Proposition of a Faceted Classification Model to Support Corporate Information Organization and Digital Records Management

Abstract

The employees of an organization often use a personal hierarchical classification scheme to organize digital documents that are stored on their own workstations. As this may make it hard for other employees to retrieve these documents, there is a risk that the organization will lose track of needed documentation. Furthermore, the inherent boundaries of such a hierarchical structure require making arbitrary decisions about which specific criteria the classification will be based on (for instance, the administrative activity or the document type, although a document can have several attributes and require classification in several classes).A faceted classification model to support corporate information organization is proposed. Partially based on Ranganathan's facets theory, this model aims not only to standardize the organization of digital documents, but also to simplify the management of a document throughout its life cycle for both individuals and organizations, while ensuring compliance to regulatory and policy requirements.