Keywords

1 Introduction

Records systems and information systems (ISs) including Enterprise Information Systems (EISs) typically co-exist in organizations, in particular in those who operate under rigorous regulatory frameworks. While lacking universally agreed definitions, ISs and EISs can generally be understood as configurations of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are deployed in organizations for the purpose of supporting organizations’ accomplishment of business goals [1]. Sharing the same purpose, the organizational program for records management – now predominantly digital records management (DRM) – claims its establishment in organizations by facilitating the achievement of operational efficiency and effectiveness as well as legal compliance. The DRM field recognized rather early in its battle to digital records challenges the need to establish formal collaborations with the ISs and EISs professions for devising ISs functional requirements and for developing long term preservation strategies, it is still rare, however, to spot discussions regarding such collaborations in the information and communication technology (ICT) literature today. Working with the understanding that both ISs/EISs and DRM are charged with the responsibilities of serving the business needs of their sponsoring organizations, this chapter, a substantive extension of the conference paper Organizational Records Systems - An Alternative View to (Enterprise) Information Systems [2], analyzes the relationships between records systems and information systems utilizing, as a representative case, the development of the InterPARES (International Research on Permanent and Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) project. To our knowledge, despite that research in both the fields of information systems and records systems abound, the analysis as conducted in this chapter appears to be the first of its kind. This chapter consists of 5 sections: Introduction (this section), Record(s) and Information, Information Systems and Records Systems, InterPARES Records Systems, and Conclusions. Due to the highly conceptual nature of the COP model, efforts are made to streamline the presenting process, incorporating approaches of general account, graph depiction, and definitions as explanations.

2 Record(s) and Information

The relationship between record(s) and information was once clear. In the paper world, or, to be more precise, in the world where information systems were not the primary platform for organizations to conduct their businesses, the use of the term information suggested informal and the use of the term record(s) suggested formal. An organizational record consisted of two major parts, content and documentary form [3] and it was recognized by the legal and judicial systems in which its creating organization was operating. By the long established theoretical, methodological, and analytical frameworks, the management of record(s) ensured record(s) reliability, authenticity, and trustworthiness. Collectively, organizational records enabled the establishment and continued existence of organizations, supported their functions and activities, and provided them with foundations on which progression and protection could be built. In this context, (written) information constituted the part of content of a record, and its organization, or the shape of it, conformed to the documentary form of the record. The existence and importance of information, therefore, was manifested in and through records.

Digital (computer) technologies blurred the clarity of this relationship in a truly disruptive way. The term information, along with the term data, was given a new, much more active life by business oriented information systems, which first entered into organizations in the form of “electronic data processing” (EDP) [4, 5] and then, of business applications backed up with (relational) database technologies [5, 6]. With the nonstop advancing of digital technologies, information systems become increasingly wide-spread, common in organizations, and information is now “assets” and “lifeblood” for organizations. The once informal term started to obtain a formal status, in either organizational policies and/or governmental regulations. For example, the Australian Federal Government [7, 8] acknowledges formally that information is “knowledge communicated and received” and the U.S. Federal Government [9] defines information in its government-wide policy as “any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data, or opinions in any medium or form, including textual, numerical, graphic, cartographic, narrative, electronic, or audiovisual forms”.

Existing in the same digital world, record(s), however, are persistently viewed by non-records professions as in unbreakable bonds with analog formats and irrelevant to information systems – despite the fact that the records field has been transforming the management of analogue records into that for electronic/digital records since the early 1970s when the pioneering U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) started to handle data files in the form of punch cards. To the deployment of new information technologies in organizations, the management of records is always an afterthought. For example, the system of managing electronic document(s), which were loosely used to refer to both electronically or digitally captured paper documents, entered organizations without making any reference to organizational records management, and email, a typical representative of the digital disruptive power, remain till today to be a long reach of the program of organizational records management. This reality raises questions such as whether information can replace records in organizations, whether the notion of information as records content fitting into the documentary form of records can hold still true, and what relationships records now have with information in information systems, etc. It is unlikely that information is going to replace records in organizations, at least not in the current time. Organizational records in the digital world imply still authority and maintain still their legal and judicial status. For this reason alone, the blurred relationships between records and information could result in ineffective operation or regulatory violation. They, therefore, warrant to be cleared up.

To clear up the relationships between information and records in digitalized organizations proved to be challenging. Organizations either do not have formal definitions for information or avoid to define it altogether. For example, the Canadian Federal Government, while has in place a government-wide policy on information management, provides no definitions for information – the subject of the Policy on Information Management. Moreover, this policy treats records management as a constituent part of information management, yet its subordinate policy instrument, the Directive on Recordkeeping, introduces the concepts of information resources and information resources of business value, and treats them as the subject of the Directive – despite the title of the Directive speaks to “Recordkeeping”. Although the three concepts of record, information resources, and information resources of business value are formally defined (record is defined in both the Policy and the Directive with identical words), the conceptual relationships between them, and with information, remain problematic, if not entirely impossible, to be clearly identified. The three definitions are listed below for illustration purpose:

  • record: for the purpose of this policy, records are information created, received, and maintained by an organization or person for business purposes, legal obligations, or both, regardless of medium or form [10];

  • information resources: any documentary material produced in published and unpublished form regardless of communications source, information format, production mode or recording medium. Information resources include textual records (memos, reports, invoices, contracts, etc.), electronic records (e-mails, databases, internet, intranet, data etc.), new communication media (instant messages, wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc.), publications (reports, books, magazines), films, sound recordings, photographs, documentary art, graphics, maps, and artefacts [11];

  • information resources of business value: published and unpublished materials, regardless of medium or form, that are created or acquired because they enable and document decision-making in support of programs, services and ongoing operations, and support departmental reporting, performance and accountability requirements (Ibid);

Some organizations do have a formal definition for information, such as the U.S. Federal Government introduced above. The issue with this case is that once the general definition of information is applied to the specific organizational setting, the distinguishing ability of the definition starts to fade. For example, apart from the definition of information, the OMB Circular No. A-130 Management of Federal Information Resources defines also federal information and public information, with the former being “information created, collected, processed, maintained, disseminated, disclosed, or disposed of by or for the Federal Government, in any medium or form” and the latter being “any information, regardless of form or format, that an agency discloses, disseminates, or makes available to the public”. Because both definitions are in the context of agency operation and legal compliance, it becomes challenging to distinguish information from records in this setting. According to Title 44 of the U.S.C., § 3301, records “includes all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the United States Government or because of the informational value of data in them” [12]. Further, for the purpose of emphasizing the relevance of record(s) to the digital world, the second part of the definition explains that “the term ‘recorded’ information includes all traditional forms of records, regardless of physical form or characteristics, including information created, manipulated, communicated, or stored in digital or electronic form”. Federal information and federal record(s), therefore, appear to largely overlap with each other in this context.

3 Information Systems and Records Systems

The ISs field came to be recognized in the 1960s [13] and has ever since been advancing. Although missing in definitions of ISs universally accepted wordings, the linkage between ISs and organizations appears to always exists, either explicitly or implicitly. Internally, ISs are implemented to support the alternatively called back-office functions such as finance management, property management, and human capital management, and for functions facing customers or suppliers such as customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), sales, and marketing etc., ISs are designed with specifications tailored to address their functional requirements. The linkage between ISs and organizations became completely explicit when the notion of Enterprise Information Systems (EISs) started to emerge in the 1980s [14]. While choosing to use the term enterprise, EISs has never limited its applications to only commercial organizations. Like ISs, the phrase enterprise information systems (EISs) does not appear to be defined with consensus, and interpretations in the ICT field vary. For example, in the editorial of the inaugural issue of the Enterprise Information Systems journal, EISs was introduced as the equivalent to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) [14], yet in Enterprise Information Systems and Implementing IT Infrastructures: Challenges and Issues, EISs “comprises of information systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce” [15]. Nonetheless, EISs is generally seen as, with reference to the ineffectiveness and failures of the earlier ISs implementations, the more logical and intelligent response to organizations’ ISs needs. Advanced ISs and EISs are expected to better address the increasingly complex global environment and the increasingly integrative nature of business operations.

The most basic promises of EISs lies with integration, be it business process integration, system integration, data/information integration, or all the above. With integration, organizations can function as a whole: business processes can be streamlined, information silos can be bridged, and data integrity can be better ensured. As a result, wastes of ICT investment can be largely reduced (if not entirely avoided), employee resistance to new technologies can be minimized, and information can be available in real or near real time and be shared as needed irrespective of boundaries of business units and/or organizations. Ultimately, enterprises can be leaner, more agile, efficient and effective. Together, ISs and EISs promise to offer many qualities desired for organizations to achieve business sustainability and competitive advantages.

Although conceptually overlapping in the digital world in terms of their subjects, the DRM field remains to be independent from the field of information management in general, at least in the setting of government organizations. According to Title 44 U.S.C. § 2901(2), records management means “the planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training, promoting, and other managerial activities involved with respect to records creation, records maintenance and use, and records disposition in order to achieve adequate and proper documentation of the policies and transactions of the Federal Government and effective and economical management of agency operations” [16]. By the definition of records introduced in the previous session, records management logically include digital records management. To achieve the goals of DRM, both policies and resources are needed, and digital technology is now one of such indispensable resources. The application of digital technologies to records management resulted in, most typically, the system for managing digital records, or records system. In the field of records management, records system can be understood either narrowly or broadly. The narrow or specific view of records system focuses on the digital systems that manage unstructured records, such as those produced by Microsoft Word Suite and the all kinds of email applications. The broad view, on the other hand, addresses the entire spectrum of records management activities, regardless, thus, where the records exist and how they look like. A records system in the narrow view is indeed one type of business information systems because, as suggested by the above definition, records management or DRM is a business function in organizations and a technological system handling its activities is as the same as those information systems that handle any other business functions. For the purpose of this chapter, the broad view of records system is adopted and the InterPARES’ development on records systems is chosen for the purpose of illustration and discussion.

4 InterPARES Records Systems

4.1 The InterPARES Project

The InterPARES project has been running for consecutively 16 years, in the form of four distinguishable yet interrelated phases, that is, the completed InterPARES I–III and the currently running InterPARES Trust (2013–2018). InterPARES phase I was built on the influential findings of the UBC-MAS Project, entitled Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic records, which had run from 1995 to 1997. The UBC-MAS Project, as one of the true pioneering digital records projects international, not only produced renewed conceptual knowledge pertinent to records and documents in digital formats, but also the first blueprint internationally for digital technologies to be meaningfully applied to digital records management. The DoD5015.02-STD, entitled “Electronic Records Management Software Applications Design Criteria Standard” (most recent edition issued on April 25, 2007), was a joint production of the UBC-MAS project and the United States Department of Defense Records Management Task Force, which specifies the configuration of ICTs for the management of digital records. By nature, such records management applications are ISs, and they provide ISs functionalities to facilitate organizations’ conduct of activities regarding digital records management.

Initiated in 2001 and completed in 2012, InterPARES I–III extended its inquiries into digital records in more than one ways. With hundreds of researchers and graduate research assistants, the project had investigated a variety of research topics in a broad realm of domains, including, for example, digital arts, electronic government, and electronic science, against the technological backdrop of databases, document management system, and dynamic, interactive and experiential systems that heavily rely on network technologies. As a result, the project had developed an organization/enterprise-wide understanding of ISs, EISs, and captured it in one of its major products, that is, the Chain of Preservation (COP) model.

4.2 The COP Model

The name of the COP model points to the ultimate objective of the InterPARES project, that is, to ensure long-term or permanent preservation and accessibility of digital records – a representative reflection of the mission of the records community [17]. For the records community, this model serves both the professionals of the fields of DRM and digital archival administration in that both work with the same materials, that is, records, and the latter requires the former as managerial foundation. Together, these two professions complete the lifecycle management of records, with DRM disposing of, at any given time, records that are no longer needed and the archival administration entities providing custody and assess to significant records that require long-term or permanent preservation, upon transferring from DRM. Specifically, the COP model presents the lifecycle management in three types of systems: record-making system, record-keeping system, and record-preservation system.

Record-Making System. To apply the broad view of records system, record-making system in the context of the InterPARES project means “a set of rules governing the making of records, and the tools and mechanisms used to implement these rules”. Correspondingly, the activity of record-making encompasses “the whole of the principles, policies, rules and strategies that controls the process of creating records from made or received documents”. It needs to point out that the concept of document here is discipline relevant and therefore, should not be interpreted as a synonym to records as commonly found in everyday communications. As established by the findings of the second phase of InterPARES, the concept of document now covers those in digital formats, and can be broadly categorized as static, interactive, and dynamic/interactive ones. These digital documents have a convertible relationship with digital records, that is, when certain conditions are met, digital documents can become digital records although the formats may not be exactly the same [18, 19].

With its goal being the provision of overall control and co-ordination of the activities that it contains, the Record-Making System is designed to consist of 3 major activities Monitor Performance of Record-Making System (A2.1), Manage Making & Receipt of Records (A2.2), and Manage Setting Aside of Completed Records (A2.3), as depicted by Fig. 1 [17]. In Fig. 1 (also as in all figures that follow), arrows from the left side represent input information and arrows from the right side represent output information, which may also be input information for the next activity depending on the specific situation. The arrows from top represent constrains to the activity and the arrows from bottom represent facilities to the activity. The tunnel around (some of) the arrows indicates that the information is relevant not only to the present activity but also to all of its sub-activities. The outputs, therefore, are the results of a comprehensive integration and synthesizing of all of these arrows.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Record-making system.

Full size image

A2.1 is an activity without sub-activities (indicated in the figures by the short oblique line at the upper-left corner) and its job is to assess the efficacy of the performance of the record-making system. Specifically, it is required to analyze performance reports on the operation of each of the record-making system’s sub-activities and issue activity directives and information on the performance of the system. The records it generates is kept for the use in continued maintenance of the entire COP. Both A2.2 and A2.3 are activities with sub-activities, with A2.2 aiming to provide overall control and co-ordination of document and record making and receipt activities and A2.3 aiming to provide overall control and co-ordination of the transfer of executed or completed records to the recordkeeping system.

Figure 2 [17] depicts A2.2, showing its 5 sub-activities of Make Documents, Capture Documents, Identify Documents, Declare Records, and Execute Records. It needs to point out that the term creator in this context refers to the records-creating organization as opposed to individual authors to a document or record. Table 1 provides definitions for these sub-activities.

Fig. 2.
figure 2

Making and receiving of records.

Full size image
Table 1. Definitions for A2.2 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 3 [17] depicts A2.3, showing its 3 sub-activities of Monitor Performance of Record-making Transfer System, Prepare Completed Records for Transfer to Recordkeeping System, and Transfer Completed Records to Recordkeeping System. Table 2 provides definitions for these sub-activities.

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Setting aside of completed records.

Full size image
Table 2. Definitions for A2.3 sub-activities.
Full size table

Record-Keeping System.

Like record-making system, the InterPARES record-keeping system goes beyond the narrow view of technological system and refers to the whole set of “rules governing the storage, use, maintenance and disposition of records and/or information about records, and the tools and mechanisms used to implement these rules”. Figure 4 [17] depicts such a system, showing the activities designed to achieve the goal of providing overall control and co-ordination of activities in the recordkeeping system, including records storage, retrieval and access, disposition, and monitoring of the performance of the record-keeping system.

Fig. 4.
figure 4

Record-keeping system.

Full size image

In this context, the operation of record-keeping requires a creator to identify the principles, policies, rules and strategies necessary to establish and maintain administrative, intellectual, and physical control over its records, and the activities of A3 Manage Records in a Recordkeeping System are designed to facilitate such an operation. A3 consists of 4 activities: A3.1 Monitor Performance of Recordkeeping System, A3.2 Manage Maintenance of Kept Records, A3.3 Manage Access to Kept Records, and A3.4 Manage Disposition of Kept Records, with the later 3 containing sub-activities. Table 3 provides definitions of these activities, where preserver refers to the entity that is given formally the authority and responsibility of managing records in a permanent manner.

Table 3. Definitions for A3 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 5 [17] depicts A3.2, showing its 3 sub-activities of A3.2.1 Manage Information About Kept Records, A3.2.2 Manage Indexing of Kept Records, and A3.2.3 Manage Storage of Kept Records. Table 4 provides definitions for these sub-activities.

Fig. 5.
figure 5

Maintaining kept records.

Full size image
Table 4. Definitions for A3.2 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 6 [17] depicts A3.3, showing its 3 sub-activities of A3.3.1 Monitor Performance of Recordkeeping Access System, A3.3.2 Facilitate Discovery of Kept Records and/or Information, and A3.3.3 Manage Requests for Kept Records and/or Information. Table 5 provides definitions of these sub-activities including those to A3.3.3.

Fig. 6.
figure 6

Access to kept records.

Full size image
Table 5. Definitions for A3.3 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 7 [17] depicts A3.4, showing its 5 sub-activities of A3.4.1 Monitor Performance of Disposition System, A3.4.2 Identify Kept Records for Disposition, A3.4.3 Destroy Kept Records, A3.4.4 Prepare Kept Records for Transfer to Designated Preserver, and A3.4.5 Transfer Kept Records to Designated Preserver. Table 6 provides definitions for these sub-activities, none of which has sub-activities.

Fig. 7.
figure 7

Disposing of kept records

Full size image
Table 6. Definitions for A3.4 sub-activities.
Full size table

Record-Preserving System.

Record-preserving system encompasses both rules governing the permanent intellectual and physical maintenance of acquired records and the tools and mechanisms needed to implement these rules. As the last type of records system in the COP model, it aims to provide overall control and co-ordination of activities in the permanent preservation system, including records appraisal and selection, acquisition, description, storage, retrieval and access, and monitoring of the performance of the permanent preservation system. To that end, the designated preserver is required to ical and technological stabilization and protecting the intellectual form of acquired/accessioned records, thus enabling records’ “continuing, enduring, stable, lasting, uninterrupted and unbroken chain of preservation” [17]. Figure 8 [17] depicts the permanent preservation system, showing its 5 activities of A4.1 Monitor Performance of Permanent Preservation System, A4.2 Appraise Records for Permanent Preservation, A4.3 Acquire Selected Records, A4.4 Preserve Accessioned Records, and A4.5 Output Records, with the later 4 containing their own sub-activities. Table 7 provides definitions for these activities.

Fig. 8.
figure 8

Record-preserving system/records permanent preservation system.

Full size image
Table 7. Definitions for A4 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 9 [17] depicts the 4 sub-activities of A4.2: A4.2.1 Monitor Performance of Preservation Selection System, A4.2.2 Analyze Kept Records for Preservation, A4.2.3 Make Appraisal Decisions, and A4.2.4 Monitor Appraisal Decisions, with A4.2.2 showing to contain its own sub-activities. Table 8 provides definitions for these sub-activities including those to A4.2.2.2, A4.2.2.3, and A4.2.2.2.2.

Fig. 9.
figure 9

Appraising records for permanent preservation.

Full size image
Table 8. Definitions for A4.2 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 10 [17] depicts the 3 sub-activities of A4.3: A4.3.1 Monitor Performance of Preservation Acquisition System, A4.3.2 Process Records Transfers, and A4.3.3 Accession Records, with A4.3.2 showing to contain its own sub-activities. Table 9 provides definitions for the sub-activities.

Fig. 10.
figure 10

Acquiring selected records.

Full size image
Table 9. Definitions for A4.3 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 11 [17] depicts the 4 sub-activities of A4.4: A4.4.1 Manage Information About Preserved Records, A4.4.2 Manage Arrangement of Preserved Records, A4.4.3 Manage Description of Preserved Records, and A4.4.4 Manage Storage of Preserved Records, with A4.4.1, A4.4.3, and A4.4.4 showing to contain their own sub-activities. Table 10 provides definitions for these sub-activities including those to A4.4.4.3.

Fig. 11.
figure 11

Preserving accessioned records.

Full size image
Table 10. Definitions for A4.4 sub-activities.
Full size table

Figure 12 [17] depicts the 3 sub-activities of A4.5: A4.5.1 Monitor Performance of Preservation Access System, A4.5.2 Facilitate Discovery of Preserved Records and/or Information, and A4.5.3 Manage Requests for Preserved Records and/or Information, with A4.5.3 showing to contain sub-activities. Table 11 provides definitions for these sub-activities including those to A4.5.3.1 and A4.5.3.4.

Fig. 12.
figure 12

Outputting records.

Full size image
Table 11. Definitions for A4.5 sub-activities.
Full size table

5 Conclusion

From the above illustration, it can be concluded that for the digital records management field, ISs and EISs are record-making systems. These systems handle data and information flows to support business operations and are motivated by efficiency and convenience. Depending on the specific designs and/or clients’ customization requirements, such primarily record-making systems may incorporate certain record-keeping functionalities, yet it can hardly be said that ISs and EISs are sufficient in satisfying the requirements of organizational records management. For records to be managed as records, the control of records must go beyond individual information systems and the understanding of the value of the records must be from the viewpoint of the entire enterprise, taking into considerations of both internal and external requirements. The design and the articulation of the three types of records systems as depicted in the COP model are driven by this holistic view. ISs and EISs are designed to streamline the conduct of business activities and are equipped with standard features of control and security. They may very well be sufficient for current operation and immediate usage but inherently, they are not ready for such complicated processes as records appraisal and disposition – the hallmarks of records management. Figure 13 depicts the high-level relationships between records systems and ISs/EISs.

Fig. 13.
figure 13

ISs/EISs and records systems.

Full size image

It is not unusual for a digital records management system to be implemented in enterprises, such as those certified by the DoD5015.2-STD or the MoReq 2010 Specification, to manage their unstructured digital records. However, transaction-oriented ISs and certainly EISs are normally left out of the control of organizational digital records management program, an issue that is not fully acknowledged by the ISs and EIS fields. ISs and EISs have been continuously advancing, and with the increasingly wide deployment of cloud infrastructure/services, they are becoming more powerful and ubiquitous. Still, these systems lack typically the functionalities that focus on systematic and consistent management of organizational information in the form of records, a stance that views the enterprise as a whole and as an integral part of society. As such, future research needs to focus on concrete cases and specific types of information systems for the purpose of establishing principles and guidelines for system designs and implementations that take into considerations of all relevant factors. It is a call by this chapter, therefore, to forge meaningful collaborations between the records profession and the ISs/EISs field so that the joint force can collectively ensure the trustworthiness of organizational digital records, maximize their value realization, and guarantee records accessibility for as not only long as the enterprise exists but also as society needs them.