Transition to a Fully Digital Government: Forms

This blog post is the third in a series (first post, second post) focusing on specific areas agencies should consider in their transition to fully digital government.

Many agencies capture information from their employees or the public through forms that they make available on their intranets or public websites. For example, forms are used to request leave, apply for a passport, and to enroll in government programs like Medicare.

NARA's vision for an all-digital government is to have on-line forms managed completely digitally. However, if agencies have not implemented all-digital workflows to capture and authenticate information that is entered into their forms, then both users and agencies must print, manage paper copies, and then re-digitize the forms as part of their business processes. For example, some online forms have to be printed, signed, and submitted by users, instead of simply filling them out and submitting them online.

Data from printed forms must be captured into a record keeping system either through digitization and optical character recognition (OCR), or through manual data entry. Once the information they contain has been captured, the forms themselves should be considered input records and they can be disposed of according to the instructions in GRS 5.2, Item 20.

Agencies often retain images of the forms in their systems "just in case". If the information captured on the form serves as input into a record in an agency system, then it will likely be more cost effective to:

1. Replace wet ink signatures with electronic or digital signatures.
2. Replace the need for printed and mailed paper forms with web-enabled information capture-in other words, replace paper forms with web forms.
3. Digitize and capture necessary data from any paper forms for use as input in a record keeping system. Use GRS 5.2, Item 20 as authorization to dispose of input records and to dispose of the scanned images of the forms.

Agencies that choose to retain images of forms, rather than use the information they obtain as input into another record, must digitize permanent records according to 36 CFR 1236 E and temporary records according to 36 CFR 1236 D.