Converga - Article

This article first appeared in the Sept/Oct 08 issue of IDM Magazine.

The definition of a new global standard for enterprise-wide systems to manage electronic documents, records or content holds out the promise of bringing harmony to a confusing landscape. Andrew Warland investigates.

A major new standard - Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments - was released with little fanfare at the annual congress of the International Council on Archives (ICA) held in Kuala Lumpur in July 2008.

Traditionally, companies marketing EDRMS software in Australia have promoted their products by referral to the US Defense Department Standard DOD 5015.2, ‘Sarbanes Oxley’, HIPPA, and occasionally the European ‘MoReq’ standard, even though such standards have no immediate relevance to Australian companies with no US or European links.

Compliance with the Victorian Electronic Records Standard (VERS) is often highlighted (sometimes erroneously, given there are two versions of VERS) although this has relevance only in Victoria.

The Commonwealth and South Australia also have their own standards for electronic record keeping systems, and there is also a range of guidelines and advice in other jurisdictions.

With so many regionally-based standards, it is not surprising that work has been going on in the background to develop a single standard for the management of electronic records. Surprisingly, the release of a single global standard in July this year attracted so little attention except among Archival institutions and parts of the records management community.

In his speech to the congress in Kuala Lumpur, Ross Gibbs, the Director-General of the National Archives of Australia (NAA) stated that the release of the standard, developed collaboratively with other national archival institutes, was a ‘milestone for the archives industry’ promising ‘significant benefits (through) an agreed set of requirements eliminating the confusion caused by varying standards’.

The standard is intended to harmonize 26 existing ‘jurisdiction specific’ specifications including the European Commission’s ‘Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records’ (MoReq), the US Department of Defence DOD 5015.2-STD, and individual specifications produced by New Zealand, the Commonwealth, Victoria (the two ‘VERS’ versions), South Australia, and seven separate standards produced by the UK National Archives. It is not, however, intended to replace local or regional jurisdictional specifications.

The standard should provide significant benefits to (mostly global) companies selling products that meet this standard by reducing or minimising cross jurisdictional differences. The record keeping community will also have a single standard with which to assess competing products.

The standard defines four records-related and seven systems-related principles. The records related principles focus on the need for authenticity of records; the use of metadata to describe records; the retention and preservation of records; and the systematic and auditable management of records.

The systems related principles focus on the need for standardized metadata, on systems built on open standards and technological neutrality, and the need for usability.

A statement that ‘it should be as easy as possible for users to create/capture records’ is included in the standard.

This last point has been a concern with many EDRMS implementations in the past.

Many failed, or were seen to have failed, because of poor user uptake and counter-intuitive and additional tasks required to save a document in the system.

The standard itself appears to acknowledge this concern in the following statement in Module 1: ‘Users are typically unwilling to interrupt their workflow more than three times in the accomplishment of tasks ancillary to executing the primary activity.’

The key for organisations wishing to implement a new system based on the standard, and to ensure users actually use it, will be to keep this in mind, something which is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Organisations now have a standard global foundation for evaluating and subsequently acquiring, implementing and configuring software to manage electronic documents, records and other content; local organisational or jurisdiction specific specifications and standards can be added or applied as necessary.

Companies, on the other hand, have a single base standard to develop products and market their products.

So will the publication of the new standard have much impact?

Despite the fact that those involved in creating the standard sought input and comment from a range of potential contributors, including archivists, records managers and vendors, its release appears to have received little publicity.

A quick search across the Web sites of various archival institutions in Australia and the UK found no reference to the new standard a month after its publication. An exception was the online home of Archives NZ. Perhaps this will change over time, as each jurisdiction determines the impact of the new standard.

Recent tenders for EDRMS/ECM systems in Australia have also not made reference to the standard, but to their local jurisdictional versions.

There has been little ‘harmonisation’ apparent in the short term. In the longer term, one would expect greater reference to the standard, much like the recordkeeping standard AS ISO 15489:2002 – although perhaps it needs to become an ISO standard to achieve that standing.

Best practice RM

There are three separate documents that comprise the new standard, each described as a module.

Module 1 is an overview and statement of principles, the second provides detailed specifications for organisations to implement dedicated electronic records management systems, while the third module provides specifications to incorporate records functionality into business systems.

Module 2 of the standard provides a good ‘best practice’ foundation for the management of electronic records that can be used by vendors to guide development of their products (EDRM/ECM/ERM).

Whereas previously vendors could refer to the US-specific DOD 5015.2, or to the Victorian VERS, or some other standard, they can now refer to a single global standard.

Organisations can ask for products that meet the standard, adding on local jurisdictional elements where required.

Module 3 of the standard is long overdue, and should help organisations in the evaluation, acquisition, implementation, design or re-design of business systems used to create or manage data about an organisation’s activities.

This is an area that traditional records management theory (and practice) has left alone.

The Module states the business systems typically contain ‘… dynamic data that is commonly subject to constant updates, [is] able to be transformed, and holds current data (non-redundant)’.

Module 3 proposes three models for recordkeeping in business systems:

- Within the business system (by design, configuration or redesign);
- Integration with a recordkeeping system where the latter performs some control functions; and
- The export of the data in the business system to a recordkeeping system.

This is a welcome standard both for organisations seeking to evaluate, acquire and implement systems to manage electronic documents, records and content, and for companies that can now use the global standard to develop and market their products.

Parts of Module 3 provide greater challenges than Module 2 (as EDRM/ECM/ERM vendors largely build their models on existing standards), and may be very difficult to implement within existing systems that generally ‘work’.

Nevertheless, the model is sound and a good basis for future development in this area.

The International Council on Archives Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Environments can be viewed at www.ica.org.

Andrew Warland is a senior consultant and advisor on records and information management at Converga, delivering records management services to a range of public and private sector clients.