Electronic Records Management Training

As the country’s leading institution in health education, research, and public service, the University of the Philippines Manila must uphold record management standards to establish a culture of efficiency and provide credible and accurate information within and outside the UP Manila community. With a record management system in place, transitioning from traditional paper records management to an electronic regime can be considered a countermeasure should an unfortunate event arise.

To gear up the UP Manila employees with the right skills and mindset on records and archives management, the HRDO partnered with the National Archives of the Philippines (NAP) with a mandate “To enhance transparency, public accountability and responsible governance, promote freedom of information, provide access to official records, preserve and popularize Filipino cultural heritages….” to conduct Electronic Records Management Policy (ERMP) training on July 19-20, 2023, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm to an online platform via Zoom. 

Sir Remmel G. Talabis, Senior Archivist and OIC of the Archives Preservation Division, facilitated Day 1 of the morning session with the discussion about the general provisions of the ERMP including its purpose, scope, basic requirements, specific roles and responsibilities, and the prerequisites for ERMP implementation. In the afternoon session, he discussed the standards for record documentation, creation and capturing of electronic records, digital signature, interoperability, data migration, records conversion and storage media, electronic mail management, and disposition of electronic records which constituted the general policies of ERMP.

Day 2 of the training was facilitated by Ms. Anna Theresa L. Magundayao, Information Technology Officer III and Chief of the IT Division, where she walked through UPM employees with the reasons to transition from paper to electronic records, steps to be undertaken in file planning, file naming, and digitization, budgetary requirements, review of current processes and systems and change management. Ms. Magundayao also explained the activities to create an ERM Committee, the ERM program, and the different plans consisting of disaster, migration, and transition plans. Participants were also guided in answering the checklist for compliance to assess the current status of UPM with regard to ERMP. 

The 2-day training concluded with identifying goals, establishing appropriate action, determining responsible persons for each action step, setting time frames, and estimating budget allotment as part of participants’ action plan in carrying out their initial step in creating an ERM program in their respective offices.