Electronic Document Management Overview
Tom Worthington FACS HLM
E-Document Management
Allows legally recognised documents used to be created,
transmitted and stored.
See:
Records Creation to Archive, State Records of South Australia
Electronic Document Management allows legally
recognised documents used in e-commerce transactions to be created,
transmitted and stored. Without electronic document management,
fast and efficient e-commerce transactions would be buried under
mounds of paper documenting the transactions, or be tied up in
litigation over the authenticity of the electronic originals.
The State Records of South Australia has a useful description of the process of:
Records Creation to Archive.
In 1995 a government committee, chaired by the author, made
recommendations for electronic document management in Australian
Government Agencies. Here is an overview of the issues, from the
report:
Complete document life cycle
Electronic document management systems are more than just
systems for tracking the location of electronic documents. Such
systems should manage documents for their complete life cycle based
on the value of the document to the agency's business. Just as
there are standard procedures for the registration of paper
documents and records, suitable procedures should be implemented to
manage each electronic document throughout its life from creation
to disposal...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Requirements for Electronic Document Management
Whatever strategy is adopted, the document management system
must:
- provide adequate context information for documents;
- provide means to prove the authenticity of documents used as
evidence
- provide for the disposal of records in conformance with the
Archives Act 1983;
- be robust against organisational or technological change;
- provide levels of support for different types of document that
accord with agency policy; and
- provide links between paper and electronic documents.
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Evidence for Electronic Document Management
All agencies must manage evidence. Evidence is the proof of how
we acted. It is how we deal with our clients, customers, other
agencies or bodies in the private sector, and how they deal with
us. It is the basis from which we report to government and the
voters. It is what we use to show we run our agencies efficiently
and effectively. Above all it is what we use to discharge some
obligation because we are held accountable for our actions...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Problems with Electronic Document Management
-
confusion between different versions of a document (e.g. because
there may be multiple copies, none of which is the authoritative
version);
-
loss or destruction of documents that should be kept (e.g.
because there is no central repository ...);
-
questionable authenticity, because of possible manipulation of
text in electronic documents;
-
loss of context of documents (e.g. because related documents are
not linked or kept together); and
-
documents becoming inaccessible because of technological change
(e.g. changes in software ...).
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Design Issues
- Provision of context
- Authenticity
- Disposal of documents and records
- Robustness against organisational change
- Robustness against technological change
- Management of working documents
- Links to paper systems
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Provision of context
In electronic systems, documents are stored as discrete
entities, without any necessary relationship to other documents. In
a business environment, documents rarely occur in isolation. They
may, for example, be part of a transaction, part of a discussion on
a topic, or a progress report on a project. They may refer to other
documents. These relationships are part of a document's
context. The context is important in locating and retrieving
documents and groups of documents. ...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Authenticity
... How do we know that a retrieved electronic document is a
correct representation of the original document? If we wish to use
it as evidence, how do we prove that it is? ...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Disposal of documents and records
Disposal of documents and records is dictated by the archives
policies applying to the agency or organisation. In the case of
agencies covered by the Archives Act 1983, disposal is based on the
concept of disposal classes, each of which has a designated
retention period. ...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Robustness against organisational change
Government agencies are subject to internal reorganisation,
splitting into multiple agencies, mergers with other agencies, and
transfer of functions to and from other agencies, on a timescale
which is short compared with that required for records management.
...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Robustness against technological change
Electronic documents rapidly become unreadable due to changes in
hardware technology and in software. ...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Management of working documents
Although working documents are not part of the corporate store,
there are situations where it might be seen as useful if the
document management system has some knowledge of them. ...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Links to paper systems
Where paper and electronic documents exist within the same
agency, links between documents in the two media must be possible.
...
From: Improving Electronic Document Management:
Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government
Information Technology, 1995, Archive copy at URL:
http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
Design Responses
-
Metadata in a text readable format (mostly
supersets of Dublin Core) to describe the records. The metadata can
be held with the record or separately.
-
Standard document formats to store and
transport the documents. Implementations either use the original
format the document was created in, a standardised format (such as
XML or PDF) or multiple formats.
-
Security to identify and protect the integrity:
using digital signatures.
Records Management
-
applies to the management of records, in all formats or media,
created or received by any public or private organization in the
conduct of its activities, or any individual with a duty to create
and maintain records,
-
provides guidance on determining the responsibilities of
organizations for records and records policies, procedures, systems
and processes,
-
provides guidance on records management in support of a quality
process framework ...
-
provides guidance on the design and implementation of a records
system, but
-
does not include the management of archival records within
archival institutions. ...
From: "Introduction to Australian Standard AS ISO 15489, State Records of South Australia , 2005, URL:
http://www.archives.sa.gov.au/files/management_ARM_ISO15489.pdf
Electronic document management is a specialised form of records
management. The International Standard on Records Management (ISO
15489) covers both electronic and paper records management. The
international standard was based on Australian Standard AS
4390-1996.
Like other standards, ISO 15489 is a voluntary code of practice.
However, such standards are commonly adopted by government agencies
and companies to satisfy courts that their records are well kept.
This is particularly important where
there are no paper records to present to a court as
evidence of a transaction. A court will need to be
convinced that electronic records are well kept by an organisation,
for those records to be used in evidence.
