Council on archives international records management trust
The life cycle of electronic records
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- The importance of standards
The life cycle of electronic recordsThe life cycle of electronic records is longer than the life cycle of the systems used to create them. Computer systems become obsolete so rapidly that it is unrealistic for these systems to remain usable for the length of time that the organisation will need the records that are created by them. This fact is a characteristic that distinguishes electronic records from paper records. Electronic records have to be migrated on to new systems in such a way that they can still read and understood while maintaining their integrity and authenticity. This is presents significant technical challenges, which will be discussed below. Although the technical challenges in managing electronic records are formidable, the management issues are arguably even more important. Electronic records cannot survive without active strategic intervention to migrate the records onto new systems. This process is expensive and requires the implementation of policies and procedures that affect the working practices of the entire organisation. Changes requiring this level of resources and support cannot be achieved without senior management approval. For example, the adoption of technical standards to facilitate the future migration of electronic records involves a short-term penalty to the organisation because it limits the choice of computer applications that may be used. It is a management decision to forego the short-term operational benefit of having a wider choice of computer software in favour of the long-term organisational benefit of being to access essential records in the future. Balancing these opposing needs is a management decision. To be successful, an electronic records management programme must be treated as a management issue and have high-level support. Recognising this point is the first step toward ensuring effective management is possible. Planning for electronic record-keeping systems often stops once the system is implemented. This is usually because system’s developers do not consider the fact that the record’s life cycle often extends long past the anticipated obsolescence of computer equipment. In short, the systems do not address record-keeping needs comprehensively, and this can result in serious problems, including the following:
Ideally, the life cycle of electronic records should be planned and reflected in the design of systems that support the work of the organisation. Planning should include
Activity 10 What are the consequences for records when systems become obsolete? What are the technical issues? What are the management issues? Are there old computer disks and/or tapes in your office? If so, can you still read them? If not, why not? The importance of standardsStandards play a key role in the management of electronic records. Until recently, most computerised systems did not contain records of long-term archival value. While there was data in these systems, the material did not need to preserve any of its structure or context. However, increasingly, computerised systems are replacing paper as the record-keeping systems of choice by many organisations. As a result, it is critical that the information technology standards being applied today are adequate to ensure the long-term preservation and use of the information contained in the systems. Standardisation is critical to managing electronic records effectively. Standardisation plays a critical role in avoiding costs associated with changing technologies. Records professionals need to encourage awareness of the importance of relying on recognised IT standards as a preventive measure against the potentially devastating effects of hardware and software incompatibility, coupled with the rapid obsolescence of technology. A standard is a definition or format that has been approved by a recognised standards organisation or is accepted as a de facto standard by the industry. One example is the Windows NT Operating System. Among other things, standards exist for programming languages, operating systems, data formats and communications protocols. Machines that communicate in a stream of ones and zeros need conventions that arrange, classify and interpret such bits in a consistent fashion. For the most part, every digital device has the ability to do this so that images appear as intended and letters appear correctly and not as unreadable characters. However, problems often occur when one machine needs to work with another or with software meant for another. There may also be problems when information must be migrated to a new system, through a software upgrade or to another storage medium. Migration: The transfer of data in electronic form from one hardware or software configuration or generation to another. The information from one source must be framed so it can be understood at the other end. In order to do this, one of three things must happen.
Failing this, information passed between machines may be indecipherable. Standards are a tool that makes communication comprehensible by assigning precise meanings to bits and bytes. To be useful, the standards must be consistent and unambiguous. Records professionals will encounter IT systems standards as a result of
Regardless of the circumstances in which they encounter them, records professionals needs to have a basic understanding of these standards. There is a need to identify and accept nationally or internationally recognised standards for different types of electronic record formats to enable the transfer of records from one system to another. These standards should facilitate the record’s preservation and its presentation. However, there are several constraints that may limit the formats used. There is a need to
Proprietary: A computer format that is privately owned and controlled (such as the Kodak photo CD, which is owned by the Kodak Corporation). Open: A computer format that is not owned by a company and so is freely available to use and to mix and match with other products.
Often, records programmes do not have the authority to require the use of standard compliant formats, and the organisation concerned tends not to consider the need for migration and long-term preservation when selecting software. However, information systems developers and IT staff do recognise that standards are central to information even within the confines of a single organisation. Records and archives managers need to collaborate with IT professionals and information officers to set standards. Records and archives managers need to collaborate with IT professionals and information officers to set standards that ensure compatibility and leave the various departments and agencies to make their own choices about hardware, software and data that will comply with these instructions. It is important to evaluate carefully and limit the number of choices of standards because too many choices means no choice at all, just chaos. From the record-keeping perspective, one way of doing this is to list the acceptable standards for each type of file, as shown in the figure below. Designating acceptable standards for data and document formats will enable the records programme to plan for the transfer, maintenance and migration of data and records for which they will be responsible over time. There are many more standards to consider than those included in the example above. The table shown in Figure 5 at the end of this lesson provides an initial reference to a wider variety of standards that any government should take into account. However, this list is not comprehensive, and the table provides an overview only. The problem for the records profession is that, at present, there are a variety of standards, which in some cases are in competition with each other (see Figure 5 below). National archives around the world are having to make decisions about which standards to adopt based on the technical performance of the standards and an assessment of which standards are likely to be supported by the world at large. These decisions are highly technical and are usually made jointly with relevant information technology experts from the government’s national computing centre. It is too early to say which standards will prove to me the most durable and widely used and this explains which at present different archival institutions have adopted different standards. Records professionals need to keep abreast with their colleagues’ experiences in other institutions. There is a danger that records professionals will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of standards that have real or potential impact on their work. Moreover, most standards were developed outside of the records profession, which means that records and archives managers are working in unknown and technically challenging territory. However, standards apply to every process during which information about records, repositories, staff or users is captured, processed or retrieved. Consequently, if records managers and archivists are to fulfil their statutory responsibilities in the future, it is essential that members of the profession should become better acquainted with the wide range of standards available. Records professionals need to become knowledgeable about their colleagues’ experiences with electronic records and with new findings in information management and information technology. Activity 11 Why are the use of information technology standards important for electronic record keeping? What are the advantages of using information technology standards? What, if any, information technology standards does your organisation adhere to? Who in your organisation is responsible for determining which standards are used? Who should you work with to determine the appropriate information technology standards for record keeping in your organisation? Using the table of standards for storage media, identify which storage media are used by your organisation. Identify the relevant international standard for those used? Using the table of standards for archival description/information retrieval, which, if any, of these standards does your archival programme use? What is the reason for using this particular standard?
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