---
# System prepended metadata

title: Records + information management guide
tags: [about-us, process]

---

# Records + information management guide

Last updated: 2023-06-01
URL for this page: https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/info-management
URL for this site: https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/how-we-work

We are a new organization in the process of establishing ways of working and of managing information. Below are some of the practices we have adopted to ensure that the traces of our work worth keeping have a better chance of longevity. 

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## Arrangement

We conduct a semi-annual audit of our information and its location across several venues. The most recent audit was conducted in January 2022. See also: [Tools + venues we use](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/tools-we-use).

Much of our internal work product resides in Google Drive and Asana. (Note: From 2021 through 2023-05 we used Trello. Asana was adopted 2023-05).

### Google Drive
See section on folder structure in: Getting started in Team Drive.

> ![IOI's Team Drive on Google Drive, 2022-04-14](https://i.imgur.com/v6yK8YE.png)

---

## Description

### Google Drive

#### File naming
See: [Dates](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/standards#Dates) and [File naming](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/standards#File-naming) (in IOI's Standards + best practices list).

#### Labels
We apply [internal labels](https://support.google.com/a/answer/9292382) to: 
- [audio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format) and [video](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_file_format) files
- content duplicated in Dataverse, HackMD, and Zenodo
- meeting notes
- content that contains personal information
- publicly visible content
- research project documents
- whiteboards

For documents duplicated externally (eg in Zenodo), please include a label (eg "Zenodo") along with a link to the external version of the work. The illustration below shows a document in Google Drive that has been given metadata of (1) a label and (2) an external URL.
> ![illustration of label with accompanying link](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJjkjmjzj.png)

#### README document
Each top-level folder in Team Drive contains a README document with details about the folder's purpose, history, and location of related content.

##### README template

`# OVERVIEW`
`## NAME OF FOLDER`
`## DATE OF LAST UPDATE OF README DOC`
`## CREATOR`
`## LOCATION OF FOLDER`
`## FORMER NAME(S) OF FOLDER`
`# DESCRIPTION OF FOLDER CONTENTS`
`## FILE NAMING SCHEMA`
`## ABBREVIATIONS`
`## KEYWORDS`
`# RELATED MATERIALS`

##### README example

<iframe width="100%" height="500" src="https://docs.google.com/document/d/12O2DvMyl0Hh0CpVmKoZVR-VaBxToi9o3IJQajdnpS-c/edit?usp=sharing" frameborder="0"></iframe>

---

## Preservation

### Google docs
We save Google docs annotated with comments in several ways:
1. with attributed comments, by saving the doc in .docx file format.
1. with attributed comments, via the [GoFullPage](https://gofullpage.com/) browser extension, saved as a PDF or PNG file.
1. with anonymized comments, by first downloading the file in HTML format, then viewing the downloaded HTML file in a new browser window, then saving that as a PDF file.
1. Google doc comments can also be extracted via API as a JSON file. See Google's [instructional documentation](https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/reference/comments/list).

### Monthly exports

Each month we create a snapshot of our activity in venues such as [Asana](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/tools-we-use#Asana) and [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/groups/4377072/invest_in_open). We store downloaded content in Google Drive.

Exceptions: Our current subscription to Slack does not include any option to export our private Slack channels.

> ![IOI's Slack channels, 2022-04-14](https://i.imgur.com/ktBeJd8.png =140x)

### Annual exports

We plan to [export Google Workspace data](https://support.google.com/a/answer/100458) at the end of December each year. This will begin around 2022-12-19.

### Wayback Machine

We save URLs of our published content in the [Wayback Machine](https://archive.org/web/) (including outlinks and screenshot). See schedule with list of links (accessed via Google Drive).

> ![web.archive.org](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJyjutaN5.png =400x)

### Whiteboards

In the course of our work we sometimes use virtual whiteboard software (eg Google Jamboard, Miro, Mural) as a tool to facilitate group discussion.

At the end of each whiteboard session, we 
1. designate someone to save session artifacts in a location accessible to each participant.
2. identify and remove any personally identifiable information within the artifacts to be saved. See also: [IOI Privacy Policy](https://investinopen.org/ioi-privacy-policy/).
3. save each board in as many file formats as possible, eg: CSV, PDF, PNG. We store these artifacts in Google Drive.
4. include the word "whiteboard" in the filename of each artifact.
5. apply a "whiteboard" Google Drive label to each artifact.

### Zenodo

We deposit selected research outputs and other artifacts into IOI's community collection in Zenodo (zenodo.org/communities/investinopen). See also [IOI's guide to Zenodo](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/zenodo).

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## Retention

[expanded section forthcoming]

In our research we conduct interviews. The audio/video recordings reside in encrypted cloud storage via [Sync](https://www.sync.com/). In the next few months we will form a retention/deletion policy and schedule for this content.

See also: https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/standards#Privacy

---

## Further reading

- Data Curation Network's [Data Curation Primers](https://datacurationnetwork.org/outputs/data-curation-primers/)
- Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at University of Michigan's [Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving: Best Practice Throughout the Data Life Cycle](https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/deposit/guide/index.html), 6th edition, 2020
- [Make a README](https://makeareadme.com)
- SAA's [Donating Your Organization's Records to a Repository](https://www2.archivists.org/publications/brochures/donating-orgrecs) brochure
- UN Archives and Records Management Section's [Policy and Guidance](https://archives.un.org/content/policy)
- US Library of Congress. [Recommended formats statement](https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/TOC.html), 2022

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## See also
* [How to search for IOI content](https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/searching)
* Archived copy of this page (via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/info-management

---
This page first published: 2022-04-14

###### tags: `process` `about-us`
---
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