Developing Electronic Records Management Software Applications and Managing Institutional Differences: A Comparative Study

For companies to manage their records efficiently, safe, systematically and economically, the transition to electronic records management systems is supported by legal regulations in Turkey. TÜRKSAT A.Ş. developed the “Electronic Records Management System (ERMS)“, which is capable of records management, sharing and archiving safely on the web for institutions. Setting up, operating and managing e-Government services in Turkey are assigned to TÜRKSAT A.Ş. via the coordination of the Ministry of Transportation. Within the scope of TÜRKSAT A.Ş. informatics services, many institutions put the ERMS project into practice. Conducted at 3 different institutions, the project is compared according to various effective parameters, and it is discussed that how these parameters affect the projects, and how alternative solutions and institutional differences are being managed. Effective parameters variant to institutions are determined according to the discriminant analysis on project phase. Between the institutions that TÜRKSAT A.Ş. has been conducting projects, Ankara University e-BEYAS Project differs for being an educational institution and having an academic structure. This differentiation required e-BEYAS project to be handled in two phases. In the first phase, administrative records processes similar to public institutions were addressed, whereas in the second phase, it is decided to manage the academic records processes that are special to universities. With the institutionalization work made on the practice according to the determined differences, the practice is being adjusted to the institution. Three different projects are being conducted at 3 different institutions and various effective parameters encountered are being analyzed. These differences pose the need of different ERMS software for different versions and flexible software architecture for different institutional requirements.