PM's Use of Non-government Email Okay

Yesterday I was interviewed by ABC TV and The Australian, on the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull's use of non-government email services. Verisons of this also appeared in the International Business Times, CelebCafe, . I said this was okay, as it was not used for unclassified non-sensitive  information and the usual record-keeping was done. I was surprised this caused so much fuss in the media (more of a ripple in a tea cup than a storm) and I suggested the overloading of the NBN Interim Satellite Service was a more important issue.

Strategies for managing social media information

The NSW State Records Authority has issued a draft "Strategies for managing social media information" for comment by 15 March 2013. The thirty five page document covers:

1. Strategies for managing social media information
2. ... determining what records need to be
   captured
3. How do I capture social media
4. Some retention and destruction
5. Frequently asked questions

Australian Government Digital Transition Policy

Greetings from Canberra, where the National Archives of Australia (NAA) are explaining the new "Australian Government Digital Transition Policy". This requires records to be archived electronically from 2016. NAA are running  "Digital Edge workshops" to help agencies implement the new policy. It should be noted that it is not just government departments subject to archives policy, for example the Australian National University (ANU) is subject to the Archives Act.

The NAA presenter mentioned there is a gap between short in-service training courses and the formal studies offered by universities. In response I am looking at revamping my online course "Electronic Document and Records Management" (COMP7420) at the Australian National University. This will be available to students doing traditional degrees in business and computing.

Also ANU  students can make up their own program using ANU Graduate Studies Select. As part of this I am looking at how to satisfy the formal requirements of professional bodies such as Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia (RIMPA), while remaining flexible.

Paperless Office Nearer Reality

According to the report "The Paper Free Office - dream or reality?" (by Doug Miles, AIIM, February 2012), some progress has been made with reducing paper in the office. The report is available free from AIIM (1.3 Mbyte PDF 28 Pages). The report finds that the consumption of paper and the number of photocopies is decreasing many organizations, but many borne digital documents end up being printed and then scanned back in at some time during their lifetime. The report is useful, but not without flaws, for example the report confuses digital signatures with digitized signatures.

Key Findings

• There is less paper floating around the office – especially in the biggest organizations. The consumption of paper and the number of photocopies is decreasing in 35% of organizations, whereas it is increasing in 32%. In the largest organizations, the net proportion of respondents posting a decrease is 15%.
• Electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years. The average proportion of office space taken up by paper is now 15.3%, and it would drop to 7.4% with an all-electronic filing policy, a saving of nearly 8% in overall office costs.
• On average, 45% of documents that are scanned are 100% “born digital” – just as they came from the printer. And many of the rest would be all-digital if not for the added signatures.
• 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed. 31% of faxed invoices get printed and scanned back in. On average, 30% of invoices arrive as PDF attachments, and 15% as faxes.
• 41% of organizations in the survey are using some form of digital-mailroom, either as a centralized operation or distributed at branch offices. 4% are outsourced.
• 20% of organizations scan half or more of their inbound mail at or before entry. A further 20% are more likely to scan at the point-of-process, and 29% scan-to-archive after the process.
• Improved sharability and searchability is the biggest driver for investment in scanning and capture. Followed by improved productivity and reduced storage space.
• On average, respondents using scanning and capture consider that it improves the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6-times or more. 70% estimate an improvement of at least 3-times, and nearly a third (29%) see an improvement of 10-times or more.
• 42% of users have achieved a payback period of 12 months or less from their scanning and capture investments. 57% are posting a payback of 18-months or less.
• A net of 13% of respondents plan to increase their use of bureaus or document process outsource (DPO), particularly in Europe (net 21%). But only a net of 1% will be increasing their offshore activities.
• 38% of respondents have employees equipped to use portable devices to capture documents or forms when not at their desks. Over 14% are using portable scanners for forms and supporting documents. 6% are using smartphones or tablets, including 4% who use OCR to capture data at the device.
• Over half of those using portable devices capture signatures, either by scanning (30%), stylus (11%) or using a digital signature app (21%).
• Speed of data availability and keeping paper out of the process are given as the biggest advantages of mobile capture, followed by better data accuracy and fewer lost or incomplete forms.
• 12% of respondents are committed to a strategy of cloud deployment of capture – rising to 20% of the largest organizations. 18% overall have firmly decided against it and 39% are waiting for a company decision on cloud in general (27%), or capture specifically (12%).
• Spending predictions indicate a considerable increase in spend on capture software, including mobile capture and as a front-end to SharePoint. A net of 23% of responding organizations indicate increased spend for the next 12 months. Spend on scanners is set to be stable, while spend on outsourcing is set to decrease. ...
  

From: The Paper Free Office - dream or reality?, Doug Miles, AIIM, February 2012

ACT Government Records Digitisation Standard

The Territory Records Office of the Australian Capital Territory has issued a series of standards for records management and more recently for electronic records. These standards apply to local government agencies in Canberra. They are based on these used by the Austrlaian Government. It is not clear if the ACT really needs its own standards (being essentially a city council). They may be better off just using the federal standards, or those of a state government, unaltered. However, the standards are well written and very readable, providing a good overview of the topic:

1. Territory Records Standard - Number 1 : Records Management Programs
2. Territory Records Standard - Number 2 : Appraisal
3. Territory Records Standard - Number 3 : Records Description and Control
4. Territory Records Standard - Number 4 : Access
5. Territory Records Standard - Number 5 : Recordkeeping and Outsourced Government Business
6. Territory Records Standard - Number 6 : Digital Records
7. Territory Records Standard - Number 7 : Physical Storage of Records
8. Territory Records Standard - Number 8 : Business Continuity and Records Management
9. Territory Records Standard - Number 9 : Records Digitisation and Conversion

Democracy Implemented in XML

All 110 years of transcripts of parliamentary proceedings are now available for the Australian Parliament as search-able web content. Hansard, as the record of the Senate and House of Representatives, is known, display by default in HTML, but can be downloaded as XML (under a Creative Commons licence) for analysis.

Here is an example. Starting at the search page, I entered my name "Tom Worthington", which produced 66 Matches:

• [20] Committees
• [9] Library
• [29] Media
• [1] Publications
• [7] Senate

Date

• [8] 2010s
• [47] 2000s
• [11] 1990s

Nine of these are catalog entries for my books held in the Parliamentary Library, such as Green Technology Strategies. Twenty are mentioned in Parlimentary committees. Only seven are actual mentions by parliamentarians in the Senate.

One mention I get in Hansard is from 1999:

ADJOURNMENT - Information Technology: Access - Senate Hansard - 9 August 1999

so ago. This year's theme `The Bush Telegraph for the 21st Century' targeted questions of information technology for non-metropolitan regions. The range of speakers included Tom Worthington , who is the immediate past president of the Computer Society; Fay Lamont, a finalist in the Telstra Businesswoman of the Year Awards...

Clicking on the link brings up that the portion of the Hansard, as a web page. There is an option to Download the Fragment as PDF, or as XML.

While it is good that Hansard is available online, the interface could be improved:

1. Have a link on the word "Search" in text on the Parliament home page (currently it is in an image with the phrase "ParlInfo Search"),
2. Include the word "Hansard" on the search page,
3. Add an option on the search page to limit results to the Hansard,
4. De-clutter the search results page, by moving from the top to the bottom: "Note: Where available, the PDF/Word icon below is provided to view the complete and fully formatted document", "View Or Save XML" and "Download Fragment". Those who need these options are likely to scroll to the bottom and find the, for everyone else it will not matter.
5. Check the search page displays correctly on a range of browsers, including those for non-Microsoft operating systems, smart phones and tablet computers (on my Firefox 3.6.17 browser, the search box is off the right side of the page).

All Australian Parliamentary Speeches Online

All 110 years of transcripts of parliamentary proceedings are now available for the Australian Parliament. The Parliamentary Library claims that Hansard for the Senate and House of Representatives has been converted to XML for easy online access under a Creative Commons licence.

While it is good that Hansard is available online, the interface could be improved. What I would like to see is the link to "Latest Hansard" actually link to the latest Hansard. Also it would help if there was a search facility offered and a list in chronological (or reverse cronological order). As it is there is an "Indexes to Hansard bound volumes"in PDF format, which is of no use to someone looking for content in the online edition. As it is now I was unable to find any of the XML versions of Hansard, just the old difficult to read PDF version.

Digital Hansard

Hansard

Hansard is the name given to transcripts of parliamentary proceedings. The Senate and House of Representatives Hansards are available on the Internet each morning following a sitting day. Hansards of Committee hearings are also available online.

Hansard is now fully online from the first sitting day - 9 May 1901. A digitisation project has resulted in Hansards prior to 1980 now being available in Portable Document Format (PDF) files and as text that can be searched (Extensible Markup Language or XML).

What is available online?

• Until mid 2010 Hansard was available online only from 1981

• During 2009-11 over 600,000 pages of Hansard (from 1901 to 1980) were digitised and are available online for full searching.

Digitisation project

The Department of Parliamentary Services funded a digitisation project to ensure all Senate and House of Representatives Hansards were available online to the public.

The conversation was done using an Australian company. Technical details are:

• High quality scanners were used;

• Image resolution was 300dpi;

• challenges included changing styles of recording proceedings, changes in fonts and formating;

• a 5 step processing occurred for each page to ensure all content is marked as header, tables, graphics, new day and more;

• f every page of the scanned files was sequencing for accurate conversion;

• indexes were created automatically; and

• a new ingest process was developed for the Hansard repository

To find Hansards go to either:

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/index.htm

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/

How to search Hansards

ParlInfo Search (http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/) allows the following searching:

• Simple

• Advanced

Advanced allows Hansards to be selected.

Hansards can be searched or browsed by many attributes including:

• Date;

• Speaker; and

• Words in a speech.

An online guide and tips sheets can be found under the Help tab in ParlInfo Search.

Using material from hansard

Parliamentary information is published under a Creative Commons license. It uses a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence.

By using this licence, material is free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit under the following conditions:

• Attribution - Users must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

• NonCommercial - Users may not use this work for commercial purposes without our permission.

• No Derivative Works – Users may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without our permission.

Errors in digitised material

If you identify any errors in digitized material please contact ParlInfoSearch@aph.gov.au to enable corrections to be made.

Significant speeches

Some of the significant speeches now available online include:

• First substantial speech in the parliament – William Groom, (Protectionist, Darling Downs), 21 May 1901 from page 763.

• First year of the Great War – speech by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher (Protectionist, Wide Bay) 4 August 1915 from page 5556.

• First female member of the House of Representatives Dame Enid Lyons (UAP, Darwin (Tasmania)). First speech 29 September 1943, from page 182.

• First female member of the Senate (Dame) Dorothy Margaret Tangney (ALP, Western Australia). First speech 29 September 1943, from page 30.

• First Aboriginal member of parliament Sir Neville Bonner (Liberal, Queensland) sworn into the Senate on Tuesday 17 August 1971, first speech, from page 553.

• World War II. Prime Minister Robert Menzies (UAP, Kooyong) addressed Parliament three days after the announcement of war on 6 September 1939, from page 28.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Department of Parliamentary Services

Parliament House

PO Box 6000

CANBERRA ACT 2600

Email: ParlInfoSearch@aph.gov.au

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/index.htm

E-invoices Online in Taiwan

The Australian Taxation Office allows electronic tax invoices , provided both parties to the transaction to keep a copy (I assume the ATO can then check the two copies match).

The Taiwanese regulations seem to require the seller to make their copy available to the buyer online, at least for transactions with consumers. That might require companies to keep these records available for many years, as the tax office reserves the right to audit for years later.

Managing national digital archives

Next at the Australian Computer Society Canberra Branch conference I attended Christine Johnston's presentation on how the National Archives of Australia helps keep the nation's records in electronic format. This involves advising agencies on how to keep e-records and decide which should be transferred to the archive for preservation and for how long.

The process which was developed for paper records doesn't work for electronic ones. A new approach is needed for the flood of electronic records, the government information held on non-government systems and the push for e-government and open access.

I teach some of this in the ANU in the course COMP7420: Electronic Document and Records Management.

Stopping the Next Enron with Data Integrity

Professor Marianne Winslett, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Advanced Digital Sciences Center, Singapore talked today in the famous room N101 at the Australian National University in Canberra, on "Records Retention: Addressing Insider Threats to Data Integrity". She contrasted the run on the banks during the 1930s stock market crash with the recent stability of recent economic problems. She then pointed out that Enron executives falsified their corporate records, but largely got away with it and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) introduced to combat this.

Professor Winslett showed examples of email messages between Enron executives openly arranging the fraud and suggested that people at the top feel invulnerable. SOX requires detailed records to be kept which, if done, would assist prosecution. The same applications built for SOX compliance are also being used for health providers to meet record keeping requirements.

Professor Winslett argued that IT researchers could help make compliance with laws like SOX more efficient and effective. The main treat is undetected tampering with records. Practice suggests that most fraudsters do not systematically plan in advance. So a system which prevents undetectable changes and has regular audits will be able to detect fraud. For email and documents a copy can be made. For databases which can be changed there is a "regret interval" where the database could be changed between copies are taken.

Professor Winslett discussed the use of write once, read many file stores. These are still vulnerable to attacks, such as by changing the date, restoring an old backup, or altering an index to the data.

Professor Winslett discussed the use of temporal database which keep time stamped copies of the data. Hash functions can be used to speed up integrity checks. An implementation using a modified version of the Berkeley DB showed a 10% penalty. A less severe "audit helper" function would only impose only a 1% overhead.

Professor Winslett pointed out that a trustworthy system does not protect against fake business transactions, such as fake purchase orders.

It seems to me that with increasing use of B2B it should be simpler to detect gross fraud by one company. Assuming organisations are no colluding, it would be difficult for the transactions are with legitimate organisations are legitimate, it will be difficult for one organisation to fake its internal records for long, as these would not match what was going in and out. Combined with logging of large transactions and a random sample of smaller ones, this should be enough to deter and detect gross fraud, at a cost far lower than full logging.

Ultimately we need trustworthy people. A simple solution is to have a copy of the company's records outside the control of the company executive. One way is to have IT and records management staff who are instilled with a sense of professionalism backed up law. Another would be to have the auditors take a real time copy of the records, on their own systems outside the control of the company.

ps: After this talk I attended a discussion of how to provide a repository of learning modules. Many of the issues were similar: how do we record in a relai9ble way recorded what is done over time. How can we say reliably who did what, when?

Records Retention: Addressing Insider Threats to Data Integrity

Professor Marianne Winslett, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Advanced Digital Sciences Center, Singapore will speak on "Records Retention: Addressing Insider Threats to Data Integrity" at University of Sydney 15 March and the Australian National University in Canberra, 16 March 2011. I have encouraged my e-records students to attend.

ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science
Title: *Records Retention: Addressing Insider Threats to Data Integrity*

Venue: CSIT Building, N101 seminar room
Time: 10:30-12
Date: Wednesday 16 March 2011

Speaker:
Marianne Winslett
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and
Advanced Digital Sciences Center, Singapore

Abstract:
Inaccurate financial statements from major companies, dead people who still vote in elections, world-class gymnasts with uncertain birth dates: insiders often have the power and ability to make inappropriate changes to the content of electronic records. As electronic records
replace paper records, it becomes easy to make such alterations without leaving behind evidence that can be used to detect the changes and determine who made them. The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act is perhaps the most
(in)famous law that addresse are these problems, but it is just one of many regulations that require long-term high-integrity retention of electronic records, all with the goal of ensuring that societal trust in business and government at reasonable cost.

In this talk, we will discuss some of the technical challenges posed by the need for "tamper-proof" retention of records. We will describe how
industry has responded to these challenges, the security weaknesses in current product offerings, and the role that researchers and government can play in addressing these weaknesses. We will give an overview of research progress to date and describe the major open research problems in this area.

Bio:
Marianne Winslett has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois since 1987. She is an ACM Fellow and the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the US National Science Foundation. She is the former vice-chair of ACM SIGMOD and has served on the editorial boards of ACM Transactions on the Web, ACM Transactions on Database Systems, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, ACM Transactions on Information and Systems Security, and the Very Large Data Bases Journal. She has received two best paper awards for research on managing regulatory compliance data (VLDB, SSS), one best paper award for research on analyzing browser extensions to detect security vulnerabilities (Usenix Security), and one for keyword search (ICDE). Her PhD is from Stanford University.

Structuring the e-Document Course

Previously I grouped 8 SFIA Skills for an Electronic Document and Records Management course at the ANU under three headings:

1. Strategy & architecture
   • Information strategy
     • Information management
     • Information policy formation
     • Information content publishing
2. Business change
   • Business change management
     • Business analysis
3. Solution development and implementation
   • Systems development
     • Data analysis
     • Database/repository design
   • Human factors
     • Usability evaluation

This is still too much to do in a six week course. The third heading was also a little too technical for this sort of course, so I dropped"Solution development and implementation".

This leaves:

1. Strategy & architecture
   • Information strategy
     • Information management
     • Information policy formation
     • Information content publishing
2. Business change
   • Business change management
     • Business analysis

Under these I have to fit the topics:

Somewhere in here I need to discuss:

1. Records Management
2. Metadata
3. Information Structures
4. Electronic Document Formats
5. Social Networking/Web 2.0/Gov 2.0
6. Implementation in Business

I could fit most of these topics under the SFIA headings:

1. Strategy & architecture
   • Information strategy
     
     • Information policy formation Module 1: Overview and Statement of Principles; Towards an Australian Government Information Policy
     • Information management Guidelines and Functional Requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems
     • Information content publishing Australian Government Recordkeeping Metadata Standard Version 2.0 National Archives of Australia page 13, Chapter 5 "5 FEATURES OF THE METADATA SET"
2. Business change
   • Business change management
     • Business analysis Guidelines and Functional Requirements for Records in Business Systems
     • recordkeeping risks associated with cloud computing
   • Electronic Document Formats:
     Whole-of-Government Common Operating Environment Policy mandating of the Office Open XML, rather than the Open Document Format.
   • Social Networking/Web 2.0/Gov 2.0:The AGIMO Government 2.0 Primer; Online Consultation Guidelines; AGIMO Blog; govdex community

But e-Document Formats and Social Networking/Web 2.0/Gov 2.0 do not appear to fit anywhere in the SFIA scheme. This may be similar to the situation when I designed a Green ICT course and SFIA had no categories for such skills. SFIA responded by adding the categories, but it took more than a year from my making the request to implementation.

Web 2.0 Education to Rescue Governments from Social Networking Chaos

Rob Obrien at Asia Pacific FutureGov asked if I would like to write 1400 words on how my new course "Electronic Document and Records Management" (COMP7420) could help Asian governments. So I thought I would draft it here:

Web 2.0 Education to Rescue Governments from Social Networking Chaos

WikiLeaks has shown the embarrassment which can be caused to government from the unauthorised release of electronic information. But it is not just the deliberate unauthorised release of information which can cause problems, there is also inadvertent release of information via social networking web sites. Government power is under threat from so-called Web 2.0 tools, taking on the role of coordinating discussion of community issues.

President Obahama has popularised the idea of using the Internet to inform and consult citizens with Whitehouse 2.0, using numerous social networking web sites, including Facebook and Twitter.com. However, behind this seeming effortless announcements are public officials with years of practical experience of dealing with public communication online. These are rare skills in most government agencies.

Simply announcing that Facebook and Twitter will be used for communicating with citizens can lead to disastrous results, with many public officials discovering the dangers of making an ill considered remark online.

Also citizens soon tire of having government announcements simply thrust at them via social networking sites. These are supposed to be about two way communication and the citizens want to have a genuine say in what government does. Such demands can be threatening for public officials who are used to controlling the discussion.

A genuine public discussion of issues also requires information about what government knows and has done in the past. New governments tend to make grand announcements about "openness" but then quickly close off information access when they realise how difficult this can be to manage. But government are quickly realising that Internet access to information is difficult to control.

On 16 July 2010, Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, in the Australian Government issued a Declaration of Open Government. This stated three key principles for informing citizens, engaging with citizens and making government more participative. To make this concrete, on on 1 November 2010 changes to Freedom of Information legislation came into force to provide greater access to government information and an Office of the Australian Information Commissioner was created to oversee this. In addition, the Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government agencies were changed by the Attorney General's Department, 1 October 2010.

The Australian Government changes are closely bound up with concepts developed for, and promoted via, information technology. The new government IP principles call for the use of a Creative Commons licence, allowing citizens to freely use government information. FOI laws assume online access to government information. The first Freedom of Information Commissioner appointed is Dr James Popple an Adjunct Lecturer in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University, with expertise in artificial intelligence applied to the law.

Recognising the need for government staff to be familiar with information technology, the Australian National University has created a course on how the use of the Internet effects an organization's electronic document and records management strategy.

Electronic Document and Records Management (COMP7420), is being offered by the ANU from 14 February 2011. The six week course is conducted course entirely online via the web, with students able to take part from anywhere in the world. Online forums give students the opportunity to practice discussing complex issues in a safe, controlled environment.

Web 2.0 and social networking have created a demand for rapid access to information in commercial and not-for-profit organisations. Government 2.0 provides open access and greater involvement in the decision making of government. Smart phones and tablet computers using wireless networks allow mobile access to cloud computing resources world wide. This poses a challenge for organisations to provide access and input, while maintaining the security and integrity of records, and the privacy of personal information. Students can investigate how traditional records management techniques and document formats have been adapted to the Internet era.

The use of web technology for practical e-commerce and e-publishing applications is emphasised using case studies, standards and guidelines of real organisations. Emphasis is placed on the information needs of Australian government agencies, but is also applicable to the private sector. This course identifies the steps that can be taken to accelerate the uptake of electronic documents by government, in conjunction with small and medium-sized enterprises. It enables the participant to learn practical skills for incorporating e-commerce into their organisation. The focus is on document representation, knowledge discovery, storage and retrieval.

Course designer, Tom Worthington, previously headed an Australian Government committee which developed electronic document management policy for government agencies. He brings to the task decades of experience at dealing with complex legal, social and policy issues in an online environment.

Traditional courses assume the student will work on set exercises and then after graduation go out into the world. In this course students are encouraged to bring their day job into the virtual classroom. Students are asked to relate what they are studying to what they are doing in the workplace. Assignments are written from the point of view of the employer, with the intention that developed policies and strategies will be submitted to the student's supervisor.

Electronic Document, Records and Social Networking

In defining skills for an Electronic Document and Records Management course at the ANU, I previously looked at using the UK Government Knowledge and Information Management Professional Skills Framework, SFIA, and the ASA/RMAA Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professionals. Then I talked to people from National Archives of Australia and RMAA. Last of all I talked to people who enquired about doing a course. The last group is most important, being the potential students, but before I could talk to them I need to have something to offer them.

What potential students seemed to want was:

1. Reassurance they could do a university course: Many in the records management area have a qualification gained years ago from a TAFE. They are not sure if they would be accepted by a university, particularly by the ANU, Australia's leading university. What I have to do is reassure them that if they have experience at working in an organisation, writing documents, they will be able to do the course.
2. Guide as to what to do: The course I am designing is only six weeks long. This provides a useful introduction to further studies, but does not provide a complete qualification. The ANU doesn't offer a complete program in records management, but does have Graduate Studies Select , where students can pick subjects from across the university and from University of Southern Queensland (USQ) and Charles Darwin University (CDU) as well.
3. Integration of records management with content management systems: A common question asked was about the integration of a records management system (mostly Trim or RecordPoint) with a content management system (mostly SharePoint).
4. Social Networking: The typical comment is that e-mail is integrated with the records management system, but that is about all. So only about 5% of the electronic documents of the organisation are in the corporate records system. What to do with Twitter and the like has not even been thought about.

Previously I identified 8 Skills in SFIA relevant to the course (plus Procurement and the Quality management skills). There is not room in six weeks for all of that. So cutting it down further, I have:

1. Strategy & architecture
   • Information strategy
     • Information management
     • Information policy formation
     • Information content publishing
2. Business change
   • Business change management
     • Business analysis
3. Solution development and implementation
   • Systems development
     • Data analysis
     • Database/repository design
   • Human factors
     • Usability evaluation

This is getting close to something usable.

Somewhere in here I need to discuss:

1. Records Management
2. Metadata
3. Information Structures
4. Electronic Document Formats
5. Social Networking/Web 2.0/Gov 2.0
6. Implementation in Business

Teaching Skills for Open Government

After the excellent seminar "Using Creative Commons in the Public Sector" in Parliament House last week, I am rethinking the design of my Electronic Data Management Course at the ANU. My attempts to define skills for an got bogged down in the details of the UK Government Knowledge and Information Management Professional Skills Framework, SFIA, and the ASA/RMAA Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professionals. Instead I perhaps can look at what the Australian Government is aiming to achieve and then teach what is needed to achieve that.

On 16 July 2010, Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, issued a Declaration of Open Government. This identified three key principles:

Informing: strengthening citizen’s rights of access to information, establishing a pro-disclosure culture across Australian Government agencies including through online innovation, and making government information more accessible and usable;

Engaging: collaborating with citizens on policy and service delivery to enhance the processes of government and improve the outcomes sought; and

Participating: making government more consultative and participative.

Changes to Freedom of Information and the creation of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner came into force on 1 November 2010.

The Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government agencies" were changed by the Attorney General's Department, 1 October 2010:

11. (a) Agencies should encourage public use and easy access to material that has been published for the purpose of :

• informing and advising the public of government policy and activities;
• providing information that will enable the public and organisations to understand their own obligations and responsibilities to Government;
• enabling the public and organisations to understand their entitlements to government assistance;
• facilitating access to government services; or
• complying with public accountability requirements.

...

11.(b) Consistent with the need for free and open re-use and adaptation, public sector information should be licensed by agencies under the Creative Commons BY standard as the default.

Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) adopted by the Queensland Government:

The Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) makes it easy for people who use public sector information (PSI) to understand the rights of use associated with the material.

GILF comprises:

• a supporting policy

• a series of resources to help users

• a Licensing Review process to help to determine the relevant GILF licence

• 7 licences (6 Creative Commons licences and 1 the GILF Restrictive licence)

NSW unable to archive digital information

The NSW Auditor-General has reported to Parliament that the State Records Authority of New South Wales is in breach of its enabling legislation as it is "...unable to archive digital records despite growing reliance on the use of digital records by New South Wales Government agencies". The AG has recommended a government digital archiving solution be established. The AG also notes that the archive will run out of storage space during this financial year (e-records would reduce the space problem).

Help is at hand. The NSW State Records Authority provides a list of courses available on records management. First in the list is my own "Electronic Data Management" COMP7420, being offered at the Australian National University from January 2010. As I am still designing the course, I could include the requirements for the NSW e-Archive as a case study. Several students on my Green ICT course wrote official carbon reduction strategies for their agencies as their assignments. NSW government staff could write the e-archive strategy as their assignment for this course.

It should be noted that there is considerable guidance for implementing an e-arching system in NSW:

1. M2009-11 Premier's Memoranda: NSW Standard on Digital Recordkeeping
2. Standard on digital recordkeeping and Short guide to implementing the Standard
3. M2004-14 Use and Retention of Email for Government Communications
4. Policy on digital records preservation
5. Policy on electronic recordkeeping
6. ICT Attitudes to records and recordkeeping: survey report
7. Considering digital recordkeeping as part of systems development or procurement (RIB52)
8. Strategies for documenting Government business: The 'DIRKS' manual
9. Introducing recordkeeping metadata (RIB 18)
10. Selecting records management software (RIB 2)
11. Checklist for assessing business systems (RIB 42)
12. Managing digital records
13. Desktop Management: Managing electronic documents and directories (RIB 30)
14. Destroying digital records: When pressing delete is not enough (RIB 51)
15. Digital imaging and recordkeeping (RIB 11)
16. Email and other templates for creating digital records
17. FAQs - Emails and recordkeeping (RIB 49)
18. General Retention and Disposal Authority - Source Records That Have Been Migrated (GA 33)
19. Guidelines on keeping web records
20. Keeping recruitment records using e-Recruitment (RIB 56)
    
21. Managing the message: Guidelines on managing formal and informal communications as records
22. Records management and web 2.0
23. Archives Advice: Protecting and handling magnetic media (NAA)
24. Archives Advice: Protecting and handling optical disks (NAA)
25. Digital records preservation in the NSW public sector: A discussion paper
26. Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI) website
27. Digital Records Advisory Group

Ministerial Memorandum 2009-11 ‘Standard on Digital Recordkeeping’ acknowledged the increasing reliance upon digital records by New South Wales public sector agencies. The Memorandum also noted the benefits of a standardised approach to digital record keeping.

The Authority’s ‘Future Proof’ strategy aims to help government agencies manage digital records. A key aspect of the strategy is to implement a digital archiving facility for New South Wales government. Currently, the Authority declines digital records that an agency wishes to transfer for archiving because it does not have the infrastructure to access the information in the record.

The Crown Solicitor has advised that if the Authority holds public records that are not accessible, the Authority is in breach of its enabling legislation. Notwithstanding its current policy of declining records, the Authority holds some inaccessible records and is in breach.

Records Management in the Cloud

In defining skills for an Electronic Data Management Course at the ANU, I previously looked at using the UK Government Knowledge and Information Management Professional Skills Framework, SFIA, and the ASA/RMAA Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professionals. Just to complicate things further, on Saturday I bumped into Senator Kate Lundy, who suggested looking at Web 2.0 and geo-locationally enabled mash-ups in the course. Also she asked for some brochures about the course, so perhaps it is time to work out exactly what this is about.

Electronic Data Management (COMP7420) is planned as a 3 unit course. That is six weeks, half the length of a typical unviersity subject. If the same format as the successful course, Green Information Technology Strategies (COMP7310), is used, this will require the course content to be broken up into six topics, each of one week duration, with a small assessment item after each (called formative assessment in the jargon of pedagogy). The topics of the green ICT course are brought together in two assignments the students undertake (summative assessment).

In the case of Green ICT there are two seemingly simple assignment questions:

1. Write a report on the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of your organisation ...
   
2. Write a report identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your organisation ...
   

Can I reduce the wide range of subject related to data management into six topics and one or two assignment questions? One thing which is seems worth retaining is the idea of basing assignments on an organisation context (students who do not have an organsation they can talk about simply adopt one).

At level 5 SFIA I identified 8 Skills relevant to records management (plus Procurement and the Quality management skills):

1. Information management
2. Information policy formation
3. Information content publishing
4. Methods and tools
5. Business analysis
6. Data analysis
7. Database/repository design
   • Usability evaluation

The SFIA version 4 groups skills in six broad categories:

1. Strategy & architecture
   • Information strategy
     • Information management
     • Information policy formation
     • Information content publishing
   • Technical strategy and planning
     • Methods & tools
2. Business change
   • Business change management
     • Business analysis
3. Solution development and implementation
   • Systems development
     • Data analysis
     • Database/repository design
   • Human factors
     • Usability evaluation
       
4. Service management
   • No skills relevant for this course
     
5. Procurement & management support
   • Supply management
   • Quality management
   • Resource management
   • Learning and development
6. Client interface
   • No skills relevant for this course
     

Information Professional Skills Framework

The UK Government National Archives issued a Government Knowledge and Information Management Professional Skills Framework in April 2009. This is intended for recruiting and developing knowledge and information management professionals in the UK government. It has been suggested as something I could use for defining skills for an Electronic Data Management Course.

The framework defines four levels of roles, from lowest to highest: Practitioner, Manager, Leader and Strategist.
SFIA has seven levels, from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest): 1. Follow, 2. Assist, 3. Apply, 4. Enable, 5. Ensure/advise, 6. Initiate/influence, 7. Set strategy/inspire/mobilise.

It would seem to be reasonable to match "Strategist" to SFIA 7, as the word "strategy" is in the SFIA description.

There are then six SFIA levels to match with three GKIMPS Roles. The simplest solution is to match each GKIMPS role with two SFIA Levels:

Proposed Alignment of SFIA Levels with GKIMPS Roles

SFIA Level	GKIMPS Roles
1. Follow	Practitioner
2. Assist
3. Apply	Manager
4. Enable
5. Ensure/advise	Leader
6. Initiate/influence
7. Set strategy/inspire/mobilise	Strategist

These may seem obvious, but on my first attempt I had for Practitioner matched to SFIA Levels 1 to 3, Manager Levels 4, 5 and for Leader just SFIA Level 6. But that then did not give SFIA Level 5 (which is the level of the course I am designing) enough responsibility. The new arrangement is not perfect as it suggests that managers should "apply", when that is really a job for a practitioners.

A diagram is provided showing the structure of the skills framework:

A one page Overview (PDF 17.6 KB) is provided, which expands on the structure giving more detail.

There are four categories of skills in the framework, each applying to all roles:

1. Strategic planning for knowledge and information management
2. Using and exploiting knowledge and information
3. Managing and organising information
4. Information governance

Previously I identified the four ASA/RMAA Knowledge Domains in their "Course Accreditation Check-list":

1. Purposes and characteristics of records and recordkeeping system
2. Context
   
3. Recordkeeping processes and practices
4. Underpinning Knowledge Domain: Recordkeeping theories and principles

Also I identified level 5 SFIA Skills relevant to records management:

1. Information management
2. Information policy formation
3. Information content publishing
4. Methods and tools
5. Business analysis
6. Data analysis
7. Database/repository design
8. Usability evaluation

This is not counting Procurement and the Quality management skills I was not sure about including. I am not sure how to reconcile these three views.

The Government KIM Professional Skills Framework – Full Version is 31 page (PDF, 321 KB).

Contents
Using the Government Knowledge and Information Management Professional Skills Framework .... i
Acknowledgements .... iii

1. Strategic planning for knowledge and information management ... 1
   1. Organisational planning for knowledge and information management .... 1
   2. Demonstrating the value of knowledge and information management .... 5
   3. Strategic development of knowledge and information management capability ... 6
   4. Selection and procurement of knowledge and information management resources ... 8
2. Using and exploiting knowledge and information 9
   1. Knowledge sharing and collaboration .... 9
   2. Information re-use and information sharing . 12
   3. Information analysis ... 14
   4. Integrating knowledge and information management capabilities into the business process ... 16
3. Managing and organising information .... 17
   1. Information architecture and information control.... 17
   2. Creation and maintenance of information and records .... 19
4. Information governance ... 22
   1. Information risk management... 22
   2. Compliance with information legislation, regulation and corporate standards ... 24
   3. Ethics.... 26

There is also a set of Frequently Asked Questions for the Knowledge and Information Management Function (121 KB).

Learning Outcomes for Electronic Data Management

In "Refining Skills for Electronic Data Management" I trimmed down the list of Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) skills applicable to an ANU course in Electronic Data Management (COMP7420). But how does this list of skills relate to the ASA/RMAA Statement of Knowledge for Recordkeeping Professionals. TSFIA is from IT professioanls and may not match what archivists or records managers thin important.

ASA/RMAA list four Knowledge Domains in their "Course Accreditation Check-list". I have highlighted some of the words I find interesting:

1. Purposes and characteristics of records and recordkeeping system
   
   
   
   1. Purpose of records
      
   2. Characteristics of records
      
   3. Purpose of recordkeeping systems
      
   4. Characteristics of recordkeeping systems
      
   
   
2. Context
   
   
   
   1. Expectations and needs of individuals,
      organisations, communities and society in
      the past, now and in the future
      
   2. Characteristics of the jurisdictions in
      which recordkeeping activities occur
      
   3. Influence of technology on recordkeeping
      
   4. Influence of advances in best practice on
      recordkeeping
      
   5. Influence of continuity and change on
      recordkeeping and the value of records
      
   6. Culture and language of individuals,
      organisations or communities
      
   7. Risk management
      
   8. Perspectives and needs of stakeholders in
      that domain where there is a responsibility to identify requirements
      and educate
      
   9. Expertise and knowledge of agents and users of records
      
   10. Role of recordkeeping processes,
       practices and recordkeeping systems
   11. Respect for provenance
       
   12. Legal mandates and ownership of business processes
       
   13. Principles of risk
       
   14. Information management frameworks
       
   15. Principles of administrative change where records follow function
       


3. Recordkeeping processes and practices
   
   
   
   1. Arrangement and description
      
   2. Preservation
      
   3. Custody and storage
      
   4. Metadata schemas
      
   5. Business and systems analysis
      
   6. Functional approaches to recordkeeping
      
   7. Appraisal of records and functions
      
   8. Reference and access
      
   
   
4. Underpinning Knowledge Domain: Recordkeeping theories and principles
   
   1. Systems of control
      
   2. Provenance
      
   3. Original Order
      
   4. Classification systems
      
   5. Custody principles
      
   6. Records continuum theory
      
   7. Life cycle theory
      
   8. Accessibility of records
      
   9. Arrangement and description
      
   10. Mandate and ownership of business processes
       
   11. Risk principles
       
   12. Administrative change
       
   13. Appraisal theories
       
   14. Ethics
       
   15. Code of practice
       
   16. Advocacy
       
   17. Education of value of records for memory

Some of these terms are familiar from SFIA. But some, such as Business risk management, are ones I previously removed from consideration, thinking them not relevant. So I might need to go back two steps and try to align the ASA/RMAA knowledge domains with SFIA. However, most of the ASA/RMAA requirements should fit under the SFIA Information strategy subcategory, in particular Information management, Information policy formation.

While it is not normally thought of as part of the record's managers job, I would like to include Information content publishing. Both records managers and librarians make the mistake of thinking they are passive collectors of electronic records which other people devised. In my view they would provide a much better service (and have an easier time) if they were to actively promote good formats for electronic information and were involved in the creation of electronic documents.

Perhaps what I need to do is is take the ASA/RMAA Knowledge Domains and see if I can fit them under the SFIA skills categories.

Refining Skills for Electronic Data Management

In "Skills for Electronic Data Management" I looked at which of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) skills would be applicable to an ANU course in Electronic Data Management (COMP7420). The list I came up with was too long for a 6 week course, so I need to trim it down. The largest area of applicable skills is under the category "Strategy and architecture", subcategory "Information strategy", followed by "Business change". But I need to cut out some of these.

The first to go is Corporate governance of IT in SFIA, this applies only at levels 6 and 7, above the level level 5 I am aiming for. In other words, this is a skill at a higher level than applicable to this course.

Information management appears very applicable, at Level 5, the description is:

Takes responsibility for planning effective information storage, sharing and publishing within the organisation. Maintains and communicates the organisation’s information management strategy. Devises and implements document and record systems, including classification, retrieval and retention processes. Maintains an inventory of information subject to data protection and other appropriate legislation. Reviews new business proposals and provides specialist advice on information management, including advice on and promotion of collaborative working and assessment and management of risk. Responsible for ensuring compliance with organisational policies and procedures and overall information management strategy.

Information policy formation also looks relevant:

Drafts and maintains the policy, standards and procedures for compliance with relevant legislation. Reviews information systems for compliance with legislation and specifies any required changes. Ensures that formal information access requests and complaints are dealt with according to approved procedures. Creates and maintains an inventory of data which is subject to data protection legislation. Prepares and reviews the periodic notification of registration details and submits it to the data protection authorities.

However, the next, Information security, looks too specialised and so I have dropped that, as does Information assurance. The skill "Information analysis" appears to be one applicable to the companion course to this one Data Mining and Matching (COMP7410).

As to if "Information content publishing" is applicable is debatable. The record manager will have a hand in the publishing but not doing it all, but for the moment, I will leave this in:

Develops standards and procedures to support content publishing. Designs overall support information structures. Takes responsibility for publishing assignments, including, for example, design of the overall structure and graphical style for substantial, complex or high-profile web sites. Selects appropriate tools, templates and standards for publication in various forms, appropriate to customer expectations (differentiating, for example, between needs such as optimisation and ease of modification). Sets design and coding standards, taking into account bandwidth and compatibility.

Solution architecture and Continuity management are too specialised and technical and can go.

Methods and tools is a bit vague, but I will leave it for the moment:

Promotes and ensures use of appropriate techniques, methodologies and tools.

Portfolio management is about timetables and targets which I don't find every interesting and will drop.

Project management is about taking "full responsibility" for "medium-scale projects" over 6-12 months, with 3-5 staff. This is more than I can teach in a short course ( there are numerous ANU courses on project management).

Business analysis is applicable, as records need to support what the business is doing:

Takes responsibility for investigative work to determine business requirements and specify effective business processes, through improvements in information systems, information management, practices, procedures, and organisation change. Applies and monitors the use of required modelling and analysis tools, methods and standards, giving special consideration to business perspectives. Conducts investigations at a high level for strategy studies, business requirements specifications and feasibility studies. Prepares business cases which define potential benefits, options for achieving these benefits through development of new or changed processes, and associated business risks. Identifies stakeholders and their business needs.

But Business process testing is getting a little specialised, as is Organisation design and implementation , Benefits management and Business modelling.

Data analysis is directly applicable:

Sets standards for data analysis tools and techniques, advises on their application, and ensures compliance. Manages the investigation of corporate data requirements, and co-ordinates the application of data analysis and data modelling techniques, based upon a detailed understanding of the corporate information requirements, in order to establish, modify or maintain data structures and their associated components (entity descriptions, relationship descriptions, attribute definitions).

Requirements definition and management is too much on the business side.

Database/repository design may be a little too technical but I will leave it in for the moment l (this is what I originally trained in at the Australian Bureau of Statistics):

Maintains and applies up to date, specialist knowledge of database concepts, object and data modelling techniques and design principles, and a detailed knowledge of the full range of database architectures, software and facilities available. Analyses data requirements, to establish, modify or maintain a data model. Takes account of specialist requirements (e.g. geocoding, for geographic information systems). Interprets the model into an appropriate database schema within set policies. Demonstrates, installs and commissions selected products.

Information content authoring is about creating the content and so is less applicable and I have dropped that.

Usability requirements analysis and Human factors integration are too specialised. However Usability evaluation is of use. One problem I have found with many records management systems is unusable interfaces. Under this category can also be covered accessibility for the disabled and access on portable devices (smart phones and tablet computers, such as the Apple iPad):

Advises on what to evaluate and type of evaluation. Ensures that the results of evaluations are understood by system developers.

Capacity management and Availability management are topics I would like to cover, but don't have room for.

This then leaves a cluster of skills under "Procurement & management support", mostly user "Quality management". I need to pause and consider if these are relevant.

Category	Subcategory	Skill
Strategy and architecture	Information strategy
		Information management
		Information policy formation
		Information content publishing
	Advice and guidance
	Business/IT strategy and planning
	Technical strategy and planning
		Methods and tools
Business change	Business change implementation
	Business change management	Business analysis
	Relationship management
Solution development and implementation	Systems development
		Data analysis
		Database/repository design
	Human factors
		Usability evaluation
	Installation and integration
Service management	Service strategy
	Service design
	Service transition
	Service operation
Procurement & management support	Supply management	Procurement
	Quality management	Quality management
		Quality assurance
		Quality standards
		Compliance review
		Safety assessment
		Technology audit
	Resource management
	Learning and development
Client interface	Sales and marketing
	Client support