The practice of web archiving at the Document Warehouse

Abstract

The study investigated the practice of web archiving at the Document Warehouse as a single case study. The objectives of the study were; to establish if the staff were aware of web archiving; to find out the processes of web archiving in the organisations; to determine the barriers and enablers to for successful web archiving; to determine the benefits of web archiving for the organisations; and to recommend ways in which web archiving can be enhanced in the organisation. The study employed a qualitative research approach and two IT staff and a single records employee were the participants selected through purposive sampling. The study was conducted by interviews as data collection methods. All three participants were interviewed and content analysis was used to analyse the collected data. The study revealed that the Document Warehouse did not systematically practice web archiving. Web archiving was limited to monthly snapshots of the entire server that hosted the content of the web interface and the web records were managed on a content management system called M-Files. This resulted in responses and answers that were not directly reflective of web archiving. The study also showed that some of the challenges were that there was neither a web archiving programme nor a web archiving policy; however, web records were covered in the records management policy with all the other records. The limited minor web archiving practised was linked to M-Files which attracted more clients. The researcher recommends Document Warehouse to get their staff trained in practicing web archiving and to formulate a web archiving programme and web archiving policy.