Thesis Defense - MSIQ Program - December 2014
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This document summarizes an information quality assessment of the file system at the Department of Arkansas Heritage (DAH). It conducted a stakeholder survey, file system scans, and evaluation. The assessment found wasted storage space, duplicate files, difficulty finding files, and lack of naming conventions and governance. It recommended establishing agency-level groups to define naming standards and manage files, providing training, and regularly scanning to measure improvements under a centralized governance structure. The goal is to clean the file system in a non-invasive way through cooperation across DAH agencies.
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Thesis Defense - MSIQ Program - December 2014
- 1. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Information Quality and File System Management at the Department of Arkansas Heritage BY T.M. “SHELLEY” KEITH
- 2. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Department of Arkansas Heritage 7 “arm” state organization, plus central director’s office ◦ Each arm with its own mission, staff. ◦ Some have their own regulatory requirements. Identified issues with file system, email ◦ Lack of naming conventions ◦ Operational inefficiencies ◦ Concerns about waste, archives, backups, resources Digital photo storage ◦ space, conventions, backups Training IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 2 Step 1: Define Business Need and Approach
- 3. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Approach Rationale Quantify issues ◦ Verify problems identified by leadership ◦ What other problems exist that might be contributing to or more critical than what’s been reported? Prioritize ◦ Triage identified issues and begin understanding the source Define improvement ◦ What is “better” for this organization? Plan ◦ What will it take to start making progress toward “better?” IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 3
- 4. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Project Approach Establish A Data Quality Baseline ◦ Step 1: Define Business Need and Approach ◦ Step 2: Analyze Information Environment ◦ Step 3: Assess Data Quality ◦ Step 4: Assess Business Impact ◦ Step 5: Identify Root Causes ◦ Step 6: Develop Improvement Plans ◦ Step 10: Communicate Actions and Results Goal ◦ Uncover problems ◦ Determine which ones are worth addressing ◦ Identify root causes for high priority issues ◦ Develop realistic action plans IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 4 McGilvray pp 242-243
- 5. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Project Goals IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 5 1. Assess the current ecosystem from an Information Quality perspective. I. Primary Dimensions I. Duplication II. Ease of Use & Maintainability III. Data Specifications 2. Provide a set of formal recommendations for naming conventions. I. Folder names and file system organization II. Metadata III. File names 3. Provide a path to and structure for unified, consistent, file system governance. Step 1: Define Business Need and Approach
- 6. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Department of Arkansas Heritage Director’s Office Museums Historic Arkansas Museum (HAM) Delta Cultural Center (DCC) Mosaic Templars Cultural Center (MTCC) Old State House Museum (OSH) Heritage Resource Agencies Arkansas Arts Council (AAC) Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission (ANHC) Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP) The Organization IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 6 Step 1: Define Business Need and Approach
- 7. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program DAH Network Access Each agency has a dedicated network drive (T) Each agency has access to a central shared drive (S) Each user has their own personal network drive (U) IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 7 S: AAC ANHC Central MTCC AHPP DCC HAM OSH Step 2: Analyze the Information Environment
- 8. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Project Plan & Tools Plan ◦ File System Review ◦ Manual evaluation of the file names and folder structures across the network. ◦ Stakeholder Survey ◦ Understand perceptions across agencies and user types ◦ Administrative, Professional, Leadership ◦ Identify issues throughout the organization ◦ Uncover root causes ◦ File System Scan ◦ Quantitative measurements for the health of the file system Tools ◦ MailChimp ◦ Google Form ◦ Microsoft Excel ◦ DiskBoss Pro IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 8
- 9. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Stakeholder Survey 37 question ◦ 46 input opportunities once broken down into survey tool ◦ 5 required 112 responses of 213 employees emailed (53%) Questions specific to Leadership & IT staff Applicable to: ◦ Dimensions of Data Quality ◦ Business Impact Techniques ◦ Information Life Cycle ◦ 10-Step Process Organized by: ◦ Theme ◦ Employee type ◦ Agency IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 9
- 10. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Stakeholder Survey – IQ Map Information Life Cycle Business Impact Technique Dimension(s) of Data Quality 10-Step Process Theme Plan Usage Ease of Use Define Business Need & Approach General information Obtain Anecdotes Duplication Analyze Information Environment Time spent on/frequency of encounters Store & Share Cost of Low-Quality Data Timeliness & Availability Assess Data Quality Preferences Maintain Process Impact Perception, Relevance, & Trust Assess Business Impact File storage behaviors Apply Ranking & Prioritization Data Specifications Identify Root Causes Regulatory awareness Dispose Develop Improvement Plans IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 10
- 11. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – Agency Information Arkansas Arts Council, 11, 10% Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, 21, 19% Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, 18, 16% Delta Cultural Center, 3, 3%Director's Office, 19, 17% Historic Arkansas Museum, 16, 14% Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, 8, 7% Old State House Museum, 16, 14% RESPONSES BY AGENCY IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 11
- 12. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – Category Leadership, 13, 12% Administrative, 29, 26% Professional, 70, 62% EMPLOYEE CATEGORY IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 12 Director's Office, 19, 17% Museums, 43, 38% Heritage Resource Agencies, 50, 45% RESPONSE BY AGENCY TYPE
- 13. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Response – File Types IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 13 102 75 71 26 19 14 14 7 7 6 4 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 FILE TYPES
- 14. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – File Findability 10 7 8 2 1 2 6 4 14 20 20 12 2 1 2 3 4 5 ORDERED EASY (1) TO HARD (5) EASE - BY CATEGORY Administrative Leadership Professional IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 14 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 1 2 3 4 5 BY CATEGORY PERCENTAGE Professional Leadership Administrative Average
- 15. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – Time & Frequency 26% reported recreating existing files because they couldn’t find the file they needed… IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 15 25% reported being unable to find the source file for an archive document type like PDF… 26% reported having to ask someone to email a file because they can’t find it or it’s stored where they don’t have access… …at least once a month.
- 16. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program 32% reported encountering files that were supposed to be current, but actually contained outdated or incorrect information… 23% reported discovering conflicting copies of the same file… IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 16 …at least once a year. Survey Responses – Time & Frequency
- 17. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – Time & Frequency 20 hours or more, 1, 1% Less than 10 hours, 7, 6% Less than 20 hours, 3, 3% Less than 5 hours, 98, 90% TIME PER WEEK IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 17
- 18. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – File Storage Behaviors Yes, 86% Yes, 53% No, 14% No, 47% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Local External STORING FILES ON NON-NETWORK DRIVES IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 18
- 19. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses – Regulatory Awareness IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 19 No, 33, 30% Yes, 76, 70% ORGANIZATION WIDE No Yes 9 2 22 18 11 47 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Administrative Leadership Professional BY CATEGORY No Yes
- 20. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Survey Responses - Preferences No 39% Yes 61% PRESENCE OF FILE NAMING PREFERENCES EXAMPLES [project number].[artifact_id] [location]_[year]_[description] [historic resource number]-[historic name]- [description] IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 20
- 21. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program File System Evaluation – Drive Scans IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 21 Measures Drives Totals Agency T Drives S Central AAC ANHC AHPP OSH MTCC HAM DCC Wasted Space (GB) 9.2 0.33163 28.05 153.31 184.3 28.55 244.8 80.25 9.26 728.79 by last accessed 1-2 years 1-3 months 1-2 years 3-5 years 3-6 months 1-2 years 1-3 months 6-12 months 6-12 months by user name Administrators Jessica.Cren shaw Administrators Administrators Shelle Administrators bryan.mcdade Patricia by file type JPG JPG JPG JPG JPG TIF TIF JPG TIF Disk Space (GB) 305.54 38.04 147.37 1380 1690 388.02 754.64 418.68 55.03 5122.2 by last accessed 1-2 years 1-2 years 2-3 years 3-5 years 1-2 years 3-5 years 6-12 months 6-12 months by modified 5+ years 2-3 years 2-3 years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years by user name Administrators Administrators Scotty Administrators Administrators Administrators jaime by file type TIF VHD JPG JPG JPG TIF MTS JPG TIF % wasted 3% 1% 19% 11% 11% 7% 32% 19% 17% 14% Number of Files 68739 16805 85890 387661 409190 60059 114067 140869 27018 1283280 by last accessed 1-2 years 1-2 years 3-5 years 3-5 years 1-2 years 3-5 years 6-12 months by modified 3-5 years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years 5+ years duplicate files 9101 1046 11699 88089 56439 5080 8613 33555 3086 213622 % duplicate 13% 6% 14% 23% 14% 8% 8% 24% 11% 17%
- 22. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Wasted Space IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 22 3% 1% 19% 11% 11% 7% 32% 19% 17% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% % wasted WASTED SPACE PER DRIVE S Central Arts ANHC AHPP OSH MTCC HAM DCC
- 23. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Duplicate Files 13% 6% 14% 23% 14% 8% 8% 24% 11% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% % duplicate PERCENTAGE OF DUPLICATE FILES ON EACH DRIVE S Central Arts ANHC AHPP OSH MTCC HAM DCC IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 23
- 24. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Network Waste 14% Wasted Disk Space IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 24 17% Duplicate Files
- 25. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program File System Age 1 year 38% 5 Years 34% 10 Years 17% Older 11% REPORTED AGE OF FILES 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wasted Space Disk Space Files LAST ACCESSED < 1 year 1-2 years 2-3 years 3-5 years 5+ years IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 25
- 26. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Stakeholder Support 1 4% 2 4% 3 13% 4 29% 5 50% VALUE PERCEPTION - ORGANIZATION IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 26
- 27. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Recommendations Create agency-level working groups to steward the resource. Include IT. a. Naming conventions b. Folder hierarchies c. Metadata d. Deletion/archiving plans Create a central working group made up of agency stewards and IT. a. Formalize and support the work being done at the agency level. b. Establish “S” drive requirements for appropriate use, naming, and archiving. Provide regular training on conventions, metadata, and the use of existing tools. Continually scan network drives to identify areas of focus for working groups. Define and measure improvement. IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 27
- 28. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Conclusion Interview Survey Scans Refine Iterate IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 28 Sweeping change is not likely to render desired results. A non-invasive approach will allow agencies to establish conventions and protocols that work for their requirements while achieving the desired result of a cleaner, more efficient, more sustainable file system.
- 29. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK Information Quality Program Future Considerations Digital Asset Management Geodatabase Sharepoint or other “intranet” type file versioning tool IQ AND FILE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AT DAH 29
Editor's Notes
- Regulatory requirements: archival needs, file content/format, naming conventions governed by other agencies they work closely with, etc.
- Reality vs. perception. Leadership vs. the rest of the organization vs. file system scans. Leadership had anecdotes and the desire for consistency, but no hard data to understand the actual state of their file system. They also didn’t have a clear understanding of how issues were impacting the whole organization.
- Establish a data quality baseline 10-Step Process Business Impact Techniques Information Life Cycle (POSMAD) Data Quality Dimensions
- This project focused on the S and T drives.
- The start of building comparative data for measuring progress over time. Attempt to ensure that any corrective measures don’t miss the mark. In many cases, the multiple choice questions existed just to get the user in the right mindset to respond to the long-answer portion. So much value comes from letting people tell their stories. Use cases, anecdotes Frustrations with systems and services The survey responses helped inform the scan priorities. The scans gave context to survey results.
- Use steps 1-6 of the 10-Step Process, as prescribed by the project approach. Note that Step 10 isn’t reflected in the survey.
- The largest group was the Historic Preservation program with 21 respondents, followed by the Director’s office, the Natural Heritage Commission, and then by a tie between the Historic Arkansas Museum and the Old State House Museum. Delta Cultural Center contributed 3 responses to the survey.
- Respondents were asked “How easy is it to locate existing files?” The overall responses clearly skewed “easy” in raw numbers, but when it was broken down into percentages for each employee category, we see that, on average, a larger percentage of leadership and professional respondents skewed toward “hard.” These opposing trends may indicate that users have adapted to the system, or that users don’t perceive reported issues as factors that increase the level of difficulty of file findability. It may also indicate that leadership and professional users rely on administrative staff for some of these functions.
- A quarter of the responses indicated consistent problems finding files. Many of the comments provided examples of files renamed or deleted by coworkers, mislabeled or misfiled files, and one mentioned a file that had been password protected by a former employee. The most common issues associated with difficult to find files were those involving images and GIS data. The lack of consistent metadata was repeatedly cited as a contributing factor. Email files: This is of concern because it results in duplicate files, and/or a number of versions of files, across the network. Seventeen percent of respondents indicate they regularly create files only to discover a similar file already existed. Note that these figures only reflect self-reported instances of these scenarios. In the case of discovering files already exist, the probability is high that existing files go undiscovered as well.
- Question 10: How often have you encountered files that were supposed to be current, but actually contained outdated or incorrect information? This issue can arise because files haven’t been updated to match new information, but are the most current version; because updated versions are being stored elsewhere, or because an old version is the most readily available to the respondent. Thirty-two percent responded that they encounter this issue more than once per year. Question 11: How often have you encountered conflicting copies of the same file or form? Question 11 measures the frequency of discovering conflicting files, rather than simply outdated ones. Twenty-three percent of respondents encounter this issue more than once per year.
- Respondents were asked to self-report the impact of information quality issues in the DAH file system in terms of hours per week. Ninety percent indicated less than 5 hours per week spent on these scenarios. Overall, while frequency may be an issue for some situations, the actual time spent working through these problems is perceived to be minimal.
- Keeping copies of files is a common, and sometimes necessary, behavior in networked environments. It can also be indicative of and a contributor to versioning and duplication issues. Eighty-six percent of respondents reported keeping copies of files on their computer. Like storing files on a local computer rather than on the network drives, storing files or copies in the cloud or on other external devices can be a best practice for archiving purposes, but can also lead to versioning and duplication issues. Fifty-three percent of respondents reported storing files in this way. Reasons cited include easier sharing of files, fear of loss due to drive failure, and the ability to access files from outside the office.
- Discussions with leadership indicated the possibility that employees within the agencies might not be fully aware of internal and external regulatory requirements governing the storage and deletion of files. Seventy percent of survey respondents indicated an awareness that there was a policy or policies. However, a request to describe the requirement resulted in responses ranging from “I have no idea” to “3 years” to “until legislators say it’s ok to delete them” and even “someone else keeps up with that.” Couple this lack of awareness with repeated reports of “other people” deleting needed files from network drives and we start to see some of the root cause of issues overall.
- Sixty-one percent of respondents indicated they already have a method in how they name files, and many provided examples in the comments. While some respondents had very general guidelines, such as date and location for photos relevant to a geographic area, some were very specific in their methods. Examples included above. Many examples of hierarchal folder structures were provided to sort files in ways that were appropriate to the agency. One respondent indicated use National Park Service naming conventions, and another suggested adherence to an ISO standard. The diversity of use cases throughout DAH will factor heavily into any efforts for file name and folder structure consistency.
- The leadership interview, and employee survey informed the list of needs for the file system evaluation. Not only did we need to understand the state of the file system, we needed to understand how the perceptions in the survey were reflected by the state of the file system. Thorough scans were taken of each shared drive, and a set of key indicators; age of the file system, file types, and users of interest; shown in the table below, were selected to profile the overall health of the file system. File system age is demonstrated by (1) how long ago the largest portion of the drive was last accessed and last modified, and (2) by how long ago the largest portion of the duplicate space was last accessed. In addition to the evaluation criteria, we’re also able to see the usernames associated with wasted space, who uses the most disk space, who has the most duplicate files, which file types are the most common, and the most commonly duplicated.
- 14% of the scanned file system, or (729 gb of space) qualifies as ‘wasted space’, meaning it’s occupied by duplicated files. 17% of the files on the system (213,622) are duplicates.
- One of the key indicators of the age of the file system is when files were last accessed. This includes just opening them. The chart here is the last accessed times for the largest portion of the disk space or files of each type. To clarify, the wasted space indicator is the last opened times for the largest chunk of wasted files on each drive. Disk space is calculated the same way. Files are by actual numbers of files. What we see here is a comparison of the perception of the age of files users interact with, and an actual reading of the how recently different types of files are accessed.
- Respondents were asked to rate on a scale of 1 (Not at all valuable) to 5 (Very valuable) how valuable they thought a consistent naming convention would be in the context of finding files and information. Only eight percent of respondents felt a level of consistency had little to no value. Overwhelmingly, respondents felt consistency would be valuable, with half of respondents felt there was significant value in the effort. Many did voice concerns about the level of effort such an initiative would require. Those with much evolved naming and storage methods, especially those in use agency-wide, were opposed to imposed standards that would require significant time and manpower to adopt.
- Realistic action plan(s) – Accountability, ownership, relevance. Create agency-specific naming conventions. Consider legacy files. Create agency-specific file cleanup plans to remove drafts and unnecessary versions. Establish agency-specific metadata conventions. Consider metadata editors. Provide training on existing tools such as the Microsoft Suite, Adobe, etc. Folders should be relevant to the organization, not individuals. (Personal files should be stored on non-work spaces) Formalize IT processes and communication surrounding backups, archiving, and loss recovery. It would be beneficial for IT to clearly define and make available archiving and backup protocols, including when backups are set to run. Make it known when issues occur, such as backup failures, and communicate updates and changes early and often.
- Note the cyclical nature. Use the baselines to measure improvement. Keep testing. Interview/survey – measure perceptions, identify things to test Scan – tests of previous and new metrics. How you identify actual progress or lack thereof. Refine, iterate – identify changes to be made for the next cycle (almost agile, selecting the focus of the next sprint), update survey instrument, select new scans to be run/old to be dropped The overwhelming majority of stakeholders, including leadership and IT, support a more sustainable, strategic file system management process. The least optimal outcome of this initiative, per leadership and IT survey responses, is to do nothing. It should not go unnoticed that the status quo is designated ‘least optimal’ in these responses. The optimal outcome is agency-specific plans designed to support the needs and requirements of each branch of DAH, alleviate some of the pressure on the physical servers, and make transparent the naming, storing, and archiving of files throughout the organization.
- As this is the preliminary study in a long-term rehabilitation effort, it will be necessary to re-survey stakeholders regularly to determine needed course adjustments and identify new issues. Based on stakeholder feedback, there is significant interest and perceived need for both a Digital Asset Management System (DAM) and a geodatabase. Enterprise cloud storage options may alleviate some of the network-based issues associated with archiving and availability. Additionally, tools that include change management and version control options, such as Microsoft Sharepoint, could serve to correct user behaviors regarding archiving and versioning. These considerations should not be taken as recommendations, but rather starting points for further evaluation and review. It should be noted that the 1st steps recommended here are necessary for successful implementation of enterprise systems.