CA The record used to be annotated by hand, but with the advent of electronic business the record has now become unreliable and increasingly vulnerable to loss or corruption. Metadata is part of a recordkeeping regime instituted by the NAA to address this problem.
Phrases
<P1> Electronic metadata makes the digital world go round. The digital world also works better when there are standards. Standards encourage best practice. They help the end user by encouraging the adoption of common platforms and interfaces in different systems environments. (p. 275) <P2> In relation to Web-based publishing and online service delivery, the Strategy, which has Cabinet-level endorsement, requires all government agencies to comply with metadata and recordkeeping standards issued by the NAA. (p.276) <warrant>
Conclusions
RQ How do you effectively work with software vendors and government in order to encourage metadata schema adoption and use?
SOW
DC OAIS emerged out of an initiative spearheaded by NASA's Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems. It has been shaped and promoted by the RLG and OCLC. Several international projects have played key roles in shaping the OAIS model and adapting it for use in libraries, archives and research repositories. OAIS-modeled repositories include the CEDARS Project, Harvard's Digital Repository, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the Library of Congress' Archival Information Package for audiovisual materials, MIT's D-Space, OCLC's Digital Archive and TERM: the Texas Email Repository Model.
Type
Journal
Title
Accessing essential evidence on the web: Towards an Australian recordkeeping metadata standard
CA Standardized recordkeeping metadata allows for access to essential evidence of business activities and promotes reliability and authenticity. The Australian records and metadata community have been working hard to define standards and identify requirements as well as support interoperability.
Phrases
<P1> But records, as accountability traces and evidence of business activity, have additional metadata requirements. Authoritative, well-structured metadata which specifies their content, structure, context, and essential management needs must be embedded in, wrapped around and otherwise persistently linked to them from the moment they are created if they are to continue to function as evidence. (p.2) <P2> People do business in social and organizational contexts that are governed by external mandates (e.g. social mores, laws) and internal mandates (e.g. policies, business rules). Mandates establish who is responsible for what, and govern social and organizational activity, including the creation of full and accurate records. <warrant> (p.3)
Type
Journal
Title
Describing Records in Context in the Continuum: The Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema
CA RKMS is based on traditional recordkeeping thinking. However, it also looks to the future by viewing records as active agents of change, as intelligent information objects, which are supported by the metadata that RKMS' framework provides. Through RKMS, the dynamic world of business can be linked to the more passive world of cyberspace resource management.
Phrases
<P1> As long as records remain in the local domains in which they are created, a lot of broader contextual metadata is "in the air," carried in the minds of the corporate users of the records. When records move beyond the boundaries of the local domain in which they are created or, as is increasingly the case in networked environments, they are created in the first place in a global rather than a local domain, then this kind of metadata needs to be made explicit -- that is, captured and persistently linked to the record. This is essential so that users in the broader domain can uniquely identify, retrieve and understand the meanings of records. (p.7) <P2> The broader social context of the project is the need for individuals, society, government, and commerce to continually access the information they need to conduct their business, protect their rights and entitlements, and securely trace the trail of responsibility and action in distributed enterprises. ... Maintaining reliable, authentic and useable evidence of transactions through time and space has significant business, social, and cultural implications, as records provide essential evidence for purposes of governance, accountability, memory and identity. (p.6)
Conclusions
RQ There is a need to develop typologies of recordkeeping relationships such as agent to record and better ways to express them through metadata.
Type
Journal
Title
Towards Frameworks for Standardising Recordkeeping Metadata
CA There are many challenges to devising metadata schema to manage records over time. Continuum thinking provides a conceptual framework to identify these problems.
Phrases
<P1> It is clear from the SPIRT Project definition that recordkeeping and archival control systems have always been about capturing and managing recordkeeping metadata. (p.30) <P2> One of the keys to understanding the Project's approach to what metadata needs to be captured, persistently linked to documentation of social and business activity, and managed through space and time, lies in the continuum view of records. In continuum thinking, [records] are seen not as 'passive objects to described retrospectively,' but as agents of action, 'active participants in business processes and technologies.'" (p.37)
Type
Report
Title
Advice: Introduction to the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS) PROS 99/007 (Version 2)
This document is an introduction to the PROV Standard Management of Electronic Records (PROS 99/007), also known as the VERS Standard. This document provides background information on the goals and the VERS approach to preservation. Nothing in this document imposes any requirements on agencies.
Critical Arguements
CA The Victorian Elextronic Records Strategy (VERS) addresses the cost-effective, long-term preservation of electronic records. The structure and requirements of VERS are formally specified in the STandard for the Management of Electronic Records (PROS 99/007) and its five technical specifications. This Advice provides background to the Standard. It covers: the history of the VERS project; the preservation theory behind VERS; how the five specifications support the preservation theory; a brief introduction to the VERS Encapsulated Object (VEO). In this document we distinguish between the record and the content of the record. The content is the actuial information contained in the record; for example, the report or the image. The record as a whole contains the record content and metadata that contains information about the record, including its context, description, history, and integrity cvontrol. 
Conclusions
<RQ>
SOW
<DC>Public Record Office Victoria is the archives of the State Government of Victoria. They hold records from the beginnings of the colonial administration of Victoria in the mid-1830s to today and are responsible for ensuring the accountability of the Victoria State Government. 
This document provides some background on preservation metadata for those interested in digital preservation. It first attempts to explain why preservation metadata is seen as an essential part of most digital preservation strategies. It then gives a broad overview of the functional and information models defined in the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and describes the main elements of the Cedars outline preservation metadata specification. The next sections take a brief look at related metadata initiatives, make some recommendations for future work and comment on cost issues. At the end there are some brief recommendations for collecting institutions and the creators of digital content followed by some suggestions for further reading.
Critical Arguements
CA "This document is intended to provide a brief introduction to current preservation metadata developments and introduce the outline metadata specifications produced by the Cedars project. It is aimed in particular at those who may have responsibility for digital preservation in the UK further and higher education community, e.g. senior staff in research libraries and computing services. It should also be useful for those undertaking digital content creation (digitisation) initiatives, although it should be noted that specific guidance on this is available elsewhere. The guide may also be of interest to other kinds of organisations that have an interest in the long-term management of digital resources, e.g. publishers, archivists and records managers, broadcasters, etc. This document aimes to provide: A rationale for the creation and maintenance of preservation metadata to support digital preservation strategies, e.g. migration or emulation; An introduction to the concepts and terminology used in the influential ISO Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS); Brief information on the Cedars outline preservation metadata specification and the outcomes of some related metadata initiatives; Some notes on the cost implications of preservation metadata and how these might be reduced.
Conclusions
RQ "In June 2000, a group of archivists, computer scientists and metadata experts met in the Netherlands to discuss metadata developments related to recordkeeping and the long-term preservation of archives. One of the key conclusions made at this working meeting was that the recordkeeping metadata communities should attempt to co-operate more with other metatdata initiatives. The meeting also suggested research into the contexts of creation and use, e.g. identifying factors that might encourage or discourage creators form meeting recordkeeping metadata requirements. This kind of research would also be useful for wider preservation metadata developments. One outcome of this meeting was the setting up of an Archiving Metadata Forum (AMF) to form the focus of future developments." ... "Future work on preservation metadata will need to focus on several key issues. Firstly, there is an urgent need for more practical experience of undertaking digital preservation strategies. Until now, many preservation metadata initiatives have largely been based on theoretical considerations or high-level models like the OAIS. This is not in itself a bad thing, but it is now time to begin to build metadata into the design of working systems that can test the viability of digital preservation strategies in a variety of contexts. This process has already begun in initiatives like the Victorian Electronic Records Stategy and the San Diego Supercomputer Center's 'self-validating knowledge-based archives'. A second need is for increased co-operation between the many metadata initiatives that have an interest in digital preservation. This may include the comparison and harmonisation of various metadata specifications, where this is possible. The OCLC/LG working group is an example of how this has been taken forward whitin a particular domain. There is a need for additional co-operation with recordkeeping metadata specialists, computing scientists and others in the metadata research community. Thirdly, there is a need for more detailed research into how metadata will interact with different formats, preservation strategies and communities of users. This may include some analysis of what metadata could be automatically extracted as part of the ingest process, an investigation of the role of content creators in metadata provision, and the production of user requirements." ... "Also, thought should be given to the development of metadata standards that will permit the easy exchange of preservation metadata (and information packages) between repositories." ... "As well as ensuring that digital repositories are able to facilitate the automatic capture of metadata, some thought should also be given to how best digital repositories could deal with any metadata that might already exist."
SOW
DC "Funded by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK higher education funding councils), as part of its Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme, Cedars was the only project in the programme to focus on digital preservation." ... "In the digitial library domain, the development of a recommendation on preservation metadata is being co-ordinated by a working group supported by OCLC and the RLG. The membership of the working group is international, and inlcudes key individuals who were involved in the development of the Cedars, NEDLIB and NLA metadata specifications."
CA There is great potential in developing a national standard for the control of records that combines traditional recordkeeping practices with continuum-based thinking and cutting-edge metadata.
Conclusions
RQ One challenge is integrating item-level metadata with system-level metadata. Linking old and new archival descriptive systems should be done as seamlessly as possible, since retrofitting would be too expensive. Another important area is linking contextual metadata to records whenever they are used outside their domain in order to provide "external validation" (p.17) <warrant>
Type
Web Page
Title
Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies
This standard describes the metadata that the National Archives of Australia recommends should be captured in the recordkeeping systems used by Commonwealth government agencies. ... Part One of the standard explains the purpose and importance of standardised recordkeeping metadata and details the scope, intended application and features of the standard. Features include: flexibility of application; repeatability of data elements; extensibility to allow for the management of agency-specific recordkeeping requirements; interoperability across systems environments; compatibility with related metadata standards, including the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) standard; and interdependency of metadata at the sub-element level.
Critical Arguements
CA Compliance with the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies will help agencies to identify, authenticate, describe and manage their electronic records in a systematic and consistent way to meet business, accountability and archival requirements. In this respect the metadata is an electronic recordkeeping aid, similar to the descriptive information captured in file registers, file covers, movement cards, indexes and other registry tools used in the paper-based environment to apply intellectual and physical controls to records.
Conclusions
RQ "The National Archives intends to consult with agencies, vendors and other interested parties on the implementation and continuing evolution of the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies." ... "The National Archives expects to re-examine and reissue the standard in response to broad agency feedback and relevant advances in theory and methodology." ... "The development of public key technology is one area the National Archives will monitor closely, in consultation with the Office for Government Online, for possible additions to a future version of the standard."
SOW
DC "This standard has been developed in consultation with recordkeeping software vendors endorsed by the Office for Government OnlineÔÇÖs Shared Systems Initiative, as well as selected Commonwealth agencies." ... "The standard has also been developed with reference to other metadata standards emerging in Australia and overseas to ensure compatibility, as far as practicable, between related resource management tools, including: the Dublin Core-derived Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata standard for discovery and retrieval of government services and information in web-based environments, co-ordinated by the National Archives of Australia; and the non-sector-specific Recordkeeping Metadata Standards for Managing and Accessing Information Resources in Networked Environments Over Time for Government, Social and Cultural Purposes, co-ordinated by Monash University using an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnership with Industry Research and Training (SPIRT) Support Grant."
Type
Web Page
Title
Capturing Electronic Transactional Evidence: The Future
CA NSW has issued their metadata standard because one of the ÔÇ£key methodsÔÇØ for assuring the long-term preservation of e-records is through he use of standardized sets of recordkeeping metadata. Not only can their metadata strategy help public offices meet their individual requirements for accu
