Urging schools to make eMail archiving a "critical part" of their record-keeping activities, a leading educational technology advocacy group has come out with a new resource to help school leaders understand and comply with recent changes to federal laws governing data retention.

The changes are the result of a December 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the legal rules that dictate how the discovery of information relevant to federal lawsuits is conducted. As a result of these changes, electronically stored information from schools and other organizations–including eMail and instant messages–are now subject to the discovery process (see "Ruling: Schools must archive eMail"). But there is evidence to suggest that many schools and districts have yet to implement comprehensive digital archiving in response to these changes (see "Poll: Schools aren’t meeting data-storage rules").

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To help school leaders adapt to these new rules, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has released a white paper called "School Districts, Data Retention, and Federal eDiscovery Rules: The Case for a Full eMail Archiving Solution Now." The paper highlights what schools need to know, how they should approach eMail archiving, and what other districts are doing to become compliant.

"eMail has transformed the way we all communicate–educators, schools, and school districts included. Because much information is shared electronically and federal laws and judicial interpretations are including electronic communication as subject to legal discovery, it has become increasingly important for schools to make eMail archiving a critical part of their record-keeping activities," said Keith Krueger, CoSN’s chief executive.

"The goal of this new paper and our advocacy efforts on this issue is to provide educators with the information they need to understand what compliance means and how to achieve it," said Donna Boivin, chief information officer for the Springfield, Mass., Public Schools and a member of the task force that developed the white paper.

The white paper warns that all electronic information could be considered evidence; this includes digital drafts of correspondence, grant proposals, and contracts. To manage these data effectively, schools must draft policies that confront legal implications, policy issues, and technology challenges, and school budgets need to ensure compliance.

Although the new rules could affect any school district, an informal eSchool News survey from last June revealed that 80 percent of school administrators are unclear about their district’s policies for the retention of electronically stored information, including eMail and instant messages. Two out of three IT administrators responsible for managing backup data and archived messages said they were aware of the newly amended FRCP, yet 90 percent said they had yet to initiate an FRCP compliance preparedness plan.

In general, school district responses fall into four broad categories, CoSN said:

1. Waiting to see who gets caught and how bad it is;
2. Waiting to see what their state attorney general says;
3. Relying on system backups to provide archiving; or
4. Implementing a full eMail archiving solution.

According to CoSN, only option No. 4 is a prudent strategy.

In the white paper, available only to members of CoSN, school leaders are reminded that backup systems aren’t the same as archives.

"Although backups provide a recent copy for recovery in the event of a disaster, they save only a snapshot of the existing system at a specific time," reads the report. "True archiving can provide extensive search and retrieval functionality. Finding the required messages can be done in minutes (vs. weeks)."

According to Sue Derison of the Forsyth County Schools in Georgia, the cost to retrieve by hand the archives of a single staff member’s eMail account for an 18-month period has been estimated at $60,000. Even a few such required searches each year would exceed the cost of a comprehensive eMail archiving solution.

The report also details the advantages and disadvantages of in-house or hosted eMail archiving systems–the only two comprehensive solutions for eMail archiving–and lists important considerations that school administrators should take into account when considering how best to manage their digital data, such as: (1) make provisions to restrict access to archives, (2) be wary that all eMail is actually being archived, and (3) ensure that the archiving solution preserves the full eMail "envelope" information.

Case studies from school districts around the country, with a range of various enrollments, also appear in the white paper, as well as a list of recommendations to help districts get started.

"While we provide case studies in the paper illustrating how some school districts are complying with new regulations, what is really needed is a comprehensive eMail archiving solution or protocol to help educators ensure they are operating in compliance with the law," said Jeff Patterson, an executive from Gaggle.net who helped lead the task force that developed the white paper. "Schools want to be compliant, but many educators are unsure of the right steps to take. National leadership is needed on this issue, and therefore it is important that CoSN, as the leading voice for district technology leaders, is urging action and educating on this critical issue."

For CoSN, the three main benefits of archiving are district defense, disaster recovery, and accumulating an extensive knowledge base.

"Archiving records in digital formats is very important, and states and districts need to have clear policies, standards, and procedures to address online records and archiving in formats that will preserve public documents," said Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the North American Council for Online Learning. "Equally important is ensuring that the digital formats are reviewed periodically to ensure against obsolescence. The [CoSN] paper provides useful guidance for states to consider when taking practical steps toward archiving and preserving digital records."

(Editor’s note: For more information about eMail archiving, see eSN’s Educator Resource Center on this topic.)

Links:

Consortium for School Networking
http://www.cosn.org

North American Council for Online Learning
http://www.nacol.org