Introduce a simple, affordable, and secure records management solution to every public entity in Oregon.
In the electronic age, content creation has accelerated exponentially with millions of documents, images, audio and video files, and older format such as microfiches and films being produced. Many records have a long retention period, such as student records that need to be kept for 75 years after the individual graduates.
The State of Oregon is legally required to capture and store any materials that are regarded as ‘public record’. Kristopher Stenson, ORMS Administrator at the Oregon State Archives, explains further: “We have a responsibility to the people of Oregon. If we don’t retain our records properly, we lose public transparency and oversight; a threat to our democracy. On a more practical level, rent is going up in Oregon and agencies are having to downsize. They just don’t have the storage space to keep physical records. In addition, we are part of the Secretary of State’s office, and subject to public scrutiny, as well as stringent legislation such as target response times for public record requests.”
To address the challenges of fast-growing numbers of public records, greater public expectations, and cost control, the State of Oregon committed to introducing an electronic records management solution that could be leveraged by government agencies of any size. Because small agencies do not have a big IT infrastructure, the team looked for an easy-to-deploy and cost-effective solution that would not require on-site technical expertise. At the same time, it needed to comply with strict Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2 certification, to manage document lifecycles from initial capture to long-term archival.
Oregon is in the Pacific Northwest region on the West Coast of the United States. Bordering Washington, Idaho, California, and Nevada, Oregon has a population of over four million.
The State of Oregon created the Oregon Records Management Solution (ORMS) in close partnership with Chaves Consulting. ORMS is a cloud-based Solution as a Service (SaaS), enabling state agencies, cities, schools, and special districts to securely manage records from creation through to disposition.
As the first US state to introduce a central records management solution, ease of use was going to be critical to the success of the system. According to Stenson:
Kristopher Stenson – ORMS ADMINISTRATOR AT THE OREGON STATE ARCHIVES
State of Oregon
“Chaves Consulting worked with us in setting up a model that made it easy to on-board both large and small agencies, focused on matching their individual requirements and providing in person training.”
With a distributed ORMS client install, there is little load on local IT resources. Stenson’s team and Chaves work closely together with new agencies to define their record build structure and understand their security requirements. More than 75 client agencies now work within ORMS datasets, and over 14 million records are now kept securely in a central datacenter location managed by Chaves. Content Manager’s WebDrawer feature is used for any records that can be published externally, such as minutes or recordings of public meetings. Shortcuts to these are clearly labelled, and citizens can easily find the information online without needing to formally request records, and agencies spending time and effort responding to these requests.
Stenson wants to ensure ORMS can be used by any state agency, including those with heightened security requirements because they hold sensitive information, such as medical or criminal records. “Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) requirements, driven by the FBI and local law-enforcement agencies, define security precautions to protect sensitive information like fingerprints and criminal backgrounds. Our Content Manager-centered approach meant we could become CJIS-compliant and open our services up to any agencies holding sensitive records,” he says.
Stenson has seen a dramatic improvement in the response to public record requests: “Previously, a large public record request could paralyze us. We would contact our email provider to give us the complete files from different accounts, for which we would be charged. We would then load each account file into Outlook to go through. The entire process could easily take weeks. Now, with Content Manager, we construct a simple keyword search across multiple folders, and retrieve the results in a matter of seconds. We easily comply with the five-day response time, and the same goes for every agency deploying ORMS.”
Client agencies are overwhelmingly positive about their ORMS experience. A spokesperson for a water district says: “This is an excellent option for compliance with state archiving rules. It saves us countless hours and dollars as we no longer need to physically transport our old delicate records to specialists for microfilming.” An Oregon school district comments: “Knowing this program is in partnership with Oregon State Archives provides confidence and security as we are 100 percent compliant with federal and state retention requirements.” And a building department in an Oregon city sums up their experience: “I used ORMS to find an old permit in less than a minute. Before ORMS, this would have taken half a day and involved three people.”
Stenson concludes:
Kristopher Stenson – ORMS ADMINISTRATOR AT THE OREGON STATE ARCHIVES
State of Oregon
