User difficulties working with a business classification scheme: a case study
| Published date | 21 March 2016 |
| Pages | 21-37 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-03-2015-0011 |
| Date | 21 March 2016 |
| Author | Peta Ifould,Pauline Joseph |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
User difculties working with a
business classication scheme: a
case study
Peta Ifould
Ofce of Information Management, Western Australia Police,
Perth, Australia, and
Pauline Joseph
Department of Information Studies, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a unique perspective into user difculties working
with the functional business classication scheme (BCS) to register, search and retrieve corporate
information at the Western Australia Police (WA Police).
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a single case study. Questionnaire and interview
data were collected and analysed from a sample of ten EDRMS users on their perspectives of working
with the BCS. An interpretive analysis methodology was used, and inductive reasoning was used for
thematic analysis and sense making of the textual data from the transcripts.
Findings – Although the research participants were condent working with the BCS, they reported
difculties nding an appropriate folder that matched the information to be classied and deciding
where to le the information. Participants reported that the design and structure of the BCS and training
were identied as areas needing improvement.
Research limitations/implications – Paradigm shifts in the record-keeping role from the
professional to the user may have some bearing on the difculties users face when dealing with their
record-keeping responsibilities. The participants provided comments and suggestions for how to make
the BCS more user-friendly, more meaningful and more aligned to the business processes of the users
that are practicable and workable solutions for the records professionals to implement.
Practical implications – This paper provides a unique user perspective of a BCS, their difculties
working with it and how these difculties can be resolved in a government organisation.
Originality/value – This paper provides a unique user perspective of a BCS, their difculties working
with it and how these difculties can be resolved in a government organisation.
Keywords Training, Electronic records management, Classication schemes,
Business classication schemes, EDRMS, File plans
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The preceding two decades have seen the uptake and expansion of the use of
networked desktop computer systems by businesses, corporations and government
The corresponding author thanks the WA Police for their support and participation in this
research. Aspects of this paper were adapted from Ifould’s Honours thesis and presented at the
inForum Conference by the Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia
(RIMPA) in Adelaide, 2014.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-5698.htm
Business
classication
scheme
21
Received 3 March 2015
Revised 7 August 2015
13 November 2015
Accepted 16 November 2015
RecordsManagement Journal
Vol.26 No. 1, 2016
pp.21-37
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-5698
DOI 10.1108/RMJ-03-2015-0011
organisations (Bailey, 2008). With the resulting increase in the production of
electronic information, it is not surprising that electronic document and records
management systems (EDRMSs) are being used to manage business documents and
corporate records and information.
Business information is being created by employees who use desktop computers to
carry out their daily work, therefore also creating corporate information, documents and
records in the process of their work activities which are managed within EDRMS. This
has caused paradigm shifts in record-keeping responsibilities from the records
professionals to the users of EDRMS (Joseph et al., 2012;National Archives of Australia,
2003). However, organisations have used EDRMS to manage business information with
mixed results, as what may have been implemented by the records professionals for the
organisation may not necessarily work for the users (Bailey, 2008;Orr, 2005).
Western Australia Police (WA Police) uses many different business information
management systems to capture a variety of operational and administrative data,
information and records, the EDRMS being just one of these. The paradigm shifts in
record-keeping responsibilities identied by Joseph et al. (2012) from
records-management-savvy professionals to knowledge workers in the organisation
requires users to use not only the EDRMS but also the business classication scheme
(BCS) embedded in the EDRMS to categorise, classify and, at times, search for
information in this system. A BCS based on the functions and activities performed by
the organisation and the difculties users experience when working with it is the focus
of this research and the subject of this article.
Research problem
The WA Police is a large Western Australian Government organisation with 8,180
employees (Western Australia Police, 2013) and “is responsible for policing the
world’s largest single police jurisdiction covering 2.5 million square kilometres with
a structure comprising two regions, 14 districts and 158 police stations” (Western
Australia Police, n.d.). Employees are dispersed throughout the whole jurisdictional
area and comprise uniformed police ofcers and public service support staff. One of
the authors is employed as a records professional within the Ofce of Information
Management.
It would not be an overstatement to say that managing the data, information and
records in all the various business information systems, databases and applications
for so many employees over such a vast geographical area is a daunting task. When
employees have problems using any of these systems, they call the generic Help
Desk, which is the rst level of support, and the fault or problem is logged in the
Help Desk system. Subsequently, logged problems are forwarded to the second level
of support, which is the business area tasked with resolving the problem. Employees
logging problems with using the EDRMS are forwarded through to the EDRMS
Team for resolution. The help provided to employees by the EDRMS Team includes
instruction, assistance, advice and training on all aspects of using the EDRMS.
The EDRMS at the WA Police, using the Objective system, was implemented in 2006
and was upgraded to newer versions in 2009 and 2011. The EDRMS is the corporate
repository for the organisation’s records and archives. As such, it contains
administrative, nancial and human resource management records. Other
line-of-business applications are implemented to manage other functional operations of
RMJ
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