Emails provided after dropped lawsuit were easier, less costly to retrieve
By Rachel Luchmun
Emails supplied after a lawsuit following a KORA request was dropped were easier to access than the e-mails that were originally requested.
The lawsuit was pressed by the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) along with Marcus Clem, former student and Campus Ledger employee. It followed a request by members of the Campus Ledger for e-mails, most of which were available under the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA).
The quote for the original request of e-mails was about $47,000. After the lawsuit was voluntarily dropped and fewer e-mails were requested, the cost amounted to around $450.
Joe Sopcich, executive vice president of Administrative Services, said the difference in prices was due to the process of retrieving the e-mails.
“The original fee included the cost of resurrecting and retrieving all the emails,” Sopcich said. “The emails that were given were cheaper [to retrieve] than the emails that were originally asked for.”
The ease of retrieving the e-mails depends on where they are stored. John Ham, application architect, said that the e-mails that were given involved less work to be retrieved.
“We were able to use our current data stores to retrieve the e-mails,” Ham said. “I was the only one who had to be involved, along with the attorneys, which lowered the man hours.”
The e-mails that were given were still on the college’s server and were not yet in the tape backup. Ham said that every user has a size quota for their emails to be stored on the server. After this quota is reached, older emails are moved to a tape backup.
“[The quota] is on a per-user basis,” Ham said. “Some people use up their quota faster, like if they receive a lot of large attachments.”
According to Ham, the process of retrieving the e-mails from the tape backup involves more man hours. The process involves a third party vendor, scanning tapes, identifying the correct mailbox, finding the required emails, copying them and keeping track of the information at every second.
“We have to keep track of who received the tape, who got the file, who handed it off,” Ham said. “This is to make sure the file we give back is the exact same content and has not been altered.”
Under KORA, qualifying information may be requested from the college, which has to supply it in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost. According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (http://www.rcfp.org), “fees for copies of records may not exceed the actual cost of furnishing copies, including cost of staff time.” However, “fees for electronic records shall include only use of any computer services including staff time. There is no specific cost provision for microfiche or non-print media.”
Students may not be aware that such an act exists. Nichole Wohlforth, student, said she did not know of it.
“It is interesting that you can [make a request for records,]” Wohlforth said. “I don’t think it changes anything for the college though, they’ll still do whatever they want to do anyway.”
Contact Rachel Luchmun, news editor, at rluchmun@jccc.edu.