The Information Auditor

The goal of information management is to work toward aligning the information acquired by people in an organization to its stated business objectives.

The information audit process determines whether the current information environment contributes effectively to the needs of people in the organization in meeting business objectives. The audit collects and analyzes data establishing what information is currently used; identify gaps, inconsistencies and duplications. It facilitates a mapping of information flows similar to a value stream mapping but focuses on information as a resource leading to desired business outcomes.

The information audit is intended to be an assessment of how well an organization's use of its information aligns with its information policy to meet its business or organizational goals. It has some similarity to the information system audit (that you can read about on the ISACA website) but instead of focusing on risks and controls of IT systems the information audit focuses on evaluating the strategic use of information within a company (or between a citizen and their government, or a parent and their child's school).

This Fall I started a wiki for Master of Public Administration students at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.

If you have any experiences with information audits and would like to post them to this site please email me.

The state of South Dakota has run a structural deficit for five of the last six years. It was going into December 2008 (the month the governor submits the budget to the legislature) with an unprecedented deficit projected due to the recession (83.8 million initially projected). Some of the state's trust funds, which were being used to balance its budget (constitutionally mandated), were in danger of being exhausted. Fitting for a state from the old Wild West, the cavalry came to the rescue in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It made millions of non-matching Federal funds available to the state, which it used to make up for its deficit for the 2009-10 budget (foregoing many program cuts and further depletion of its trust fund reserves).".

CSS Report, "Tracking Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources"
FAS.org added another useful CRS report to its collection. RL33895 was intended as an introduction for congressional staff on selected official government and commercial information resources (most look like they're on-line in one form or another), useful in tracking federal legislative or regulatory initiatives.

BALTIMORE ECOSYSTEM STUDY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT POLICY
An example of an information policy. (Last accessed 20090616).

Information policy guide for GFPTT.ORG
Another example of an "information policy". This one is called a "tutorial" by its authors. It is from a website of the Global Facilitation Parnternship for Transportation and Trade. (Last accessed 20090616).

The firm CEDROM-SNi put on a presentation about the strategic information audit,
The firm CEDROM-SNi put on a presentation about the strategic information audit at the 2006 Information Highways Conference in Toronto, Canada on Tuesday March 28, 2006. The presentation was entitled "Using the Strategic Information Audit to Prevent the Chaos." The speaker noted in the presentation was Louis-René Dessureault, Vice President, Advisory Services CEDROM-SNi describes itself on its website as "the leader in the distribution of news information on the Internet in both Canada and France." It also has a consulting service and this presentation features some its work in information auditing. (Last accessed 20090616).

Information auditing resource, Booth and Haines' "Information Audit: whose line is it anyway?" Health Libraries Review, Volume 10 Page 224 - December 1993.
Written in 1993, this paper describes an information audit conducted on a Regional Health authority within the National Health Service in the UK. The full text (PDF) was still available FREE the last i checked on March 11, 2007 from Blackwell Publishing. (Last accessed 20090616).

Susan Henczel's paper
"THE INFORMATION AUDIT AS A FIRST STEP TOWARDS EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE SPECIAL LIBRARIAN", INSPEL 34(2000)3/4, pp. 210-226.(Last accessed 20090616).

What is the difference between a knowledge audit and an information audit?
TFPL, an information professional services company based in London, UK, describe an information audit as "a systematic process through which an organisation can understand its knowledge and information needs, what it knows, the information flows and gaps. Resulting from an information audit is an ‘information map’ which can be used as the basis for designing the content of intranets, as well as for the foundation of a corporate information strategy or a knowledge management strategy." (Last accessed 20090616).

Example of an Info Audit: University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
"An information audit is being conducted in 2006 and 2007 as part of implementing a records management programme at SOAS. An information audit is a standard technique developed by records managers for improving the way in which an organisation manages its records. An audit combines data gathering and analysis to produce a series of tools which, when implemented, ensure that information is organised logically and consistently, and is not retained for longer than necessary." (Last accessed 20090616).

"The Information Audit: Useless Data or Valuable Information" by Dr. Elliott B. Jaffa & Neil Sivek
"An information audit helps you identify if you have the required data or information for your numerous on-going projects." (Last accessed 20090616).

From 2001, web-based materials for an Enterprise IT Strategy facilitated Focus Group Sessions for the state of Oregon.
Some good examples for strategic statements and policy formation. Organized by the Department of Administrative Services Information Resources Management Division. (Last accessed 20090616).

Sample of Steve Wood's Information Audit from freeprint.com
Steve Wood is a Senior Lecturer in Information Management at the School of Business Information, Liverpool. In Nov 2004, he published "Information Auditing: A guide for information managers" with freeprint.com. This pdf file has a sample of that work. (Last accessed 20090616).

"The Information Audit: Principles and Guidelines" (2003) by Hanneri Botha and J.A. Boon
From abstract: "Many different types of audits currently exist in the commercial world, including audits of information resources. Currently, as far as the researchers could determine, there exists no single accepted methodology for performing an information audit. In view of this, the researchers investigate whether it is possible (and desirable) to develop a standardised information auditing methodology." (Last accessed 20090616).