Records Management: NARA's Guidance on Web 2.0

In an effort to answer frequent questions like ‘Is a Tweet a Record?’, the National Archives (NARA) has recently published a report that describes what federal agencies need to do to comply with Web 2.0 content.  The important point that does come out of this report is that a lot of Web 2.0 content does not qualify to be a record.  But while the report opens the general discussion about Web 2.0 and records management, and provides useful information, it still doesn’t include enough guidance to know definitively which Web 2.0 artifacts to retain as records and which to discard.

The E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347) created requirements for the Office of Management and Budget, NARA, and other Federal agencies to increase their exposure and to make more data public via the internet and other electronic means.  In 2005 NARA published their interpretation of this law and made recommendations about how records management affects the creation and need for long-term preservation of website pages.  That report did not however address the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

As part of the new report, NARA interviewed 25 federal agencies to see how they currently are using Web 2.0 technologies.  Interestingly, all 25 of the agencies are using Web 2.0 technologies to some extent.  Web 2.0 is being used for outreach, and for the sharing of information internally, between agencies, and with the public.

The report tried to clarify criteria for determining if a piece of information made available via Web 2.0 has value and is something that should be retained and managed as part of a records management strategy.  The report noted that information is often duplicated as it echoes through Web 2.0 space, sometimes appearing multiple times and in different formats on blogs, Facebook pages,  and multiple tweets and retweets.  Determining which of these is the original or “official” source of the information can be difficult.  Factors like the authoritativeness of the information and the length of time that the it was available for viewing can also help determine whether it needs to be treated as a record.  The report notes that much of the data with Web 2.0 services like Twitter and YouTube are transitory, and because of their limited value, need not be retained for long periods.

The report also noted that when a Web 2.0 article is determined to be a record that it should not be disassociated with metadata that is attached to it.  For examples tags and the wiki change history for a page are elements of the record that should also be maintained.

But the recommendations of the report were not complete and the it recognized the following issues that will need to be further clarified:

• What is the definition of an official Web 2.0 record?
• How can existing records scheduled be applied to Web 2.0 records?
• Best Practices need to be identified when dealing with Web 2.0 records.  NARA needs to work more closely with agencies in doing this.