Communications Squadron creates network drive for electronic records management

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Lisa Spilinek
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  With the unit compliance inspection scheduled for November, many Hanscom personnel are preparing for it by ensuring their files and records are in order and up to date.

To help facilitate this process, 66th Communications Squadron personnel recently migrated all unit electronic records content from the old Livelink system to a network drive, said Larry Murphy, 66 SC base records manager.

The drive, which base personnel are required to use, allows users to save their official records in a centralized location that can be accessed from base network computers and via a secure Web address.

It is important that users begin using the new electronic records drive now because electronic records management practices will be one of the items evaluated during the UCI, Mr. Murphy said.

"Official records cannot be stored on organization drives or personal drives," he said. "Once working files are completed or approved, they become records and need to be migrated over to the shared drive."

The benefits of storing records electronically instead of creating paper files are obvious.

"With all of the information available over the computer it is much easier to access, share information with others and search through records -- the space you save [over filing paper records] is amazing," Mr. Murphy said.

"We need everybody to get away from the 'possession is power' mentality and move into a sharing mode so everybody can see what is available to them. Rather than recreate products from scratch, users can share them with their co-workers to be tailored for other units," he said. "Everyone is trying to do more with less. Well, let's try to put things out there to help people do more with less -- but we'll actually give them more because these records will be available to more people."

By definition, records are books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of their physical form, made or received by an agency of the U.S. government.

E-mails can also be official records and need to be filed appropriately on the shared records drive, Mr. Murphy said.

"A lot of people don't realize that e-mails can be records too," he said. "This is something that the evaluators will be checking."

In order for an e-mail to be a record, the content or attachment to the e-mail must directly relate to a program, project or position within the government in an official capacity. E-mails that are records could describe agency methods, processes, policies and decisions. Additionally, e-mails made or received by an agency of the government under federal law or in connection with agency business are records and should be filed appropriately.

Most Hanscom users have already been mapped to the new network drive, Mr. Murphy said. To aid users, the drive can also be accessed via the Web by selecting the 'Hanscom Official Files' link under the Resources tab on the left side of the Electronic Systems Center CenterNet homepage.

Upon accessing the drive, users will be able to navigate to their particular units' folders to add products to be sorted in their units' electronic file boxes. From there, their units' trained records custodians will be able to sort the files.

To make the process work, Mr. Murphy said all users need to play an active role in maintaining electronic records -- not just records custodians.

"The most important people are the end users, not the records professionals. They [end users] are the ones who receive and create the majority of the records. They need to make sure these records get to the records professionals to be managed," he said.

Records management training is included in the Information Protection training module on the Advanced Distributed Learning Service Web site, which personnel must complete annually.

For more information or for directions on accessing the electronic records drive, contact Mr. Murphy at (781) 377-8609, or Stephanie Starnes at (781) 377-1468.