Transcript The Australian Museum EMu Intranet Site

The Australian Museum EMu
Intranet Site
- Dr. Lance Wilkie, EMu Unit,
Australian Museum
Database Management: The Ideal
Situation
• Centralised user community.
– Consistency in data entry protocols and standardised
data formats.
• Adequate numbers of staff to cope with large
volumes of work created by a large institution.
• Assured long-term tenure of users.
– Appropriate training for advanced database functions.
– Database activities constitute the sole work
responsibilities.
• Quality control procedures for data entry.
Database Management in a Museum:
The Typical Reality
• Decentralised user community with a very small
centralised administration group.
• Many users are on various forms of short term
tenure (or volunteers) – turnover of users very
high.
• Databasing represents only a small portion of
work responsibilities.
• Different work practices/data entry protocols
perpetuated – standardised data entry cannot be
assured.
• Quality control cannot be assured.
The Problems This Presents:
• Small centralised administration means that there are only a small
number of users with adequate training and familiarity with the
system.
– Advanced tools such as global editing and the import tool have a great
demand across the institution, leading to heavy workload for
adminstrative staff. The alternative is to make these tools available to
the wider user community.
• Appropriate training is a major ongoing issue.
– Administrative staff do not have the time to accommodate continual
training. Training requires facilities (dedicated computers, training
room etc) which many institutions do not have.
• Interdepartmental variation in data entry protocols and data
formats is common.
• Departments have to be trusted to implement their own quality
control on data entry.
Our Intranet: Critical Features
• Training and support.
– Links to generic EMu Help resources.
– FAQs.
– AM-specific user protocols.
• Issues reporting and resolution.
– Issues checking and submission database.