Records management

Records Management is the systematic control and management of recorded information resources within an organisation to ensure that the business, legal, regulatory and other requirements for the retention of authentic, evidential records are met.

There are also useful management concepts familiar to records management professionals that are of use to managing large volume information resources. Examples include retention management (usually achieved using schedules), protective marking of sensitive material (eg on Intranets), corporate fileplans etc.

The underlying principle of records management is that records are kept for a period appropriate to their use. Specific procedures follow this principle to assist in its achievement in a systematic and structured way.

Records occurring on websites should be managed in the context of other information resources and records in government and not in isolation. Certain web content across government will have the status of records and should be identified and managed accordingly to manage business risk and comply with legal and regulatory obligations. Some will be required to be preserved for long periods for these reasons or to satisfy the archival preservation requirements of the Public Records Acts.

Managing records in the electronic environment is demanding. Issues of retrieval, migration, authentication and preservation replace pressure on storage space in the traditional hard copy environment. Adding disk space may be a cheap option in the short term, but migrating the content to new platforms and ensuring media refreshment occurs at regular intervals are extremely costly.

This has a significant consequence on the management of web resources and the Public Record Office has published guidance on how these issues might be addressed.

Developing educational content

Where an organisation's website is developing online education content it is important that you refer to advice published by the National Grid for Learning.

• When planning web pages the content providers should be clear about whether they are likely to appear to a high proportion of children or young people.

• Consider carefully before linking from pages designed for children to pages where children are not the primary audience. Take special care when planning to link to external websites.

• Web managers should take steps to prevent any child from publishing their email address on your website or in a discussion group.

Web managers should also be aware of procedures that apply to the use of children’s photographs on websites. You should be especially sensitive in the case of children or young people with special educational needs. If:

• You could readily identify an individual child by sight,

• or if the child is named.

Then you should:

• Have written consent to the publication of the photographs, signed by the parent of legal guardian.

• The consent should clearly include the Internet - it would not be sufficient to simply re-use consent that applied to a conventional publication.

• Retain the signed consent form.

Mirror copy of website

The machine running the live website will usually reside at an Internet hosting datacentre. It is recommended that the web manager should keep one or more additional 'mirror' copies of the organisation’s website on a local PC. This is in order to facilitate the development and testing of updates to the website's content and organisation prior to installing the changes on the live site.

One commonly adopted solution is for the web manager to establish a development environment and a second checking (or staging) environment in addition to the live website. It is possible to have the development and staging versions of the website on the same computer. However, it is important to keep the development and testing functions well separated regardless of whether the two mirror copies are on the same computer or separate ones.

Maintaining local copies of the website will also allow the complete and latest version of the site to be available at all times when only a dialled or slow speed connection to the Internet is available. It may also be desirable to automate the updating of the live website in order to minimise the time that it is unavailable while updates are being installed.

With a local development copy of the website, it is easy to see how any new documents will fit into the existing structure. Maintaining a staging copy of the website enables content and links to be checked and general usability to be tested prior to applying changes to the live website.

It is likely that a local PC’s filesystem naming and organisation rules will be different from those used on the live server. In order for the development and test environments to be of value and easy to use, it is important they should replicate the directory and file organisation and naming used on the live website. Often this can be achieved quite straightfordwardly by keeping all file and directory names and the references to them in hyperlinks within pages in lower case and always using relative URLs in internal hyperlinks (ie, reference all links from the root of the website). Refer to section section 1.9 and section 3.2.3 for recommendations on directory and file naming schemes for websites. Following these recommendations will improve the chances that the live website directory structure and the files it contains can be copied to a PC where the site hyperlink navigation will work without having to make changes to all the files.

It is a role of the web manager to assess the technical requirements for the website development and testing environments in consultation with server managers. Typically the requirements will depend upon issues such as the size and complexity of the website and aspects of the regime under which it is managed, for example, whether it is being updated by more than one staff member or from multiple geographical locations.

Contingency planning

Whatever an organisation's line of business, there is always a requirement for contingency plans to cover a number of eventualities.

A government organisation can be thrust into the spotlight of the media at a moment's notice. You should ensure that your website has the capability to carry fast-developing stories and that its web hosting service would be able to deal with a sudden increase in the number of visitors.

A news development that requires immediate publishing on the web must not shortcut or bypass existing publishing standards. The contingency plan may suggest that it can be streamlined but the correct authorisation must be given before any information is published on the website.

Within this contingency plan there should a clear and easily accessible list of roles and responsibilities for each of the staff concerned in publishing emergency information. This list must be up-to-date and have contact numbers for each individual.

This same list of individuals to contact and a similar list of roles and responsibilities will be vital in any disaster recovery scheme. If the server is physically destroyed, severely hacked or ceases to function there should be plans already in place to restore service. If your organisation has an overall disaster recovery plan, then plans to restore website service should work within it.

Finally, you should ensure your contract with your server host writes preventative measures such as frequency of backup and the supplier’s responsibilities in the event of a disaster.

Conventions on government publicity

Websites maintained by UK Government departments and agencies, the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Executive and the National Assembly for Wales are a form of publicity, and are subject to the conventions on government publicity and advertising.

These conventions are set out and explained at the following websites:

• Guidance on the work of the Government Information Service (GICS)

• GICS handbook

In summary, they require that government publicity:

• should be relevant to government responsibilities;

• should be objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical;

• should not be party political, nor liable to misrepresentation as such;

• should be produced and distributed in an economical and relevant way, so that the costs can be justified as a proper expenditure of public funds.

These rules not only govern decisions on what should or should not be published on the Internet; they also apply to issues of content and style. For example, departments should take care when publishing ministerial speeches on the Internet to remove overtly party political content, such as direct attacks on policies and opinions of Opposition parties and groups.

Web service management - Effective content

The web management team is also the overall point of responsibility for ensuring that content:

• is line with the web management strategy;

• takes its place in a clear and navigable website structure;

• is consistent in style, intent and accuracy;

• communicates effectively and meets users needs.
  

The relevant units can still carry out production of material across the organisation, but material can only be published once authorised by the appropriate posts in the web management team. The objectives for information providers must therefore be to ensure that:

• information is accurate, relevant and up-to-date;

• content held conforms to the style set down for the website;

• contact points (email, telephone or interactive form) are staffed, inputs received are actioned and responses given within agreed targets;

• metadata is provided for all new documents;

• information is provided by the agreed deadline.
  

There should be sufficient controls in place to check that content:

• meets all editorial standards;

• is in line with overall communication strategy;

• is reviewed regularly by the information provider for currency and correctness;

• is removed or archived when appropriate;

• is easily accessible, navigable, with no broken links.

Web service management - Effective website operation

The website strategy should also determine the management, communications and security regimes that will drive the service. These objectives are also the criteria against which service level agreements (under formal contract where external commercial suppliers are party to service provision) are set.

The web management team should:

• manage the day-to-day operational interface with the Internet Service Provider (ISP)/hosting service in line with the agreed standards of service;

• ensure the security and reliability of the ISP/hosting service;

• determine the most appropriate technologies to be used for the production and availability of the information and/or goods and services;

• manage the procurement and subsequent contracts or Service Level Agreements with Internet Service Providers /hosting services;

• ensure that staffing levels are maintained for website content provision, in line with agreed standards of service;

• keep key stakeholders within the organisation informed of service performance against agreed targets and objectives;

• co-ordinate publishing of Internet information;

• set and maintain the organisation’s design and editorial specifications for the Web (commonly called style guidelines);

• ensure that all information held on the website conforms to frameworks and standards set by the Cabinet Office, including the Government Web Guidelines and legislation, eg, copyright and data protection;

• ensure the website continues to work in a range of browsers and keep checking page links as they are easily broken;

• in partnership with the ISP, maintain the integrity of a website’s structure, content and availability to agreed standards;

• monitor website activity including bandwidth usage, analyse usage statistics, review the regularity of updating information and report the findings to the relevant personnel.

The web management team can contribute towards effective transactions by ensuring that the website effectively exchanges data between the user and the organisation. They contribute to ensuring that transactions and authentication are secure. Effective transactions are likely to also require reform of other operational systems in order to accept electronic applications.

Importance of Efficient Website Navigation

The most important and crucial factor to ensure that a visitor of your website stay hooked to your site is through providing effective website navigation. Most visitors get put off when they notice that the site does not include good navigations and they might opt to just switch over to another site due to this one aspect. One factor which has been noticed most of the time is that attractive websites have similar layouts. Always design navigational elements keeping in mind the basic purpose of your website. Since a website is usually designed with the intended audience in focus, there are some guidelines which needs to be followed.

Ensure that all navigational elements are distinct links by using standard conventions for links such as buttons, menus, underlining the text ,changing color on mouse etc. Avoid using ambiguous names for links.On the other hand, while utilizing non-conventional links, let it be made clear to the user that it is a link.Keep in mind the "Three Click Rule" which is used by most professional web designers.Studies have proved that majority of users will not click more than 3 links to reach either the target page or the information they require.

Web designers need to make certain that every page on their site need to be reachable by just 3 clicks.Most of the effort must be targeted towards making your website simple and elegant,as often visitors browse your site for information and seldom its for entertainment.

List of the Navigation Element Locations:

• Top Menus – This menu bar is located below the site logo which is part of the page header graphic.These menus can be either in the form of drop down menus,single links or expanding menus.Its optional to use either graphic or text for each menu item.Hyperlinks are usually associated with these menus.
  

• Left Side / Right Side Navigation – Left side/Right side navigation is displayed as a column on left or right side.These navigations can either be a single link or an expanding menu.Also note that mostly right side navigations are used for advertisements instead of links.
  

• Bottom Menus – Designers have the option of displaying bottom menus as either a menu bar or footer.Graphics or text links will be used in the case of menu bars while text links are used in the case of footers.

Some Important Navigation Elements:

• Internal Page Links – As mentioned earlier, ensure that every page is within 2 or 3 clicks from the home page. Also, important pages need to be just one click away.

• Shopping Carts – For sites which utilize shopping carts,there needs to be a view cart occuring on every page.
  

• External Links – It is a common practice to use external links in the text area on a website.These are used to refer to an another website location which provides some useful information.

• Advertisements – Ads are usually a graphic or text with a corresponding hyperlink. Ads can be placed almost anywhere on a webpage but the preferred location is just under the header banner or under the navigation elements on the left side.

• Site Map – A site map is the most efficient method to help in navigation of your website in a heirarchical manner.

A clear and distinct navigation system can increase the numbers of pages viewed a visitor.This in turn can boost the time that a visitor stays on a page.Indirectly this will also increase the sales or whatever your site is meant to perform,eventually leading to the success of your business and website.

Management of your website - Web service management

A team of people will be responsible for ensuring that the website achieves its strategic aims. It does this through:

• measuring achievement against overall aims and objectives set by the organisation

• effective website operation

• effective content provision

This team should consist of people with a mix of publication, web and project management skills. A senior web manager is recommended to manage the team and ensure it carries out its tasks. A further division of labour between content and technical responsibilities is likely.

Meeting overall aims and objectives

Clear, formal and regular progress reports against the aims and objectives are recommended to ensure that:

• ongoing and proposed new developments for the website have been measured against the objectives, costed to ensure the best value and considered in relation to corporate developments;

• a business case has been prepared and approved to ensure sufficient resources (financial, time and people) have been allocated;

• projects for delivery are being managed within agreed tolerances (again tied to the business case).

Reports need not be onerous, with the emphasis being on reporting by exception. They will help inform the broader organisation of progress and give stakeholders the opportunity to raise concerns, issues and/or new developments.

The benefits of this process are:

• it provides a way to ensure continued adherence to delivery against set objectives;

• open and clear communication on developments throughout the organisation;

• accountability for development work against clearly defined resource limits;

• reduced risks on overlaps, duplication and failure to deliver against expectations.

Management of your website

Skill sets for setting web strategy

Communications: Executive Board

At this level the corporate communications policy is set. Therefore a clear framework covering how the organisation is to communicate information is required and is to be used to determine the subject matter to be covered by the website. This approach will clarify the areas of content control appropriate to both the Internet and Intranet.

This role does not require day-to-day involvement. It is more about clearly defining the parameters within which information is to be made available in the public domain and establishing appropriate control mechanisms for handling potentially sensitive information.

Corporate services: publicity and marketing

Publicity or marketing skills support the communication strategy, ensuring that audiences are identified and effective communication of messages and promotion of services takes place. Their understanding of the organisation’s publicity and marketing strategy is integral to ensuring that the website communicates effectively and provides services users require.

Web service provision: Web management team

The web management team will know the opportunities and caveats of working with the web: what it does well and what can go wrong.

They can be a source of new ideas, and are likely to be able to keep an eye on the technological future.

As they represent the day-to-day management of the website they are also a source of practical advice on procedures, resourcing, scheduling, capacity, risks and benefits.

They are likely to be responsible for looking at access statistics and user feedback and are well placed to take an impartial view of customer needs versus organisational perceptions.

They are responsible for maintaining the structure of the website and understanding the limitations of staff time, Internet technology and the systems the organisation has in place.

It is likely that there will be one key manager responsible for content and another responsible for technical issues and developments. Both sides of the team should be represented on the editorial board.

Content owners

The people in the organisation who will want to publish to the web. What are their needs, issues, etc? What capacity do they have to amend and update content? It is important that a procedure is in place to control the correction and uploading of content, ie, who has final signoff before content goes live.

Resource provision

Because a website invariably impacts the whole organisation in terms of service delivery and business processes, it is essential that the resource implications are recognised and handled accordingly. Allied to this is the need to ensure that the technology aspects of the website are sufficiently and appropriately resourced and that future staff and equipment needs are planned in advance. This can be particularly difficult in an area notorious for its pace of change and evolution.

Material for the website (and other future communication technologies) has to be generated using specific software tools and languages. These create training and organisational requirements that need to be covered as part of the website management regime.

Finally, staff has to be recruited and trained and a purchasing budget will be necessary for software, equipment and consultants.

Technology provision

All web services are dependent on technology solutions. Impartial technical advice and guidance is required to ensure that the most appropriate solution is used to meet customer service needs. It is essential that someone familiar with the technology should cover this area. However, given the diversity of IT solutions available in the marketplace, technological impartiality is essential and as such should be a key factor when selecting a suitable representative.

The establishment of a web strategy and management team comprising representatives that cover these roles will result in a more streamlined operational group. By operating in a more project-style management environment the team will be able to create and manage small teams geared towards delivering products on a customer-demand basis.

Management of your website

The key to effective website management is the development and implementation of a strategy designed to ensure that it remains focused on what the organisation is there to deliver as well as on what information and services the target audiences expect to be able to access.

Strategic and operational management

Effective website management can be defined under three categories:

1. owning organisation - Web strategy and management team
2. web service manager - Web Manager (aka Webmaster)
3. information providers - content owners and the editorial team

1. The owning organisation
   

The owning organisation is responsible for establishing and maintaining the web management strategy and for ensuring that it integrates with wider strategic plans.

The equivalent of a senior editorial board is recommended. This will help ensure that key areas of the organisation bring a full range of necessary skills and awareness to the process of setting aims and objectives for the website. The owning organisation should also ensure that the resources are in place to achieve these aims. The following are examples of key areas of the organisation that should be represented.

• communications
• corporate services
• web service provision
• content provision
• resource provision
• technology provision.

Benefits of publishing data on the Internet

• Interactivity

The Web can speed up the process of individuals getting the answers they need. Websites could be used to direct enquiries to the right place in the organisation to get an answer. Email can speed up the process of responding to them.

• Adapting to user needs quickly

Feedback and access statistics can tell web managers which pages are popular and which pages need further development. They can help identify gaps in information or services. A well-managed website will respond to user needs and use the flexibility of the web to revise the website.

• Building individual relations with the citizen

Web technology provides a way for users to register interests and receive automatic updates of news and developments in the areas that interest them. Website content can be personalised to meet their interests and concerns, or provide local or national versions of information that are relevant to them.

• Saving costs on services

Properly supported by business plans and backend systems, the web can be used to improve services and reduce the cost of providing them.

Benefits of publishing data on the Internet

Savings on print and distribution costs

Publishing data on the website should save on the printing, distribution and storing of printed documents and the wastage caused by overestimated print runs. Only the one copy needs to be maintained; as soon as a changed version is published it is available to everyone.

In order to achieve this publication in print and on the web should be part of one carefully planned publication process. This process should be audited regularly to ensure it is efficient.

Website maintenance and archiving

Web documents can also be a reliable source of older documents, developing into a useful archive.

This will be achieved if archived documents are given a stable URL and are clearly marked as being archived. It is important that electronic master copies of each document published on the website are kept. This not only makes the creation of new versions in other formats easy; it also maintains an archive version for historical purposes.

Providing the call to action

A good publicity campaign issues a call for action - something the user is expected to do. A campaign website can give the user the chance to quickly and simply carry out that action, whether it is to set up an appointment, order more information, or enter the recruitment process for a public sector job.

Opening up consultation

Government makes policies and needs to collect informed views from organisations and individuals. The web can provide this opportunity and provide another channel for the distribution of the background documents that people need in order to contribute to the debate.

Benefits of publishing data on the Internet

Although publishing documentation on the Internet initially seems to be little different to publishing in any other medium, there are a number of special considerations that need to be borne in mind. There are almost as many permutations of monitor resolution, colour rendering, browser types, operating systems and user ability, as there are websites. Website Managers will have to consider many capabilities and standards to ensure that data is available to the widest audience.

There can be enormous benefits when documentation is published on the Internet, both for the publishing body and the general user.

Information access

A well designed website offers users a broader range of information than is available to them through conventional media, when they want it and in a form they can use.

To achieve this, the website should make use of the number of ways the web helps users find the documents they are looking for such as search engines, menus, navigational aids, indices and links between documents. Web navigation should also help users find the information they want within the document.

Some information such as menu pages and document summaries will have to be written specifically to be quickly scanned and understood.

It may be appropriate to make documentation available in a variety of differing formats. For example, some users may find it easier to download and print an entire document in Portable Document Format (PDF) and read it offline, whilst other may prefer to read it in online and on -screen in the form of a sequence of HTML pages.

Accurate and up-to-date

The web is easier to update or correct than print. Documents contained on the website can be a point of reference for both the public and your staff. Some departments provide a copy of their website on their intranet to facilitate this. A 'What's New' section should be included and constantly updated so that users have a constant and familiar route to new and updated information.

To achieve accuracy, the maintenance of documents after publication should be planned and resourced. Each document should adhere to the site template and all data should be formatted in a consistent way. Particular care should be paid to the Cascading Style Sheet, which may be used to control the formatting of the website.

What is the website for??

In establishing the aims of the website, each organisation must ensure that:

• users should be able to find your website;

• users are clear about who owns the website and what it is designed to achieve;

• navigation is clear and customer orientated, taking into account the needs of specific audiences;

• goods and services being offered by the organisation are effectively focused on the target audiences in terms of relevance and ease of accessibility;

• visitors are able to access the information they seek as directly as is practicable;

• adequate security is in place when dealing with online transactions for the purchase of goods and services - and that neither the client nor the provider is compromised;

• contact points (whether email, forms-based or telephone) must be staffed and all enquiries answered within reasonable timescales;

• the information published is up to date, accurate and relevant to the website;

• content is clear, concise and appropriate;

• links are kept up to date that users can rely on the website being available and is fast enough.

The tasks to be addressed when setting the aims and objectives are:

• identification of your website's place in the organisation's overall communications strategy;

• identification of the audiences for your website, where possible on the basis of market research or dialogue with client groups;

• understanding and responding to users' satisfaction with the website;

• provision of resources, especially staff with the necessary skills, for the website team;

• integration of the website with business processes, which might include electronic dealings with the public, publication of information, recruitment and consultation;

• integration of the website into the department's strategy for electronic government and freedom of information;

• integration of web services with other systems where practicable;

• monitoring the development of the website and its success as a means of meeting departmental objectives.

To ensure that the aims and objectives of the website are achieved they must be applied to key roles in the organisation and placed under an appropriate management regime.

Planning your products and services

Departments and local authorities are currently investing millions of pounds in building the infrastructure to support the electronic delivery of their information and services. Without a central architecture to manage this spending much more will be spent on duplicating research, design, systems integration and hosting.

Departments and local authorities have been wrestling with the same problems: managing customers, content, new channels and emerging technologies. Entire infrastructures, both technical, as well as people and process?based, have consequently evolved, not always with consideration of the customer experience.

The Office of the e-Envoy (OeE), has 'productised' its infrastructure, the Government Gateway and the www.ukonline.gov.uk portal, into components, both products and services. The OeE is now able to offer these products and services, as a service organisation, to facilitate quick deployment of government content and transactions, economically, and focused on the customer. Such products and services include:

Products

• Authentication and authorisation

• Secure Routing

• Search

• Content management and delivery

• Management information

Services

• Hosting

• Systems integration

• Customer research and user experience

• process design and change management

• Requirements analysis

These products and services conform to government guidelines and recommendations produced by the OeE, and have all been security accredited by CESG.

The OeE product set has been designed and built to be fully modular, to enable departments and local authorities to customise to their specific strategic business needs. These products and services will increase over time, as more departments and local authorities take advantage of the centralised architecture.

Considerable investment has been made at the centre, in researching customer needs, defining the types of interaction customers require of government, as well as the best of breed technologies capable of delivering government information and services effectively. All government departments and local authorities are advised to consider the technical viability and value for money of these products and services before investing resources in building their own infrastructure.