McKemmish Acland Ward Reed Records Continuum

• 1998-99: SPIRIT Recordkeeping Metadata Research Project set out to comprehensively specify and codify recordkeeping metadata to be used within and beyond recordkeeping communities.

 

• Regards records as active participants in business processes and technologies; dynamic objects that need to be associated throughout their life span with rich layers of contextual metadata in order to maintain reliability and authenticity and meaning. Developed in context of the records continuum model (Upward) and archival description (Hurley), and recordkeeping systems (Bearman).

 

• Brings together records managers and archivists

 

• Major deliverable of this project: "Recordkeeping Metadata Standards for Managing and Accessing Information Resources in Networked Environments Over Time for Government, Commerce, Social and Cultural Purposes" (RKMS) This schema provides:
  • standardized set of structured recordkeeping metadata elements
  • framework for developing and specifying reckeeping metadata standards
  • framework for reading/mapping metadata sets that can promote interoperability (equivalences and correspondences) to be used as translation between metadata schemes
  • classification of reckeeping according to functionality or purpose
  • input to an Australian National Standard for Recordkeeping Metadata
  • input to research and development into broader metadata community

 

• Broader context: need to enable society, government, commerce and individuals to continually access information needed to conduct business, protect rights, securely trace the trail of responsibility and action

 

• Essential that recordkeeping metdata regimes be compatible with initiatives relating to metadata development frameworks underway in broader metadata community

 

• Project influences by Terry Cook - exploration of archival fonds and conceptual relationships betwn, creators, functions, records; Margaret Hedstrom - eletronic recordkeeping; Wendy Duff - literary warrant and UBC and Pittsburgh Project

 

• definition of metadata for this project: all standardized information that identifies, authenticates, describes, manages and makes accessible through time and space documents created in the context of social and business activity.

 

• metadata needs to be captured and persistently attached to a record; need to document the logical associations that derive from the role the records play in business processes and contexts.

 

• recordkeeping metadata defined in this project: tied to continuum thinking, integration of management processes for the whole of the records existence.

 

• records as evidence need: records/archives systems that carry forward the content, render the structure or documentary form and maintain contextual links to preserve meaning through time

 

• two definitions of description: 1. intellectual control over holdings where the description functions as cataloging records to help researchers find the records and give meaning and context 2. archivists participate in recordkeeping processes by documenting complex relationships between records and context. Records must be places in context (time and place) by making descriptive entities and documenting relationships.

 

• Australian series system was another influence, it emphasizes describing both the context and records entities and the complex dynamic relationships between them

 

• The conceptual framework of this project is informed by Peter Scott's (developed Australian series system) insights about archival description: multiple interrelationships between numerous creators, and numerous series of records wherever these records may reside.

 

• SPIRIT Recordkeeping Metadata schema: uses Dublin Core, Australian Government Locator  Service. Involved extensive analysis of the business, organizational and social contexts of recordkeeping and on identifying recordkeeping metadata related requirements throughout the continuum.

 

• Need metadata for these recordkeeping purposes:
  • unique identification of records
  • authentication of records
  • persistence of content, structure and context
  • administration or terms of access, use and disposal
  • tracking and documenting of recordkeeping history
  • discovery, retrieval and delivery to authorized users
  • interoperability

 

• Another key research area: conceptual mapping the elements of the emerging Recordkeeping Metadata Schema against others in use such as Dublin Core ISAD(G)  and ISAAR(CPF)

 

• Created three high level models (conceptual frameworks)
  • in the course of doing business, records are created and managed.
  • recordkeeping forms integral part of business activity
  • people do business in social and organizational contexts governed by external mandates (social mores, laws, regulations etc)
  • authentic records of social and organizational activity provide evidence of the activity and function as corporate and collective memory and value added information..

 

• RKMS is concerned with three classes of entities: Business entities, People/Agent entities, and Records entities and their relationships and mandates associated with them.
  • Business entities: business transactions, business activities, business functions and ambient functions which encompass acts, actions decisions, communications or business processes, social or organizational activities or occupations of which they are part, the functions the activities carry out; borader societal purposes they fill.
    • Business recordkeeping entity (sub-set of business entity class): recordkeeping business transactions, recordkeeping business activities, recordkeeping business functions, recordkeeping ambient functions. This class represents the social and organizational activities concerned with recording and managing and using records that form part of the larger business entity class.
  • Agent entities: social entities (organizational bodies, systems or individuals). May create, control, manage or use records; are made up of persons/actors (carry out transactions); organizational units/groups (responsible for the activity), organization or corporate bodies (mandated to carry out function) and social institutions (high level society purposes)
  • Records entities: record objects, record aggregations, the corporate archive, the collective archives
• all of these entities and their complex interrelationships require unique identifiers and standardized descriptive metadata

 

• Recordkeeping Metadata Schema: elements and qualifiers identify and describe the features of the business contexts in which records are created, managed and used.  they describe relevant mandates, provide for the functional classification of the entity, state language in which business is conducted and brief descriptive note. Also, description of business rules, work processes and procedures and system specifications. Enables management of recordkeeping functions, activities and transactions that are concerned with the creating, capturing, use and managing of the records, and, activities related to appraisal, control, preservation, retrieval, access, and use. Can track and document all recordkeeping processes. Can apply to records at any level of aggregation and business activities. (refer to figure 5a of this paper)

 

• RKMS is based on RDF (Resource Description Framework): Entity identifier - Element name - Value  = the entity identified by the entity identifier has a property identified in the schema by an element name. The property relates to an aspect of the entity. The specific value of the property in any particular instance is labelled value. e.g. Entity identifier (agent oo1) - Element name (title or date) - Value (Loan officer or 1998-01-07)
  • element qualifiers can be added to further specify the relationship of the element value to the recordkeeping entity..e.g. for "date" added as a qualifier is "operational period"
  • value qualifiers (identifying authorities that provide typologies/controlled vocabularies for values)..e.g. for a value that is a date, qualifier could be DACS
  • value components represent structure in a value, by splitting the value into labelled components
• RKMS envisages use of metadata elements, element qualifiers and value components from other metadata schemas, which extends its use.
• RKMS extends the traditions of many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships; between many series, between creators and other creators, between series and other series, and between series and creators to functions and the reverse. (bringing to the fore thick relatedness between all entities)
• RKMS defines many aspects of relationships as relation elements and qualifiers which include 1. name of relationship 2. definition of the relationship 3. date/range of relationship 4. description of the mandate that governs the relationship 5. business rules of relationship  instead of a relationship as "binary" as found in other schemes
• all components in ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) can be mapped into RKMS

 

Metamodelling and the RKMS 

• formal modelling of recordkeeping examples and the metadata itself using RDF (supports the creation, exchange and use of metadata; can be adopted as a way of structuring and understanding a system's metadata; allows incorporation of other metadata schemes) and ORM (object role modelling), a method for designing database models conceptually using concepts and language easily understood.

Conclusion 

• related research deliverables forthcoming - further modelling of the full metadata set as well as sub-sets, layers and different views of the set in RDF and ORM.
• RKMS as presented in paper is modelled conceptually, little implementation modelling has been attempted. Looking towards expression of RKMS in XML.