In this week's lecture and readings, we are provided with a comprehensive overview of the lifecycle of records model, amongst several other topics in preparation for the rest of the course. Please provide an observation from the readings and/or lecture that sparked your interest and share with the group your thoughts on the matter. I'm also curious if any of you have had experience with these concepts in a position that you've held or volunteered in? If you're willing, please share that experience with the class as well.

Initial Post:

I am new to the study of records management; however, at my workplace, I have encountered numerous laws, regulations, and internal controls as discussed in this week's video and slides. In my current work environment, there is a significant emphasis on PHI, HIPAA, and other sensitive data. We have recently appointed a data governance manager to oversee information governance, which inspired me to join this program, aiming to contribute to these efforts.

From this week’s course content, I found it intriguing that individuals often do not regard their work products as property owned by the organization. It is imperative to be mindful of this perspective and seek consent and understanding as information governance practices become more prevalent in the workplace. Furthermore, the evolution of Records and Information Management (RIM), as outlined in slide 14 of chapter 2, part 1 of the textbook supplement, is poised to have significant implications for the profession. Potential impacts include the emergence of technology-centric roles in Information Governance (IG), a reassessment of data storage methods, and addressing challenges associated with a cloud-first technological approach.

Reply from Peer:

You mention a great point!  I see substantial changes on the horizon for records management.  The cloud, AI, and security are just a few of the things that are changing rapidly and need to be managed.  I am already seeing things change in my workplace. 

Reply to Peer:

Things are changing at my office, too. Lots of functions including information governance are now housed in the business division instead of in the technology division. So, we have lots of project managers and middle management directing our IT work, where traditionally technological responsibilities would have stayed in IT. The business now sources software solutions and the tech group implement them, when before the lifecycle was usually situated with IT, for example. I think information governance will accelerate this trend by effectively transferring the responsibility to business process owners to secure, organize and control access to the data. IT has seen the impact of this trend over the past decade or more. And I think that today it is because information offers much more value to an organization than it did even twenty years ago, no matter the resources and time it takes to document and secure it.

Our move to the cloud started in 2015 and has grown into a massive cloud infrastructure across three different providers. I've implemented MS Purview for data governance in Azure as part of that journey, and that group has since been afforded high visibility organization-wide and exceptional latitude with IT. Lots of change lately in IT, we will see what happens next...