The Auburn-Washburn School District provides public education to approximately 5,300 Kindergarten through 12th graders in Topeka, KS. It consists of 128 square miles of rural and suburban areas. Descriptive terms like academically challenging, progressive, small classes, high-achievement, modern and excellent are all used to describe the district.
June 20,2007
Case Study:Email Archival and Retrieval: Every School District Needs It
The Auburn-Washburn School District provides public education to approximately 5,300 Kindergarten throughth12 graders in Topeka, KS. It consists of 128 square miles of rural and suburban areas. Descriptive terms likeacademically challenging, progressive, small classes, high-achievement, modern and excellent are all used todescribe the district.
The Auburn-Washburn School District consists of nine schools and a total of 903 teachers and administratorswho use email through the district's main server. These 903 education professionals average 12,000-14,000emails per day. The large number of individual users coupled with the enormous volume created an interestingchallenge for Don Williams, Director of Information Technology at the Auburn District, when a federal mandaterequired him to implement an email archive solution for the entire district.
A New Term to Learn: E-Discovery
The tremendous growth in email usage has made email a primary source of legal discovery. Whenorganizations are faced with litigation, producing email is virtually inevitable. Every organization must nowimplement effective and efficient email archive solutions in order to meet the e-discovery demands of possiblelitigation.
When thinking about e-discovery, many neglect to consider how preserved emails could be used to mount anaggressive defense that can save organizations fortunes in unnecessary settlements and verdicts. Additionally,according to the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), it is actually a federal offense to destroy emails.
The bottom line is, most organizations need an email archive with search and retrieval functionality, and schooldistricts are just as susceptible to litigation as any organization.
The Selection Process
According to Williams, the FRCP law (technically an amendment) was passed in December 2006, but it actuallytook the district until February 2007 to get the law interpreted to the point where they felt confident theirimplementation would be compliant. In Kansas, they also had state law to contend with. Interestingly, the statealways had a seven-year retention timeframe for paper records, but never specified an end timeframe whenemails could be discarded.
In February, 2007, Williams, with Auburn-Washburn School District Network Specialist, Mark Mitchell, set aboutthe task of selecting email archival software. Since the district did not have an email archival solutionpreviously, they were starting from scratch. In a way, this was good, because there are three parts to thisprocess, archival, search and output, with security concerns at each step. It can be most advisable to install acomplete solution rather than a patchwork of individual segments.
Although there was no timeframe specified for the installation, Williams felt, "It was important to get it done asquickly as possible." Fortunately, Williams and Mitchell had anticipated this mandate and had reviewedavailable products about a year earlier. So, when the time came to narrow the decision, they targeted threeproducts for serious consideration.
The ViewWise Email Archive Solution
Computhink offered several features in their ViewWise Email Archive that others did not. First, ViewWiseinterfaces directly with Novell GroupWise, which the Auburn district was already using for email. Second,Computhink technical experts were willing to work with such a large-scale project involving over 900 users andalmost 14,000 emails per day. Third, ViewWise offered a highly advanced search engine, enabling search bykeyword, date, timeframe, and sender/receiver.
By March, 2007, the decision was made. They decided to install Computhink's ViewWise Enterprise DocumentManagement System with the Email Archive Module. This effectively gave them an Email Archival Solution andinterfaced seamlessly with their existing internal Novell GroupWise Email System. The Computhink systemallows archival of all e-mail messages that are sent and received by their email users
Additionally, the system can also be used to store and retain all other forms of Electronic Content. The Auburn-Washburn School District now has the flexibility to extend the system's usage later - taking advantage of the fullfeature set of the ViewWise Document Management Software.
Email Archive Functionality
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