Government electronic document policy

Do you have an e-document policy? Later in the year I will be facilitating a workshop on government electronic document policy with people from Australian and New Zealand state and federal governments. We will aim to come up with some guidelines for Government CIOs. But first I need to get an idea of what is out there now. Any pointers to policies, relevant standards or other documents would be most welcome. I will then collate the results and make it available.

My thinking is that most e-document and e-archiving policies are misdirected. Records managers and archivists need to stop being passive receivers of whatever junk they are given. Instead they need to start with the new "killer applications" such as social networking for business, mash ups and the like and build the policies in there. But I would suggest a more cautious approach than that of the UK Government's "Power of Information TaskForce".

Please include a web address where the policy is available, if possible. After all who would be silly enough to distribute their e-document policy on paper? ;-)

By the way the intention is to use a similar computer assisted format and some of the content from the Electronic Document Management course I ran last year. This used a computer equipped lab and a Moodle based system for content and exercises.

Here is a quick list of items I found with a web search:

1. International: Recommended Practice - Analysis, Selection, and Implementation Guidelines Associated with Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), Association for Information and Image Management International, April 12, 2006.
2. Australian Federal: "Improving Electronic Document Management: Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies", Office of Government Information Technology, Commonwealth of Australia 1995
3. NT: Position Statement on Electronic Recordkeeping in the NT Government, Northern Territory Archives Service, September 2004
4. Queensland: Digitisation Disposal Policy, Queensland State Archives, April 2006
5. NSW: State Records NSW has an extensive set of documents and references one-documents:
   
   
   

   • Policy on digital records preservation
   • Policy on electronic recordkeeping
   • Policy on electronic messages as records
   • Standard on Recordkeeping in the Electronic Business Environment
   • NSW Recordkeeping Metadata Standard (NRKMS)
   • Checklist for assessing business systems (RIB 42)
   • Strategies for documenting Government business: The 'DIRKS' manual
   • Introducing recordkeeping metadata (RIB 18)
   • Selecting records management software (RIB 2)
   • Guidelines on keeping web records
   • Managing the message: Guidelines on managing formal and informal communications as records
   • FAQs - Emails and recordkeeping (RIB 49)
   • Desktop Management: Managing electronic documents and directories (RIB 30)
   • Email and other templates for creating digital records
   • Destroying digital records: When pressing delete is not enough (RIB 51)
   • Future Proof: Ensuring the long term accessibility of equipment / technology dependent records
   • Archives Advice: Protecting and handling magnetic media (NAA)
   • Archives Advice: Protecting and handling optical disks (NAA)
   • Information rights management and recordkeeping (RIB 36)
   • Digital records preservation in the NSW public sector: A discussion paper
   • Digital Records Advisory Group
   • Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI) website

By the way the new ISO/IEC 38500:2008 Corporate governance of information technology, based on AS8015-2005, includes a requirement for records management for IT systems. There is also a requirement for record keeping in the Australian Standard on Good Governance Principles (AS 8000-2003), as State Records NSW points out.