the work of this group progresses.

Our short-term goal is to merge the SSIC/SECNAV instructions. Beyond that we want to look at revising them both so they support more efficiently the Navy's records management responsibilities. One outcome of an automated records mangement function is that end-users will have more direct responsibility for managing information and records than they have had in the past. They certainly need better tools than they have now.

How the work of revising and tailoring the tools progresses depends in part on NARA's eventual response to the GRS 20 case. NARA is currrently appealing the judge's ruling. The next court date is set for October. NARA will issue a final report based partly on what the court says and partly on input from the agencies as they review the draft. In the meantime the draft report calls for the agencies to revise their records schedules so that they include disposition instructions for records in all madia, including electronic source records and records captured from the electronic sources -- e-mail, office application suites, and so on -- to recordkeeping systems. I'll assume that this requirement will remain in the final report and perhaps be articulated more clearly. If so, that gives our group a sort of mandate to continue and expand our work within a time period that may extend into FY 2000 or beyond. It also gives us an opportunity to include with a records schedule revision a requirement that the schedule be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. We will as you say need input and support from end-users, records managers, and IT specialists from throughout the Navy. We will have to work with Lt. Greene's office and with appraisal archivists assigned to support Navy records management by NARA. Those of us who are old hand records managers (like Henry, Margit, Linda and me) know this drill. At any rate, this is the direction I think this group could go after we complete the short-term task at hand.

About the other metrics you mentioned -- obtaining feedback, providing records management or recordkeeping training and measuring compliance, expanding our menbership, and so on. All good, all necessary, and all dependent on a greatly expanded Navy records management program office. if our work results in a more efficient and better supported (by end-users) records management program; efficient and timely access to corporate knowledge resources; and measurable personnel or resource savings, a Navy records management program that is actively supported at the hightest corporate level, led by trained records management professionals, and adequately staffed to meeet expanded responsibilities, is imperative. None of this exists now. The Navy records management office is an administrative support office, not a program office, and it has neither the resources nor the expertise to accomplish the measurement tasks you mentioned. Collectively, our working group has the expertice, but it lacks the program authority. That authority should reside in a records management program office that ideally should exist under the purview of the Navy's chief information officer.

Not for the foreseeable future will we be without paper as a recordkeeping medium. What is changing is the front end of the information life cycle -- records creation, distribution, and use. This in now an automated process increasingly dependent on electronic workflow, document management, and recordkeeping tools. The back end of the life cycle, storage, retrieval, and disposition, is much more problematic. Paper and micrographics will probably remain the primary media for for long-term retention while issues concerning migration to new storage and retrieval technology, and new retention media, are resolved. The resolution of these issues depends on support from the IT commnunity, which is why support for our group from the CIO, and from other information management stakeholders, like you, is so important.

Dean

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1998