IO Style Guide Subject Records

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IO Style Guide - Subject Records

• Settings the standards that can bring our dirty
  little secrets into the light

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Task Group Membership

• Sean McCorkell (chair) 211 Windsor-Essex
• Brian Harding Information Oakville
• Diane Graham Community Connection Collingwood
• Kristen Tomko 211 Ontario North
• Liz Gallagher Volunteer Centre of
  Guelph/Wellington
• Michele Watson Information Durham
• Vicki McMullen Information Niagara

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Admit it! Youve got some of these records!

• Congratulatory Messages and Scrolls
• Daylight Savings Time
• Notaries Public
• 211 Service Areas
• Appeals process OW/ODSP
• Getting Bonded
• Things that just traditionally have not fit
  cleanly into a quality resource database but we
  still need them to service our communities.

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What did we do? in 6 weeks

• Looked at our our dirty laundry locally
• Brought forth those records that we know we
  couldnt live without
• Looked at trends of WHAT information was being
  kept and identified similarities
• Looked at trends of HOW information was being
  kept and identified similarities
• Created a list of recommended standards for data
  entry
• Created a list of recommended Provincially
  Shared records

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What did we find?

• Lots of similarities in WHAT was being kept by
  each and every provider, over and over again
• Very little similarity on the whole as to HOW the
  information was being kept
• These are records that we MUST have
• These are records that can assist in the
  provision of service when someone else has to
  take your calls and are not from your area
• These are excellent training aids, both
  internally and externally

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Introduction

• Subject Records are not traditional records but
  the equivalent of searchable post-it notes. For
  example, records for toy drives, special events,
  steps for people to take if they require
  emergency service for a birth certificate, or
  seasonal information on holiday food programs.
  They are a way to store and keep handy
  information that needs to be found easily but
  which doesnt fit into the standard record
  structure or doesnt require the creation of a
  full record.

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Public vs Non-Public

• When making this determination one can make a
  fair assessment by asking three simple questions
• Is this information something that the general
  public can understand?
• Is this information something that the general
  public has an interest in?
• Is the information for this record stable and
  reliable? (i.e. do not include records that
  contain ever-changing information which will
  regularly be out of date.)
• It is also recommended that you avoid potential
  liabilities caused by rapidly changing
  information by including a disclaimer stating
  that records of this type are subject to more
  frequent changes and inaccuracies than other
  records.

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Subject Record Types

• Collection of Services
• Overview
• Miscellaneous Information
• Non-Service
• News

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Type Collection of Services

• Records that gather a number of similar services
  into a single record. In some cases these are
  services that do not meet an agencys inclusion
  criteria (or fall under a grey-area) or which
  would not be given an individual record for
  whatever reason. As a compromise they can be
  included under a single subject record.

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Type Collection of Services
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Type Overview

• Records that outline some of the more complex
  questions received by an IR agency and which
  require an in-depth knowledge of the available
  services. Usually these records do the work of
  diagnosing the individual for whom the services
  are intended, walking the IR staff through the
  process of collecting relevant information about
  the individual and referring services (or not) on
  that basis.
• Should be considered high-risk due to
  potentially changing information from any of the
  various sources cited and the increased demand
  for awareness of these changes when updating

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Type Overview
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Type Miscellaneous Information

• Records created in response to frequent requests
  for information placed through the IR service.
  These subject records act as repositories for
  information important to IR staff but which
  isnt actually a service or organization.

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Type Miscellaneous Information
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Type Non-Service

• Records documenting services that are expected to
  exist but which in fact do not. These subject
  records are often used to augment search results,
  most often to explain why no relevant search
  results are being returned. Users are often
  redirected to the closest approximate service.
  These records should only be used when an
  existing service is anticipated to exist but in
  fact does not.

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Type Non-Service
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Type News / Emergency

• Records that provide details on recent or
  short-term projects/initiatives in the community
  that are not associated with a typical database
  record or agency. These records are typically
  very short lived, have a definitive end
  date/timeline, and provide details for residents
  and IR staff on the relevant information. These
  may often have high usage from both the public
  and staff.
• NOTE These records may also be used in cases of
  emergency planning or disaster as a mean of
  compiling critical documentation in response to
  crisis. Such records should be maintained as an
  internal resource only, unless extreme
  circumstances require otherwise. Special
  stylistic considerations will be outlined
  wherever appropriate.

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Type News / Emergency
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Standardized/Shared Subject Records

• During this evaluation process, it was identified
  that to ensure a current, accurate subset of
  records, it was imperative to have a keeper
  established for each record. This keeper
  (possibly an InformOntario member agency) would
  be responsible to ensure that any information
  that may have changed in their assigned records
  be kept up-to-date and that all members be
  informed of any changes as they are made. (Refer
  to Appendix A Provincial Subject Records
  Ownership List)

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Standardized / Shared Subject Records

• The Task Group identified a number of records
  that contained information common to all
  InformOntario member agencies and therefore
  offered the greatest potential for effective data
  sharing a list of these records was established.
  This list also contains information on the agency
  which has agreed to keep the resource up to date
  for all other members. A constantly evolving and
  current version of this document is accessible on
  the InformOntario/InformCanada message board.

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Style Recommendations

• In order to ensure formatting consistency within
  a community information database when
  implementing Subject Records, it is suggested
  that the following style recommendations be
  adopted by IR agencies. All recommendations were
  developed using the InformOntario Style Guide as
  the foundation.
• Only fields considered MANDATORY elements for
  Subject Records will be discussed in this
  document. Use of other fields remains at the
  discretion of each agency to meet internal needs.
  Conformity to the InformOntario Style Guide is
  however recommended in all fields at all times
  regardless of inclusion in this document.

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Style Considerations

• Unique to each Subject Record Type
• ORG 1234
• DESCRIPTION
• Universal for all Subject Record Types
• ALTERNATE NAMES (Optional)
• IR BULLETIN (Currently COMMENTS)
• WWW ADDRESS
• TAXONOMY Indexing
• DATA MANAGEMENT FIELDS (Record Owner/Number,
  Creation/Deletion Dates, Import Date/Source
  Database, Source Info, Update/Modification Date

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Subject Record Guide

• Lets go take a look and see what it has in store
  for us.