Metadata enables users to find records and information March 5, 2015
A survey by Brisbane-based information management specialists Glentworth has revealed that organisations across the private and public sectors are losing millions of dollars in productivity each year as staff waste time finding information. Glentworth used the minimum award wage of $16.87 per hour, combined with the average time it took survey respondents to find information at work (44.36 minutes), to determine that organisations could save millions of dollars by improving the ability of users to find relevant information.
Carefully structured metadata in combination with good system search functionality can help users to find and use business information quickly and easily when they need to. Using defined categories or elements (e.g. ‘Creator’, ‘Title’, ‘Date Created’ etc.), and then assigning particular terms within these, facilitates specific search queries that can target relevant categories rather than needing to search across all metadata.
Metadata can also connect related records so that a consolidated picture of a business process, subject or matter is provided.
To support the new Standard on Records Management, State Records has revised and updated its advice on metadata for managing records and information. This advice includes a section on how metadata can be implemented to make records and information identifiable, retrievable and accessible.
As always, we think the best advice is that which draws on real case studies or examples of how organisations have implemented particular strategies, policies, procedures etc. for managing records and information. If you would like to share the ways in which your organisation has utilised the power of metadata to improve the ability of users to find records and information, please leave a comment below or contact us.
Speaking of finding information, the next meeting of the Digital Implementers Group will be focused on the ways in which enterprise search technologies can contribute to records and information management. If you are interested in coming along to this meeting and sharing your organisation’s experiences, please let us know.
Image credit: “Searching” – Eric Magnuson (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
[…] Some think that the implementation of enterprise search will boost the productivity of employees and thereby increase an organisation’s profits. In fact, we referred to a survey that found that organisations could save millions of dollars by improving the ability of users to find relevant information in our last post. […]