RE: [chairs] need input for doc mgmt requirements

["Winters, Roger" <Roger.Winters@METROKC.GOV>]

Title: RE: [chairs] need input for doc mgmt requirements

Dear Mr. Best:

I want to offer a few suggestions about requirements for document management for OASIS committees. Be advised that, though I am in a secretarial role for the Legal XML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee, I am not yet fully conversant with those duties and powers. It is as Editor for the TC that I offer these thoughts. I hope you'll forgive me if some of these suggestions ask you, due to my ignorance, to do things that you have already handled within OASIS.

1.      Naming

Although OASIS has adopted well-developed naming conventions for documents proceeding through its processes, there are a number of instances where a working group needs to share and process files of various kinds, many of which would not themselves become drafts of committee specifications. It would be helpful if, regardless of the filenames given to documents, there were a way to enter a descriptive title that would be shown on the appropriate Web page, to serve as a clickable link to the file. This seems advisable because few of the members are likely to learn the naming conventions because, even though they have a rational and well-defined basis, they look complicated. Once a file gets to a certain point in the OASIS process, e.g., when it becomes appropriate for the Editor to take charge of it as a draft committee specification, the formalities of the naming conventions should be followed carefully. Even then, assigned easy-to-understand titles would be preferable to titles that reflect either the filename or the first few words in the document.

2.      Document Version Management

This is, of course, a basic requirement for document management systems, along with having check-in/check-out read/write privileges and controls. It is also helpful to provide guidance, perhaps in a "Document Management Help Page," on what might warrant preserving a current version and issuing a new number to its changed version. I think such version control is likely to be a useful and important tool even at the subcommittee level; that is where participants are more likely to need guidance in finding a balance between meaningful versioning and needless proliferation of files. Tools to manage document ownership and check-in/check-out functionality need to be easy to understand and not too difficult to implement. For example, a term limited subcommittee chair might need only a few simple tools that can be quickly and easily mastered.

3.      Document Disposition

Although I am involved with records management, I am not an expert. This is an area where OASIS might want to engage records and information management experts to help design records retention and disposition policies, procedures, and tools. It is important to resist the temptation to "save everything because storage is cheap," because there are other issues and costs besides storage involved in records management. A records retention schedule is advisable, with a disposition strategy that ensures that records scheduled to be disposed of are in fact eliminated.

I'm glad to participate in future discussion of these matters.

Regards,

Roger

Roger Winters
Electronic Court Records Manager
King County
Department of Judicial Administration
516 Third Avenue, E-609 MS: KCC-JA-0609
Seattle, Washington 98104
V: (206) 296-7838 F: (206) 296-0906
roger.winters@metrokc.gov