CA Online, humans act both as universal everymen and as community members with their own cultural assumptions. When people transact business online, the legal and social relationships engendered place on each participant "a range of rights and responsibilities that underpin the regulation of the net as a community." (p.104) So while the interrelations may seem more complex in cyberspace, in the end establishing the relationships between key parties is still crucial to ascertaining their legal obligations, whether they are online or offline. (p.120)
Conclusions
RQ In order to ensure that evidential requirements are extended to net transactions, we must address the following questions: Are we revisiting the problems of electronic information systems without recordkeeping functionality in the cyberspace environment? Can intranet systems linked to the Net retrieve transactions with all their context intact?
Type
Journal
Title
Strategies for managing electronic records: A new archival paradigm? An affirmation of our archival traditions?
CA It is still too early to tell which models (like Pitt or UBC) actually work until we have had time to evaluate them. Archivists need to learn new skills in order to be effective in the electronic environment, and cannot wait for an out-of-the-box solution. Most likely, any solution will require a combination of strategies. Most of all, one must remain flexible and open to new ways of doing things.
Phrases
<P1> Unlike paper documents where context and physical form are united in a medium that provides the record of the transaction, and where relationships among documents can be observed, electronic records are not physical but are logically constructed and often "virtual" entities. Therefore, it is argued, efforts to document business transactions based on the examination of "views" or of automated forms will fail to reveal the nature of the business transactions. Consequently, methods other than direct observation and review must be employed to properly document automated systems. (p.25) <P2> System metadata typically do not contain all the information archivists need to describe electronic records, in particular, all the necessary contextual data required to understand the context of the transaction are not present. Therefore it is suggested that archivists will need to know which metadata elements are required to fully describe these records and must be in a position to add these descriptive elements to the system, preferably at the design stage. (p.26)
Conclusions
RQ What is involved in effecting a major shift from creating descriptive data to capturing, managing and adding value to system metadata?
CA A major future challenge for recordkeeping professionals is to maximize knowledge via the deft use of metadata as a management tool.
Phrases
<P1> Recordkeeping in the 21st century will have to confront the fact that the very definition of what constitutes a record is dynamically changing. (p.6) <P2> With the advent of the Internet and the streaming of information from the unchartered, open environment which the Internet represents, it appears that public institutions will act to consider and incorporate as part of their best practices the use of new technologies, such as digital signatures and public key encryption, to ensure that authentic and trustworthy information is captured as part of their dealings with the public at large." (p.5)
Conclusions
RQ How will we deal with the records of the future -- electronic documents with a variety of embedded, interactive attachments?
Type
Journal
Title
Reality and Chimeras in the Preservation of Electronic Records
CA An emulation approach is not viable for e-records preservation because it preserves the "wrong thing": systems functionality rather than records. Consequently, an emulation solution would not preserve e-records as evidence "even if it could be made to work."
Phrases
<P1>Electronic records that are not moved out of obsolete hardware and software environments are very likely to die with them. <P2> Failure to examine in detail what makes an electronic record evidence over time has led Rothenberg, and many others, to assume they want to preserve system functionality. (p.2) <P3> The state of a database at any given moment is not a record. (p.2) <P4> If we want to preserve electronic records, what we really want are records of the actual inputs and outputs from the system to be maintained as evidence over time. This does not require the information system to function as it once did. All (!) it requires is that we can capture all transactions entering and leaving the system when they are created, ensuring that the original context of their creation and content is documented, and that the requirements of evidence are preserved over time. (p.2)
Conclusions
RQ Metadata encapsualtion strategies need to identify how metadata will be captured at the time of a record's creation, how it will be stored over time while supporting the use of the record by authorized users and more generally how the recordkeeping infrastructure will be constructed and maintained.
CA Digital information is at great risk of becoming inaccesible due to media obsolescence and deterioration. Aside from proper care of media, effective digital preservation requires records management teams that maintain metadata and schedule media migration.
Phrases
<P1> If you design the system and data standards while thinking of mutiple generations, you're in better shape. (p.25) <P2> We won't really know how long today's storage media will reliably hold data until we let it age a decade or two. And we won't see whether data is corrupted or missing until we try to read it. (p.25)
Type
Journal
Title
Archival Issues in Network Electronic Publications
"Archives are retained information systems that are developed according to professional principles to meet anticipated demands of user clienteles in the context of the changing conditions created by legal environments and electronic or digital technologies. This article addresses issues in electronic publishing, including authentication, mutability, reformatting, preservation, and standards from an archival perspective. To ensure continuing access to electronically published texts, a special emphasis is placed on policy planning in the development and implementation of electronic systems" (p.701).
Critical Arguements
<P1> Archives are established, administered, and evaluated by institutions, organizations, and individuals to ensure the retention, preservation, and utilization of archival holdings (p.701) <P2> The three principal categories of archival materials are official files of institutions and organizations, publications issued by such bodies, and personal papers of individuals. . . . Electronic information technologies have had profound effects on aspects of all these categories (p.702) <P3> The primary archival concern with regard to electronic publishing is that the published material should be transferred to archival custody. When the transfer occurs, the archivist must address the issues of authentication, appraisal, arrangement, description, and preservation or physical protection (p.702) <P4> The most effective way to satisfy archival requirements for handling electronic information is the establishment of procedures and standards to ensure that valuable material is promptly transferred to archival custody in a format which will permit access on equipment that will be readily available in the future (p.702) <P5> Long-term costs and access requirements are the crucial factors in determining how much information should be retained in electronic formats (p.703) <P6> Authentication involves a determination of the validity or integrity of information. Integrity requires the unbroked custody of a body of information by a responsible authority or individual <warrant> (p.703) <P7> From an archival perspective, the value of information is dependent on its content and the custodial responsibility of the agency that maintains it -- e.g., the source determines authenticity. The authentication of archival information requires that it be verified as to source, date, and content <warrant> (p.704) <P8> Information that is mutable, modifiable, or changeable loses its validity if the persons adding, altering, or deleting information cannot be identified and the time, place and nature of the changes is unknown (p.704) <P9> [P]reservation is more a matter of access to information than it is a question of survival of any physical information storage media (p.704) <P10> [T]o approach the preservation of electronic texts by focusing on physical threats will miss the far more pressing matter of ensuring continued accessibility to the information on such storage media (p.706) <P11> If the information is to remain accessible as long as paper, preservation must be a front-end, rather than an ex post facto, action (p.708) <P12> [T]he preservation of electronic texts is first and foremost a matter of editorial and administrative policy rather than of techniques and materials (p.708) <P13> Ultimately, the preservation of electronic publications cannot be solely an archival issue but an administrative one that can be addressed only if the creators and publishers take an active role in providing resources necessary to ensure that ongoing accesibility is part of initial system and product design (p.709) <P14> An encouraging development is that SGML has been considered to be a critical element for electronic publishing because of its transportability and because it supports multiple representations of a single text . . . (p.711) <P15> Underlying all questions of access is the fundamental consideration of cost (p.711)
CA Unless organizations find a means to preserve e-records, the long-term memory of modern institutions will be at great risk. As society now moves from written records to virtual documents, archivists are offering their traditional understanding of the structure and context of recorded evidence as protection against the widespread amnesia now threatening our electronic world.
Phrases
<P1> For electronic media, the content, structure and context of the record change significantly from that of the paper world. The only approximate match with paper is the content element, where the letters and numbers look much the same on the computer screen as on paper. But the structure and especially the context of electronic records are not apparent when retrieved from the text only. (p.4)
Type
Journal
Title
Ensuring the Preservation of Reliable Evidence: A Research Project Funded by the NHPRC
CA Archivists need to propogate research projects that delineate means to engender trust and accountability for our e-records.
Phrases
<P1> "The task of preserving evidence in a hardware and software dependent environment challenges archivists to develop new techniques and new ways of of thinking about what to capture and how to preserve it. The development of the functional requirements, including the production rules, the literary warrant, and the metadata reference model, is a first step toward solving some of the most pressing problems that archivists face in the new electronic world. (p.39) <P2> As records migrate from a stable paper reality to an intangible electronic existence, their physical attributes, vital for establishing the authenticity and reliability of the evidence they contain, are threatened. (p. 29) <P3> Unfortunately, systems that create and maintain electronic records often fail to preserve the structure or the context essential for the evidentiary nature of records. (p.30)
Conclusions
RQ Can warrant increase the credibility of the functional requirements for recordkeeping? Can one type of warrant be more influential than others? Is the warrant from a person's specific profession seen by him or her as more important than others?
Type
Journal
Title
Building record-keeping systems: Archivists are not alone on the wild frontier
CA The digital environment offers archivists a host of new tools that can be adapted and used for recordkeeping. However, archivists must choose their tools judisciously while considering the long-term implications of their use as well as research and development. Ultimately, they must pick tools and strategies that dovetail with their institutions' specific needs while working to produce reliable and authentic records.
Phrases
<P1> Evidence from this review of emerging methods for secure and authentic electronic communications shows that the division of responsibility, accountability, and jurisdiction over recordkeeping is becoming more complex than a clear line between the records creator and the records preserver. (p.66) <P2> Storage of records in encrypted form is another area of concern because encryption adds additional levels of systems dependency on access to keys, proprietary encryption algorithims, hardware, and software. (p.62) <P3> It is important for archivists and records managers to understand parallel developments, because some new strategies and methods may support recordkeeping, while others may impede the achievement of archival objectives. (p.45) <P4> The concept of warrant and subsequent research on it by Wendy Duff is a significant contribution, because it situates the mandates for creating and maintaining records in a legal, administrative, and professional context, and it presents a methodology for locating, compiling, and presenting the rules governing proper and adequate documentation in modern organizations. (p. 48)
Conclusions
RQ Are electronic recordkeeping systems truly inherently inferior to paper-based systems in their capacity to maintain authentic records over time? How tightly can recordkeeping be integrated into normal business processes, and where does one draw the line between how a business does its work and how it does its recordkeeping?
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)
CA Information and communications technology (ICTs) can positively or negatively affect the availability of records for accountability. ICTs challenges basic organizational values in records management, such as finding a balance between central control and autonomy. A well-designed electronic records management plan needs to take into account the various values of an organization's "accountability situation."
Phrases
<P1> A systematic records management policy is required to ensure that the appropriate records will be available for accountability processes. This involves developing and maintaining policies, procedures, and methodologies, appointing experts, and creating and managing specialized departments." (p .260) The fact that many records are not converted and are handled exclusively in an electronic form may have an important impact on the content and quality of records kept for purposes of accountability." (p. 260)
Conclusions
RQ We must look at the tools of information and communications technology closely. Often researchers assume that tools only need to be shaped or adapted in a certain way in order to address a variety of problems in electronic records management, while ignoring the fact that the shaping of a tool is in itself highly controversial.
CA Through training, it is advisable to educate employees on the distinctions between data mangement functions and how they relate to electronic records management.
Phrases
<P1> Much of the archival practice in the management of electronic records until the last few years, and of the literature describing this practice, has been concerned with managing databases as machine-readable or electronic records. Applying the transaction/evidence test to many databases indicates that they should not be regarded as records in this sense, operating as electronic information systems rather than as electronic recordkeeping systems, to use the neat distinction made by Bearman and his colleagues. (p.18) <P2> Where the essentially evidential quality of a record is not accepted, that is, where records are simply equated with recorded information, the distinction between records and documents tends to disappear . . . a document may be distinguished from a record by the latter's evidential quality in documenting the transaction of business. (p.19)
Type
Electronic Journal
Title
Electronic Records Research: Working Meeting May 28-30, 1997
CA Archivists are specifically concerned with records that are not easy to document -- records that are full of secret, proprietary or sensitive information, not to mention hardware and software dependencies. This front end of recordmaking and keeping must be addressed as we define what electronic records are and are not, and how we are to deal with them.
Phrases
<P1> Driven by pragmatism, the University of Pittsburgh team looked for "warrant" in the sources considered authoritative by the practicioners of ancillary professions on whom archivists rely -- lawyers, auditors, IT personnel , etc. (p.3) <P2> If the record creating event and the requirements of 'recordness' are both known, focus shifts to capturing the metadata and binding it to the record contents. (p.7) <P3> A strong business case is still needed to justify the role of archivists in the creation of electronic record management systems. (p.10)
Conclusions
RQ Warrant needs to be looked at in different countries. Does the same core definition of what constitutes a record cut across state borders? What role do specific user needs play in complying to regulation and risk management?
Type
Electronic Journal
Title
The Warwick Framework: A container architecture for diverse sets of metadata
This paper is a abbreviated version of The Warwick Framework: A Container Architecture for Aggregating Sets of Metadata. It describes a container architecture for aggregating logically, and perhaps physically, distinct packages of metadata. This "Warwick Framework" is the result of the April 1996 Metadata II Workshop in Warwick U.K.
ISBN
1082-9873
Critical Arguements
CA Describes the Warwick Framework, a proposal for linking together the various metadata schemes that may be attached to a given information object by using a system of "packages" and "containers." "[Warwick Workshop] attendees concluded that ... the route to progress on the metadata issue lay in the formulation a higher-level context for the Dublin Core. This context should define how the Core can be combined with other sets of metadata in a manner that addresses the individual integrity, distinct audiences, and separate realms of responsibility of these distinct metadata sets. The result of the Warwick Workshop is a container architecture, known as the Warwick Framework. The framework is a mechanism for aggregating logically, and perhaps physically, distinct packages of metadata. This is a modularization of the metadata issue with a number of notable characteristics. It allows the designers of individual metadata sets to focus on their specific requirements, without concerns for generalization to ultimately unbounded scope. It allows the syntax of metadata sets to vary in conformance with semantic requirements, community practices, and functional (processing) requirements for the kind of metadata in question. It separates management of and responsibility for specific metadata sets among their respective "communities of expertise." It promotes interoperability by allowing tools and agents to selectively access and manipulate individual packages and ignore others. It permits access to the different metadata sets that are related to the same object to be separately controlled. It flexibly accommodates future metadata sets by not requiring changes to existing sets or the programs that make use of them."
Phrases
<P1> The range of metadata needed to describe and manage objects is likely to continue to expand as we become more sophisticated in the ways in which we characterize and retrieve objects and also more demanding in our requirements to control the use of networked information objects. The architecture must be sufficiently flexible to incorporate new semantics without requiring a rewrite of existing metadata sets. <warrant> <P2> Each logically distinct metadata set may represent the interests of and domain of expertise of a specific community. <P3> Just as there are disparate sources of metadata, different metadata sets are used by and may be restricted to distinct communities of users and agents. <P4> Strictly partitioning the information universe into data and metadata is misleading. <P5> If we allow for the fact that metadata for an object consists of logically distinct and separately administered components, then we should also provide for the distribution of these components among several servers or repositories. The references to distributed components should be via a reliable persistent name scheme, such as that proposed for Universal Resources Names (URNs) and Handles. <P6> [W]e emphasize that the existence of a reliable URN implementation is a necessary to avoid the problems of dangling references that plague the Web. <warrant> <P7> Anyone can, in fact, create descriptive data for a networked resource, without permission or knowledge of the owner or manager of that resource. This metadata is fundamentally different from that metadata that the owner of a resource chooses to link or embed with the resource. We, therefore, informally distinguish between two categories of metadata containers, which both have the same implementation [internally referenced and externally referenced metadata containers].
Conclusions
RQ "We run the danger, with the full expressiveness of the Warwick Framework, of creating such complexity that the metadata is effectively useless. Finding the appropriate balance is a central design problem. ... Definers of specific metadata sets should ensure that the set of operations and semantics of those operations will be strictly defined for a package of a given type. We expect that a limited set of metadata types will be widely used and 'understood' by browsers and agents. However, the type system must be extensible, and some method that allows existing clients and agents to process new types must be a part of a full implementation of the Framework. ... There is a need to agree on one or more syntaxes for the various metadata sets. Even in the context of the relatively simple World Wide Web, the Internet is often unbearably slow and unreliable. Connections often fail or time out due to high load, server failure, and the like. In a full implementation of the Warwick Framework, access to a "document" might require negotiation across distributed repositories. The performance of this distributed architecture is difficult to predict and is prone to multiple points of failure. ... It is clear that some protocol work will need to be done to support container and package interchange and retrieval. ... Some examination of the relationship between the Warwick Framework and ongoing work in repository architectures would likely be fruitful.
Type
Electronic Journal
Title
Metadata: The right approach, An integrated model for descriptive and rights metadata in E-commerce
If you've ever completed a large and difficult jigsaw puzzle, you'll be familiar with that particular moment of grateful revelation when you find that two sections you've been working on separately actually fit together. The overall picture becomes coherent, and the task at last seems achievable. Something like this seems to be happening in the puzzle of "content metadata." Two communities -- rights owners on one hand, libraries and cataloguers on the other -- are staring at their unfolding data models and systems, knowing that somehow together they make up a whole picture. This paper aims to show how and where they fit.
ISBN
1082-9873
Critical Arguements
CA "This paper looks at metadata developments from this standpoint -- hence the "right" approach -- but does so recognising that in the digital world many Chinese walls that appear to separate the bibliographic and commercial communities are going to collapse." ... "This paper examines three propositions which support the need for radical integration of metadata and rights management concerns for disparate and heterogeneous materials, and sets out a possible framework for an integrated approach. It draws on models developed in the CIS plan and the DOI Rights Metadata group, and work on the ISRC, ISAN, and ISWC standards and proposals. The three propositions are: DOI metadata must support all types of creation; The secure transaction of requests and offers data depends on maintaining an integrated structure for documenting rights ownership agreements; All elements of descriptive metadata (except titles) may also be elements of agreements. The main consequences of these propositions are: A cross-sector vocabulary is essential; Non-confidential terms of rights ownership agreements must be generally accessible in a standard form. (In its purest form, the e-commerce network must be able to automatically determine the current owner of any right in any creation for any territory.); All descriptive metadata values (except titles) must be stored as unique, coded values. If correct, the implications of these propositions on the behaviour, and future inter-dependency, of the rights-owning and bibliographic communities are considerable."
Phrases
<P1> Historically, metadata -- "data about data" -- has been largely treated as an afterthought in the commercial world, even among rights owners. Descriptive metadata has often been regarded as the proper province of libraries, a battlefield of competing systems of tags and classification and an invaluable tool for the discovery of resources, while "business" metadata lurked, ugly but necessary, in distribution systems and EDI message formats. Rights metadata, whatever it may be, may seem to have barely existed in a coherent form at all. <P2> E-commerce offers the opportunity to integrate the functions of discovery, access, licensing and accounting into single point-and-click actions in which metadata is a critical agent, a glue which holds the pieces together. <warrant> <P3> E-commerce in rights will generate global networks of metadata every bit as vital as the networks of optical fibre -- and with the same requirements for security and unbroken connectivity. <warrant> <P4> The sheer volume and complexity of future rights trading in the digital environment will mean that any but the most sporadic level of human intervention will be prohibitively expensive. Standardised metadata is an essential component. <warrant> <P5> Just as the creators and rights holders are the sources of the content for the bibliographic world, so it seems inevitable they will become the principal source of core metadata in the web environment, and that metadata will be generated simultaneously and at source to meet the requirements of discovery, access, protection, and reward. <P6> However, under the analysis being carried out within the communities identified above and by those who are developing technology and languages for rights-based e-commerce, it is becoming clear that "functional" metadata is also a critical component. It is metadata (including identifiers) which defines a creation and its relationship to other creations and to the parties who created and variously own it; without a coherent metadata infrastructure e-commerce cannot properly flow. Securing the metadata network is every bit as important as securing the content, and there is little doubt which poses the greater problem. <warrant> <P7> Because creations can be nested and modified at an unprecedented level, and because online availability is continuous, not a series of time-limited events like publishing books or selling records, dynamic and structured maintenance of rights ownership is essential if the currency and validity of offers is to be maintained. <warrant> <P8> Rights metadata must be maintained and linked dynamically to all of its related content. <P9> A single, even partial, change to rights ownership in the original creation needs to be communicated through this chain to preserve the currency of permissions and royalty flow. There are many options for doing this, but they all depend, among other things, on the security of the metadata network. <warrant> <P10>As digital media causes copyright frameworks to be rewritten on both sides of the Atlantic, we can expect measures of similar and greater impact at regular intervals affecting any and all creation types: yet such changes can be relatively simple to implement if metadata is held in the right way in the right place to begin with. <warrant> <P11> The disturbing but inescapable consequence is that it is not only desirable but essential for all elements of descriptive metadata, except for titles, to be expressed at the outset as structured and standardised values to preserve the integrity of the rights chain. <P12> Within the DOI community, which embraces commercial and library interests, the integration of rights and descriptive metadata has become a matter of priority. <P13> What is required is that the establishment of a creation description (for example, the registration of details of a new article or audio recording) or of change of rights control (for example, notification of the acquisition of a work or a catalogue of works) can be done in a standardised and fully structured way. <warrant> <P14> Unless the chain is well maintained at source, all downstream transactions will be jeopardised, for in the web environment the CIS principle of "do it once, do it right" is seen at its ultimate. A single occurrence of a creation on the web, and its supporting metadata, can be the source for all uses. <P15> One of the tools to support this development is the RDF (Resource Description Framework). RDF provides a means of structuring metadata for anything, and it can be expressed in XML. <P16> Although formal metadata standards hardly exist within ISO, they are appearing through the "back door" in the form of mandatory supporting data for identifier standards such as ISRC, ISAN and ISWC. A major function of the INDECS project will be to ensure the harmonisation of these standards within a single framework. <P17> In an automated, protected environment, this requires that the rights transaction is able to generate automatically a new descriptive metadata set through the interaction of the agreement terms with the original creation metadata. This can only happen (and it will be required on a massive scale) if rights and descriptive metadata terminology is integrated and standardised. <warrant> <P18>As resources become available virtually, it becomes as important that the core metadata itself is not tampered with as it is that the object itself is protected. Persistence is now not only a necessary characteristic of identifiers but also of the structured metadata that attends them. <P19> This leads us also to the conclusion that, ideally, standardised descriptive metadata should be embedded into objects for its own protection. <P20> It also leads us to the possibility of metadata registration authorities, such as the numbering agencies, taking wider responsibilities. <P21>If this paper is correct in its propositions, then rights metadata will have to rewrite half of Dublin Core or else ignore it entirely. <P22> The web environment with its once-for-all means of access provides us with the opportunity to eliminate duplication and fragmentation of core metadata; and at this moment, there are no legacy metadata standards to shackle the information community. We have the opportunity to go in with our eyes open with standards that are constructed to make the best of the characteristics of the new digital medium. <warrant>
Conclusions
RQ "The INDECS project (assuming its formal adoption next month), in which the four major communities are active, and with strong links to ISO TC46 and MPEG, will provide a cross-sector framework for this work in the short-term. The DOI Foundation itself may be an appropriate umbrella body in the future. We may also consider that perhaps the main function of the DOI itself may not be, as originally envisaged, to link user to content -- which is a relatively trivial task -- but to provide the glue to link together creation, party, and agreement metadata. The model that rights owners may be wise to follow in this process is that of MPEG, where the technology industry has tenaciously embraced a highly-regimented, rolling standardisation programme, the results of which are fundamental to the success of each new generation of products. Metadata standardisation now requires the same technical rigour and commercial commitment. However, in the meantime the bibliographic world, working on what it has always seen its own part of the jigsaw puzzle, is actively addressing many of these issues in an almost parallel universe. The question remains as to how in practical terms the two worlds, rights and bibliographic, can connect, and what may be the consequences of a prolonged delay in doing so." ... "The former I encourage to make a case for continued support and standardisation of a flawed Dublin Core in the light of the propositions I have set out in this paper, or else engage with the DOI and rights owner communities in its revision to meet the real requirements of digital commerce in its fullest sense."
SOW
DC "There are currently four major active communities of rights-holders directly confronting these questions: the DOI community, at present based in the book and electronic publishing sector; the IFPI community of record companies; the ISAN community embracing producers, users, and rights owners of audiovisuals; and the CISAC community of collecting societies for composers and publishers of music, but also extending into other areas of authors' rights, including literary, visual, and plastic arts." ... "There are related rights-driven projects in the graphic, photographic, and performers' communities. E-commerce means that metadata solutions from each of these sectors (and others) require a high level of interoperability. As the trading environment becomes common, traditional genre distinctions between creation-types become meaningless and commercially destructive."
CA The archival profession has a brief window of opportunity to become stakeholders in the realm of electronic records. In order to accomplish that, they must answer not only the "what" but the "why" of recordkeeping in all of its implications.
Conclusions
RQ How will American archivists deal with the re-invention of professional roles that have traditionally been bifurcated by records on one side and archives on the other? Where does continuum thinking leave SAA and its primary constituency of historical archivists?
Type
Web Page
Title
Documenting Business: The Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema
In July 1999, the Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema (RKMS) was approved by its academic and industry steering group. This metadata set now joins other community specific sets in being available for use and implementation into workplace applications. The RKMS has inherited elements from and built on many other metadata standards associated with information management. It has also contributed to the development of subsequent sector specific recordkeeping metadata sets. The importance of the RKMS as a framework for 'mapping' or reading other sets and also as a standardised set of metadata available for adoption in diverse implementation environments is now emerging. This paper explores the context of the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project, and the conceptual models developed by the SPIRT Research Team as a framework for standardising and defining Recordkeeping Metadata. It then introduces the elements of the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Schema and explores its functionality before discussing implementation issues with reference to document management and workflow technologies.
Critical Arguements
CA Much of the metadata work done so far has worked off the passive assumption of records as document-like objects. Instead, they need to be seen as active entities in business transactions.
Conclusions
RQ In order to decide which elements are to be used from the RKMS, organizations need to delineate the reach of specific implementations as far as how and when records need to be bound with metadata.
Type
Web Page
Title
An Assessment of Options for Creating Enhanced Access to Canada's Audio-Visual Heritage
CA "This project was conducted by Paul Audley & Associates to investigate the feasibility of single window access to information about Canada's audio-visual heritage. The project follows on the recommendations of Fading Away, the 1995 report of the Task Force on the Preservation and Enhanced Use of Canada's Audio-Visual Heritage, and the subsequent 1997 report Search + Replay. Specific objectives of this project were to create a profile of selected major databases of audio-visual materials, identify information required to meet user needs, and suggest models for single-window access to audio-visual databases. Documentary research, some 35 interviews, and site visits to organizations in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal provided the basis upon which the recommendations of this report were developed."
CA Discussion of the challenges faced by librarians and archivists who must determine which and how much of the mass amounts of digitally recorded sound materials to preserve. Identifies various types of digital sound formats and the varying standards to which they are created. Specific challenges discussed include copyright issues; technologies and platforms; digitization and preservation; and metadata and other standards.
Conclusions
RQ "Whether between record companies and archives or with others, some type of collaborative approach to audio preservation will be necessary if significant numbers of audio recordings at risk are to be preserved for posterity. ... One particular risk of preservation programs now is redundancy. ... Inadequate cataloging is a serious impediment to preservation efforts. ... It would be useful to archives, and possibly to intellectual property holders as well, if archives could use existing industry data for the bibliographic control of published recordings and detailed listings of the music recorded on each disc or tape. ... Greater collaboration between libraries and the sound recording industry could result in more comprehensive catalogs that document recording sessions with greater specificity. With access to detailed and authoritative information about the universe of published sound recordings, libraries could devote more resources to surveying their unpublished holdings and collaborate on the construction of a preservation registry to help reduce preservation redundancy. ... Many archivists believe that adequate funding for preservation will not be forthcoming unless and until the recordings preserved can be heard more easily by the public. ... If audio recordings that do not have mass appeal are to be preserved, that responsibility will probably fall to libraries and archives. Within a partnership between archives and intellectual property owners, archives might assume responsibility for preserving less commercial music in return for the ability to share files of preserved historical recordings."
Type
Web Page
Title
Practical Tools for Electronic Records Management and Preservation
"This briefing paper summarizes the results of a cooperative project sponsored in part, by a research grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The project, called "Models for Action: Practical Approaches to Electronic Records Management and Preservation," focused on the development of practical tools to support the integration of essential electronic records management requirements into the design of new information systems. The project was conducted from 1996 to 1998 through a partnership between the New York State Archives and Records Administration and the Center for Technology in Government. The project team also included staff from the NYS Adirondack Park Agency, eight corporate partners led by Intergraph Corporation, and University at Albany faculty and graduate students."
Publisher
Center for Technology in Government
Critical Arguements
CA "This briefing paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by presenting generalizable tools that link records management practices to business objectives."
Type
Web Page
Title
eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML) 2.0 Specification Part I: Primer
This specification defines the eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML), a general-purpose language in XML used to describe the rights and conditions for using digital resources.
Publisher
ContentGuard
Critical Arguements
CA This chapter provides an overview of XrML. It provides a basic definition of XrML, describes the need that XrML is meant to address, and explains design goals for the language.
Conclusions
RQ not applicable
SOW
DC ContentGuard contributed XrML to MPEG-21, the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee and the Open eBook Forum (OeBF). In each case they are using XrML as the base for their rights language specification. Furthest along is MPEG, where the process has reached Committee Draft. They have also recommended to other standards bodies to build on this work. ContentGuard will propose XrML to any standards organization seeking a rights language. Because of this progress ContentGuard has frozen its release of XrML at Version 2.0.
CA ContentGuard intends to submit XrML to standards bodies that are developing specifications that enable the exchange and trading of content as well as the creation of repositories for storage and management of digital content.
SOW
DC ContentGuard contributed XrML to MPEG-21, the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee and the Open eBook Forum (OeBF). In each case they are using XrML as the base for their rights language specification. Furthest along is MPEG, where the process has reached Committee Draft. They have also recommended to other standards bodies to build on this work. ContentGuard will propose XrML to any standards organization seeking a rights language. Because of this progress ContentGuard has frozen its release of XrML at Version 2.0.
Type
Web Page
Title
Model Requirements For The Management Of Electronic Records
CA "The MoReq specification is ... primarily intended to serve as a practical tool in helping organisations meet their business needs for the management of both computer-based and paper-based records. While its development has taken traditional archival science and records management disciplines into account, these have been interpreted in a manner appropriate to electronic environments. ... Examples of this pragmatic approach include the incorporation of requirements for document management, workflow, metadata and other related technologies. ... This specification attempts to cover a wide range of requirements -- for different countries, in different industries and with different types of records. The wide scope is intentional, but it leads to a significant limitation, namely that this single specification cannot represent a requirement which precisely maps onto existing requirements without modification."
The creation and use of metadata is likely to become an important part of all digital preservation strategies whether they are based on hardware and software conservation, emulation or migration. The UK Cedars project aims to promote awareness of the importance of digital preservation, to produce strategic frameworks for digital collection management policies and to promote methods appropriate for long-term preservation - including the creation of appropriate metadata. Preservation metadata is a specialised form of administrative metadata that can be used as a means of storing the technical information that supports the preservation of digital objects. In addition, it can be used to record migration and emulation strategies, to help ensure authenticity, to note rights management and collection management data and also will need to interact with resource discovery metadata. The Cedars project is attempting to investigate some of these issues and will provide some demonstrator systems to test them.
Notes
This article was presented at the Joint RLG and NPO Preservation Conference: Guidelines for Digital Imaging, held September 28-30, 1998.
Critical Arguements
CA "Cedars is a project that aims to address strategic, methodological and practical issues relating to digital preservation (Day 1998a). A key outcome of the project will be to improve awareness of digital preservation issues, especially within the UK higher education sector. Attempts will be made to identify and disseminate: Strategies for collection management ; Strategies for long-term preservation. These strategies will need to be appropriate to a variety of resources in library collections. The project will also include the development of demonstrators to test the technical and organisational feasibility of the chosen preservation strategies. One strand of this work relates to the identification of preservation metadata and a metadata implementation that can be tested in the demonstrators." ... "The Cedars Access Issues Working Group has produced a preliminary study of preservation metadata and the issues that surround it (Day 1998b). This study describes some digital preservation initiatives and models with relation to the Cedars project and will be used as a basis for the development of a preservation metadata implementation in the project. The remainder of this paper will describe some of the metadata approaches found in these initiatives."
Conclusions
RQ "The Cedars project is interested in helping to develop suitable collection management policies for research libraries." ... "The definition and implementation of preservation metadata systems is going to be an important part of the work of custodial organisations in the digital environment."
SOW
DC "The Cedars (CURL exemplars in digital archives) project is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK higher education funding councils under Phase III of its Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme. The project is administered through the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) with lead sites based at the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Oxford."
Type
Web Page
Title
Metadata for preservation : CEDARS project document AIW01
This report is a review of metadata formats and initiatives in the specific area of digital preservation. It supplements the DESIRE Review of metadata (Dempsey et al. 1997). It is based on a literature review and information picked-up at a number of workshops and meetings and is an attempt to briefly describe the state of the art in the area of metadata for digital preservation.
Critical Arguements
CA "The projects, initiatives and formats reviewed in this report show that much work remains to be done. . . . The adoption of persistent and unique identifiers is vital, both in the CEDARS project and outside. Many of these initiatives mention "wrappers", "containers" and "frameworks". Some thought should be given to how metadata should be integrated with data content in CEDARS. Authenticity (or intellectual preservation) is going to be important. It will be interesting to investigate whether some archivists' concerns with custody or "distributed custody" will have relevance to CEDARS."
Conclusions
RQ Which standards and initiatives described in this document have proved viable preservation metadata models?
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
Web Page
Title
Towards a Digital Rights Expression Language Standard for Learning Technology
CA The Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) concentrated on making recommendations for standardizing a digital rights expression language (DREL) with the specific charge to (1) Investigate existing standards development efforts for DREL and digital rights. (2) Gather DREL requirements germane to the learning, education, and training industries. (3) Make recommendations as to how to proceed. (4) Feed requirements into ongoing DREL and digital rights standardization efforts, regardless of whether the LTSC decides to work with these efforts or embark on its own. This report represents the achievement of these goals in the form a of a white paper that can be used as reference for the LTSC, that reports on the current state of existing and proposed standardization efforts targeting digital rights expression languages and makes recommendations concerning future work.
Conclusions
RQ The recommendations of this report are: 1. Maintain appropriate liaisons between learning technology standards development organizations and those standards development organizations standardizing rights expression languages. The purpose of these liaisons is to continue to feed requirements into broader standardization efforts and to ensure that the voice of the learning, education and training community is heard. 2. Support the creation of application profiles or extensions of XrML and ODRL that include categories and vocabularies for roles common in educational and training settings. In the case of XrML, a name space for local context may be needed. (A name space is required for both XrML and ODRL for the ÔÇ£application profileÔÇØ or specifically the application ÔÇôLT application- extension) 3. Advocate the creation of a standard for expressing local policies in ways that can be mapped to rights expressions. This could be either through a data model or through the definition of an API or service. 4. Launch an initiative to identify models of rights enforcement in learning technology and to possibly abstract a common model for use by architecture and framework definition projects. 5. Further study the implications of patent claims, especially for educational and research purposes.
CA Overview of the program, including keynote speakers, papers presented, invited talks, future directions and next steps.
Conclusions
RQ Some steps to be taken: (1) Investigate potential move to a formal standards body/group and adopt their procedures and processes. Potential groups include; W3C, OASIS, ECMA, IEEE, IETF, CEN/ISS, Open Group. The advantages and disadvantages of such a move will be documented and discussed within the ODRL community. (2) Potential to submit current ODRL version to national bodies for adoption. (3) Request formal liaison relationship with the OMA. <warrant>
This document is a revision and expansion of "Metadata Made Simpler: A guide for libraries," published by NISO Press in 2001.
Publisher
NISO Press
Critical Arguements
CA An overview of what metadata is and does, aimed at librarians and other information professionals. Describes various metadata schemas. Concludes with a bibliography and glossary.
CA Government records and record keeping systems must be accountable and can produce reliable and authentic information and records. A set of criteria was developed by the Ohio Electronic Records Committee to establish the trustworthiness of information systems.
Type
Web Page
Title
Record Keeping Metadata Requirements for the Government of Canada
This document comprises descriptions for metadata elements utilized by the Canadian Government as of January 2001.
Critical Arguements
CA "The Record Keeping Metadata is defined broadly to include the type of information Departments are required to capture to describe the identity, authenticity, content, context, structure and management requirements of records created in the context of a business activity. The Metadata model consists of elements, which are the attributes of a record that are comparable to fields in a database. The model is modular in nature. It permits Departments to use a core set of elements that will meet the minimum requirements for describing and sharing information, while facilitating interoperability between government Departments. It also allows Departments with specialized needs or the need for more detailed descriptions to add new elements and/or sub-elements to the basic metadata in order to satisfy their particular business requirements."
Type
Web Page
Title
Capturing Electronic Transactional Evidence: The Future
CA Presents the business case for a Digital Rights Expression Language, an overview of the DRM landscape, a discussion of the history and role of standards in business, and some technical aspects of MPEG-21. "[U]nless the rights to ... content can be packaged within machine-readable licences, guaranteed to be ubiquitous, unambiguous and secure, which can then be processed consistently and reliably, it is unlikely that content owners will trust consign [sic] their content to networks. The MPEG Rights Expression Language (REL) is designed to provide the functionality required by content owners in order to create reliable, secure licences for content which can be used throughout the value chain, from content creator to content consumer."
Conclusions
RQ "While true interoperability may still be a distant prospect, a common rights expression language, with extensions based on the MPEG REL, can incrementally bring many of the benefits true interoperability will eventually yield. As extensions are created in multiple content verticals, it will be possible to transfer content generated in one securely to another. This will lead to cross channel fertilisation and the growth of multimedia content. At the same time, a common rights language will also lead to the possibility of broader content distribution (by enabling cross-DRM portability), thus providing more channel choice for consumers. It is this vision of the MPEG REL spreading out that is such an exciting prospect. ... The history of MPEG standards would seem to suggest that implementers will start building to the specification in mid-2003, coincidental with the completion of the standard. This will be followed by extensive take-up within two or three years, so that by mid 2006, the MPEG REL will be a pervasive technology, implemented across many different digital rights management and conditional access systems, in both the content industries and in other, non-rights based industries. ... The REL will ultimately become a 'transparent' technology, as invisible to the user as the phone infrastructure is today."
SOW
DC DC The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is a working group of ISO/IEC, made up of some 350 members from various industries and universities, in charge of the development of international standards for compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of moving pictures, audio and their combination. MPEG's official designation is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11. So far MPEG has produced the following compression formats and ancillary standards: MPEG-1, the standard for storage and retrieval of moving pictures and audio on storage media (approved Nov. 1992); MPEG-2, the standard for digital television (approved Nov. 1994); MPEG-4, the standard for multimedia applications; MPEG-7, the content representation standard for multimedia information search, filtering, management and processing; and MPEG-21, the multimedia framework.
Type
Web Page
Title
Interactive Fiction Metadata Element Set version 1.1, IFMES 1.1 Specification
This document defines a set of metadata elements for describing Interactive Fiction games. These elements incorporate and enhance most of the previous metadata formats currently in use for Interactive Fiction, and attempts to bridge them to modern standards such as the Dublin Core.
Critical Arguements
CA "There are already many metadata standards in use, both in the Interactive Fiction community and the internet at large. The standards used by the IF community cover a range of technologies, but none are fully compatible with bleeding-edge internet technology like the Semantic Web. Broader-based formats such as the Dublin Core are designed for the Semantic Web, but lack the specialized fields needed to describe Interactive Fiction. The Interactive Fiction Metadata Element Set was designed with three purposes. One, to fill in the specialized elements that Dublin Core lacks. Two, to unify the various metadata formats already in use in the IF community into a single standard. Three, to bridge these older standards to the Dublin Core element set by means of the RDF subclassing system. It is not IFMES's goal to provide every single metadata element needed. RDF, XML, and other namespace-aware languages can freely mix different vocabularies, therefore IFMES does not subclass Dublin Core elements that do not relate to previous Interactive Fiction metadata standards. For these elements, IFMES recommends using the existing Dublin Core vocabulary, to maximize interoperability with other tools and communities."
Conclusions
RQ "Several of the IFMES elements can take multiple values. Finding a standard method of expressing multiple values is tricky. The approved method in RDF is either to repeat the predicate with different objects, or create a container as a child object. However, some RDF parsers don't work well with either of these methods, and many other languages don't allow them at all. XML has a value list format in which the values are separated with spaces, however this precludes spaces from appearing within the values themselves. A few legacy HTML attributes whose content models were never formally defined used commas to separate values that might contain spaces, and a few URI schemes accept multiple values separated by semicolons. The IFMES discussion group continues to examine this problem, and hopes to have a well-defined solution by the time this document reaches Candidate Recommendation status. For the time being IFMES recommends repeating the elements whenever possible, and using a container when that fails (for example, JSON could set the value to an Array). If an implementation simply must concatenate the values into a single string, the recommended separator is a space for URI and numeric types, and a comma followed by a space for text types."
SOW
DC The authors are writers and programmers in the interactive fiction community.
