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.