research-article

Organizing and managing personal electronic files: A mechanical engineer's perspective

Authors:

H. C. McalpineAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Volume 26, Issue 4

Article No.: 23, Pages 1 - 40

https://doi.org/10.1145/1402256.1402262

Published: 07 October 2008 Publication History

Abstract

This article deals with the organization and management of the computer files handled by mechanical engineers on their personal computers. In engineering organizations, a wide variety of electronic files (documents) are necessary to support both business processes and the activities of design and manufacture. Whilst a large number of files and hence information is formally archived, a significant amount of additional information and knowledge resides in electronic files on personal computers. The widespread use of these personal information stores means that all information is retained. However, its reuse is problematic for all but the individual as a result of the naming and organization of the files. To begin to address this issue, a study of the use and current practices for managing personal electronic files is described. The study considers the fundamental classes of files handled by engineers and analyses the organization of these files across the personal computers of 40 participants. The study involves a questionnaire and an electronic audit. The results of these qualitative and quantitative elements are used to elicit an understanding of the practices and requirements of engineers for managing personal electronic files. A potential scheme for naming and organizing personal electronic files is discussed as one possible way to satisfy these requirements. The aim of the scheme is to balance the personal nature of data storage with the need for personal records to be shared with others to support knowledge reuse in engineering organizations. Although this article is concerned with mechanical engineers, the issues dealt with are relevant to knowledge-based industries and, in particular, teams of knowledge workers.

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cover image ACM Transactions on Information Systems

ACM Transactions on Information Systems Volume 26, Issue 4

September 2008

219 pages

ISSN:1046-8188

EISSN:1558-2868

DOI:10.1145/1402256

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2008 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 07 October 2008

Accepted: 01 July 2008

Revised: 01 February 2008

Received: 01 March 2007

Published in TOIS Volume 26, Issue 4

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Abbas SAli Raza SA. Khan MAdnan Khan MAtta-ur-Rahman Sultan KMosavi A(2023)Automated File Labeling for Heterogeneous Files Organization Using Machine LearningComputers, Materials & Continua10.32604/cmc.2023.03286474:2(3263-3278)Online publication date: 2023
Faghihi FZulkernine MDing S(2022)CamoDroidJournal of Systems Architecture: the EUROMICRO Journal10.1016/j.sysarc.2022.102452125:COnline publication date: 1-Apr-2022
Jones W(2022)Building a Better World with Our InformationundefinedOnline publication date: 10-Mar-2022
Ali IWarraich N(2021)Modeling the process of personal digital archiving through ubiquitous and desktop devices: A systematic reviewJournal of Librarianship and Information Science10.1177/096100062199641054:1(132-143)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2021
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Dinneen JJulien CFrissen IBrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)The Scale and Structure of Personal File CollectionsProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300557(1-12)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
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