Research

The ARMA Educational Foundation has developed a Research and Development Framework to help focus and provide context, direction, and priorities for research and development efforts in records and information management. This field is undergoing change of unprecedented magnitude and velocity due to the rapid restructuring of governments and other institutions; the impact of computers, digital technology, the Internet, and the World Wide Web; and changing needs and expectations on the part of customers of information as to how they seek and use information. The changes in the field wrought by technology and other forces have made many traditional approaches obsolete, occasioned a substantial revision of others, and brought the need to develop substantially new policies and programs that are suited to the new information management challenges.

Information managers need and are asking for fresh thinking, new perspectives, and new products and tools to deal with the challenges their programs face, particularly in dealing with the impact and implications of information technology. However, technology changes have come about so fast that there has not been time for either enough thoughtful analysis or research and development efforts to fully generate the new approaches and products that are needed. To date, technology and institutional change have outdistanced information programs’ capacities to accommodate and deal with them, in part because research and development efforts have been less than adequate. There has not been a consensus on the question or areas most in need of attention. There has been a scattering of efforts, which has resulted in less than optimal use of very limited time, limited funding, and other research/development resources. Projects are too often carried out in isolation, out of communication with other project leaders, and without a framework to indicate priority categories where the work is most needed and most critical. Much of the research that has been done, including some that has produced excellent products, has had limited impact because its results have not been made known or tested in actual records and information management settings.

The Foundation's Aims

The Foundation, a newly organized entity that supports research and education, believes there is a need for a clearer sense of what should be accomplished in research and development if our field is to master its challenges and continue its long record of service to individuals, institutions and society. The Foundation hopes to lead, coordinate, foster and facilitate focused research and development efforts. We envision our main role, particularly in the next few years, to be a catalytic one of fostering, coordinating, and providing encouragement to others and, where appropriate, working in partnership with them in the future, as resources are available, we hope to provide direct funding for focused research and development efforts. We expect to seek funds for the Foundation’s educational and research sponsorship work and hope to carry out other initiatives such as symposia and educational forums to review the status of research/development efforts and keep up with the changes in the field.

One operating assumption is that the records and information community cannot effectively address or solve many of the key issues acting alone; therefore, we need partners from within and beyond that community. We will therefore favor projects and approaches that involve partnership among: (A) individual information management professionals; (B) records, archives programs and information technology programs; (C) professional associations; (D) research universities; (E) associations, institutions, companies within and beyond the information management community. This final category – people and resources beyond our community – is particularly important in addressing many of the most critical and complex issues.

The emphasis of research and development initiatives should be in areas where the information professionals need new strategies, products, and tools right away to deal with the implications of information technology and other issues. Initiatives need to focus on research and development to address critical issues in a timely, effective fashion. The approach should be pragmatic: identify a problem or issue, review best practices, look at actual records and information settings, carry out analysis, develop solutions or recommendations, bring a report or other product to completion in a timely fashion, and widely disseminate the results. The field, propelled by technology, is moving too fast, and the needs are too great, for long, drawn-out projects.

Initial List of Research and Development Areas:

The following is an initial list of proposed priority areas for research and development initiatives. The list is not in a priority order.

• How to survey, monitor, measure, and track changes in recordkeeping needs and practices in modern offices, particularly in an electronic setting.
• How to reconceptualize what constitutes a "record" in an electronic setting and state it in a concrete, understandable way, e.g., in a statutory definition in government or in a regulations or directives for businesses.
• How to further develop and apply the concepts of "recordkeeping system" and "corporate memory" in institutional settings.
• How to tie information management issues and concerns to the notion of information as a key strategic resource/asset that drives business supports services, etc.
• How to tie records issues and concerns to the development of information policy in government and other institutions.
• How to develop benchmarks and measurements for the technical aspects of this field.
• How to articulate, dramatize, and raise the visibility of records and information management and the work of professionals in this field.
• How to deal with records implications of Home Pages and Web sites, including their use to access records and their records management implications.
• How to build effective partnerships and cooperation among information management professionals who have important influence on records creation and management, e.g., computer specialists, information technology experts, auditors, institutional counsel, program managers.
• How to develop the most effective approaches to education and continuing professional development in this field.

In the future, as the Foundation’s own funding becomes available or as partnership interest raises to address the issues detailed above and others, the Foundation will be more focused in establishing policies and procedures which will enable it to move quickly and efficiently on specific research and development endeavors and projects.

Clearly evident from the research framework document, the Foundation understands that it will not be conducting research, but rather that it will fund research, in whole or in part with other funding bodies. It will build a research agenda with funding priorities as criteria for funding research projects and build alliances with other research funding bodies related to research in the information management profession.

© 2008 ARMA International Educational Foundation