Timeframe: months 1-11; July 2002-May 2003)

Goals:
In phase I, the primary goal is to collect data to understand how faculty, administrators, and staff use and process electronic documents on their desktop, especially what types of applications they use; what types of files, they create/receive; and the challenges they face with digitally transmitted materials.

We will be comparing document management behavior in public institutions working under the state records law to that exhibited at Duke, a private institution. Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we will be exploring e-mail and electronic record retention and disposition practices in selected offices and units at UNC-CH, at other UNC System institutions, including an historically black institution and those with engineering and agricultural programs not resident at UNC-CH, and at Duke University.