James Lappin's records management blog
One way of thinking through the question of how AI can augment, strengthen and extend records management, is to ask: Existing approaches For the past decade records management has been dominated in many countries by large cloud suites (such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace) that provide generic collaboration and communication applications that all or […]
One of the founding principles of archival science is that the original order of records should be respected. If an organisation was to retrospectively restructure a set of records, in a way that obscured or lost the original order, then this would risk giving a misleading picture of: One of the great strengths of digital […]
Data science techniques can be applied in any domain (medicine, psychology, marketing, baseball, records management etc.). In order for data science techniques to be used effectively, a combination is needed of: Imagine you are working with a data scientist on a project to use data science techniques for a particular records management purpose on a […]
Records management is a corporate function that takes place within the context of a wider digital economy, and is influenced by developments in that wider digital economy. The digital economy is three decades old but it is still moving, and still growing. One of the key trends in the digital economy has been the growth […]
The use of unstructured data as an input to generative AI processes Microsoft 365 Copilot is an example of a ‘retrieval augmented generation’ (RAG) system. RAG systems are a way for organisations to use the generative AI capabilities of external large language models in conjunction with their own internal information. M365 Copilot enables an individual […]
If you were to tell me that you are going to apply artificial intelligence for records management purposes, then the first thing I would do is blink. Once I had finished blinking I would ask you some questions in order to locate your proposed intervention more precisely. There is a range of types of AI, […]
My PhD thesis was published yesterday. You can view it/download it from the Loughborough University digital repository here. The thesis provides a reassessment of records management theory. It evaluates rival records management approaches to email, sets out a new model of how organisational record systems work, and makes predictions on the likely impact of AI […]
The Information and Records Management Society’s Microsoft 365 Customer Advisory Board Working Group provides a channel through which the records management community can work up feature requests to pass to Microsoft in an effort to influence and inform the company’s future roadmap for the product. In 2023 the Working Group passed two sets of feature […]
Copilot is Microsoft’s branding for the way they plan to enhance end-user productivity by making generative AI capabilities available in all their offerings, including Microsoft 365. The M365 Copilot is currently in its Early Access phase which means a select group of organisations already have access to it. No date has been fixed for its […]