Archiving system for research

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Archiving system for research is a method for keeping all paper and electronic material produced in research projects in a good order from the very beginning to the archival or deletion.

Scope

How should paper, electronic, and physical material be organised in such a way that

  • it is easy to put it in its place at any time during the project,
  • very important material is not accidentally mixed with non-important material and accidentally destroyed,
  • it is easy to find a particular piece of material, even by someone else,
  • the system covers all material that is handled in the workplace (even with several projects or several people),
  • the system makes it easy to create the final archive when the material is no longer active?

Definition

Input

Information in the form of papers, electronic material, or physical samples.

Output

Organised information is a systematic form.

Rationale

Based on intuition and experience.

The material should be classified into different main categories based on the final destiny: archive, permanent storage, or temporary storage and eventual deletion. The difference with an archive and permanent storage is that an archive consists of unique material such as original research results and samples, while a permanent storage contains valuable but non-unique items such as books and journals. Some material in the permanent storage will become outdated, so this material will be checked and deleted by time to time.

Temporary material contains such papers and files that can be destroyed without permanent harm.

Each of the first and second-level categories listed below have their own physical place on a book shelf or drawer (with papers), a folder (if electronic files), or in the storage room or freezer (with physical samples).

The importance of a piece of information may change in time, and the categories are not strict. As an example, a temporary congress report may turn out to be very valuable, and it is moved to the shelf of books; or research samples may be destroyed when it becomes clear that no new research will be performed and the original analyses can no longer be repeated even if needed.

The extensive use of Opasnet reduces the amount of information flow on paper, and thus reduces the need for this classification. This classification also has implications to the use of Opasnet: because the Opasnet pages are meant to be permanent, pages on temporary topics (category 3) should be avoided. As an example, a particular meeting does not deserve an own page unless it is important as such; most project meetings can be located under the discussion page of the project itself.

Result

  1. Material to be archived
    1. Original research material (paper or electronic form)
      • Content: Project diaries, questionnaire forms, research plans.
      • Handling: Organised and archived per project.
    2. Original research material (physical material and samples)
      • Content: Tissue samples, environmental samples, other samples; artefacts.
      • Handling: Stored according to the type of sample and the sample archiving system of the institute.
    3. Personal diaries
      • Content: Diaries that are not related to a single project but to a single worker.
      • Handling: Organised and archived time wise per person.
    4. Administrative material
      • Content: Material related to funding, money usage, personnel, and other administration (i.e. not directly related to the research topic itself)
      • Handling: Collected time wise per project. Archived according to the laws and rules of the institute.
    5. Own publications
      • Content: Scientific articles and other publications where the institute person(s) have been co-authors.
      • Handling: Archived separately to the publication database of the institute (preferably in the electronic form). A personal copy must be available for each person about her own work (or access to the database).
    6. Fun
      • Content: Material related to free time activities of the employees (play scripts, songs etc.) These have an intrinsic value, although it is usually not officially acknowledged.
      • Handling: Organised time wise per unit or department.
  2. Material to be stored permanently
    1. Books
      • Handling: Organised in the personal, department, or institute library depending on the system.
    2. Selected journals
      • Content: The most important journals that must be available even long after the publication.
      • Handling: Organised in the personal, department, or institute library depending on the system.
    3. Reports
      • Content: Reports and other material that is informative and potentially useful for several years.
      • Handling: Organised in the personal or department library depending on the system.
    4. Scientific articles
      • Content: Useful articles and reports published by others.
      • Handling: Stored per person or unit. System depends on personal needs: time wise, per topic, or stored in a database.
    5. Conference and course material
      • Content: Material produced for or received in a conference or course.
      • Handling: Organised time wise per person.
    6. Other possible titles under permanent storage: Newspaper articles; Contact information and business cards
  3. Temporary material
    • Content: Temporary materials of a particular meeting, project or a manuscript. Less important journals.
    • Handling: Stored time wise per person and per project. Regularly checked for outdated material, which is deleted.
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