IO Style Guide - Subject Records

Settings the standards that can bring our ‘dirty little secrets’ into

the light

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

Admit it! You’ve 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.

What did we do? – in 6 weeks

• Looked at our our ‘dirty laundry’ locally• Brought forth those records that we know we

couldn’t 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

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

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 doesn’t fit into the standard record structure or doesn’t require the creation of a full

record.

Public vs Non-Public

When making this determination one can make a fair assessment by asking three simple questions:

1. Is this information something that the general public can understand?2. Is this information something that the general public has an interest

in?3. 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.

Subject Record Types

• Collection of Services

• Overview

• Miscellaneous Information

• Non-Service

• News

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 agency’s 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.

Type – Collection of Services

Type – Overview

• Records that outline some of the more complex questions received by an I&R 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 I&R 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

Type – Overview

Type – Miscellaneous Information

• Records created in response to frequent requests for information placed through the I&R service. These subject records act as repositories for information important to I&R staff but which isn’t actually a service or organization.

Type – Miscellaneous Information

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.

Type – Non-Service

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 I&R 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.

Type – News / Emergency

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)

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.

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 I&R 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.

Style Considerations

• Unique to each Subject Record Type:– ORG 1|2|3|4– DESCRIPTION

• Universal for all Subject Record Types– ALTERNATE NAMES (Optional)– I&R 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

Subject Record Guide

Let’s go take a look and see what it has in store for us.