Questionnaire
EURBICA –Preparation for a decision on a strategy concerning electronic records archives in Europe
EURBICA decided to call together a meeting of experts concerning the management of electronic records and their longevity in the member states. The members of the executive board intend to be updated by the experts meeting on the stand of the art of applications, the actual problems and initiatives of archival services to be able to discuss the question whether a common strategy in this field should be on the agenda of Eurbica. The decision will take place during the plenary meeting on the occasion of the CITRA meeting in Abu Dhabi 26.Nov.-1.Dec. 2005
The following questions should be answered by the presentations of experts
during a meeting in Paris Sept./Oct. 2005:
The list of questions is ordered according to eight main areas of problems. Each question is followed by more specific and detailed questions. The questions should help to structure the meeting and to prepare the organizing of the outcomes in a report for the executive board of EURBICA. Please feel free to add what seems relevant to the debate from your point of view.
1. Does your country have an e-government / e-governance strategy?
- If so does it support explicitly the use of electronic communication and of certain standards? What does it say on longevity of electronic records?
Does automation have effects on organisation forms? Can you observe a tendency towards more rigid centralization via automatisation?
2. What is the state of automation of administrative processes (workflow or records management systems etc.):
Are there as far as you know any processes, which are or are going to be automated? If so, could you describe a typical example? Are some sectors of government more advanced than others?
3. What is done with e-mail messages?
Is e-mail stored consciously? Are there systems installed for the storage of e-mail? Are there stated policies and procedures on how to store email messages? Are they selected automatically? Is the maintenance and storage of e-mail-messaging systems part of workflow management or records management systems?
4. What is done with (born) digital documents?
How are they treated within the frame of records management systems? Or: are they stored independently from records management systems? Are document management systems in use? How are documents selected for storage? Are they printed out and integrated into paper files?
5. What is done with analogue documents in an electronic workflow / digital records management system?
Are analogue / paper documents digitised in the administration? Does the administration use hybrid systems with digital and paper storage?
6. Are analogue / paper documents digitized in the archives?
Are there digitizing programmes for whole groups of files? Are they digitized on demand? What is done with the analogue forms after eventual digitizing? Which technical formats are used? (F.i. TiffG4, PDF, JPEG, PNG?)
7.Are there databases in use, which are separate or independent from the office systems (or the work flow or records management)?
Do they have interfaces to the automated workflows or document management systems? How are they archived? Do you know about geographical information systems (GIS) in use? How are they stored or archived?
8.Is your archival service involved in the further developments?
Are the archives represented in any board or committee concerned with the automation of administration and the management of electronic records? Do the archives have a formal competence of consultation? Are there any publications by the archives addressing the problems administrations encounter by automating their work? Are the archives involved in the definition of standards?
9.Does a preservation strategy exist?
Do you have developed a preservation strategy? Do you have concrete migration / conversion planning? What do you know about the effective financial consequences? Are there alternatives to the e-preservation for simple records, which are more cost-effective
10.What is the relation between e-archiving strategies and “traditional” archival work / science?
What are the consequences for the evaluation? Do you have new evaluation processes / criteria? Or: Do you apply the traditional criteria in the usual process for analogous documents?
11.What are your concerns, intentions, or hopes for the years to come?
Concerning access to electronic records? Concerning storage strategies and economic reflections? Are there ideas about using hybrid systems to ease the long-term handling of simple digital documents? Do you have a financial plan for activities in these fields? How relevant are other approaches in other countries for your own perspectives? Which problems need to be solved in a medium term or a long term perspective? What would you expect EURBICA to do in this field?
