Website & Social Media Archiving for Oklahoma State Agencies

Do you represent a Oklahoma State Government Agency and wondering how you should archive all your web and social media content? Are you trying to determine what you need to do both from a legal and a technical point of view? Here’s a guide to the different Laws and processes you should follow.

What Laws govern Records Management in Oklahoma State?
Oklahoma Open Records Act, (Title 51, Oklahoma Statutes §§ 24A.1-24A.24) governs Open Records in Oklahoma State.

The Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES), with assistance from the Oklahoma Office of the Attorney General, provides guidance on standards for all State of Oklahoma agencies regarding the use of social media for creating and sharing information. (See State of Oklahoma Social Networking & Social Media Policy and Standards).

Do Oklahoma State Records Laws include Website and Social Media content?
Oklahoma Public Records Laws provide for the preservation and production of public records by the relevant agencies, and regulated access for the public to these records, regardless of physical form.

All content, comments and replies posted on any state agency social media, Web 2.0 or social networking technology are subject to the Oklahoma Open Records Act. Social media content created or received by state agency personnel may meet the definition of a record as defined by State statute, when the content is made or received in connection with the transaction of the official business of the agency [67 O.S., §203(a)] and should be retained as required.

Information disseminated using these technologies and the relevant metadata is also pertinent to these laws. Agency websites are bound by the same provisions, preservation and destruction schedules as paper documents, as “record” means “all documents, including, but not limited to, any book, paper, photograph, microfilm, data files created by or used with computer software… or other material regardless of physical form or characteristic, created by, received by, under the authority of, or coming into the custody, control or possession of public officials, public bodies, or their representatives in connection with the transaction of public business, the expenditure of public funds or the administering of public property“. (51 O.S. 24A.3.)

What agencies are subject to these laws?
Agency is described as any authority, office, officer, bureau, board, counsel, commission, institution, unit, division, or body of the executive branch of the state government, whether elected or appointed, in their official capacity, excluding political subdivisions of the State.

Oklahoma Social Networking and Social Media Policy and Standards states each state agency is responsible for ensuring its employees’ and vendors’ compliance with the provisions of these standards. These standards are in accordance with 62 O.S. §34.20.

What is my agency required to do in line with these regulations?
Your agency website must be retained in electronic format and remain usable, searchable, retrievable and authentic for the length of the designated retention period as established by the agency and/ or form of record in question and content placed on state agency social media should be moderated by an authorized, trained staff member.

In which form do I need to archive my records?
Websites must be retained in their original format: HTML, CSS, PDF etc.

How can we transfer website archives made with Pagefreezer to the Oklahoma State Digital Archives?
Pagefreezer exports all data on request in the original file format including the required metadata. This data set can be transferred by FTP or by other means to the Oklahoma State or Agency Digital Archives.

How can Pagefreezer help our agency?
Pagefreezer has been working on our Archiving technology and processes since 2006 – We know how to properly archive Web Sites, Blogs and Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. Just ask any of our over 500 clients including US Cities, Counties and other Government Agencies as well as Multinationals, Financial Service Firms, Healthcare Providers …

Our clients know our technology is secure, reliable and authenticated. More importantly they appreciate the ease-of-use.

That’s why our complex technology is simple to use – The archiving is automatic and retrieval is a matter of signing in, going to the date you want, and browsing your site just like you did when the content was just published.

If you have questions about any of this or about how to actually implement effective Online Public Records management start a free trial, schedule a demo or contact us directly.

Have more questions?

Contact us at +1-888-916-3999 or sales@pagefreezer.com