Barbara Reed

Towards a Framework for Standardising Recordkeeping Metadata: The Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema

In July 1999 the Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema (RKMS) was approved by its academic and industry steering group. The RKMS has inherited elements from and built on many other metadata standards associated with information management. It has also contributed to the development of subsequent sector specific recordkeeping metadata sets. The importance of the RKMS as a framework for mapping or reading other sets, and also as a standardised set of metadata available for adoption in diverse implementation environments, is now emerging. This paper explores the context of the Australian SPIRT1 Recordkeeping Metadata Project, and the conceptual models developed by the SPIRT Research Team as a framework for standardising and defining recordkeeping metadata. It then introduces the elements of the SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Schema and explores its functionality, before discussing implementation issues and future directions

Recordkeeping informatics: re‐figuring a discipline in crisis with a single minded approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the widespread crisis facing the archives and records management professions, and to propose recordkeeping informatics, a single minded disciplinary approach, as a way forward.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reflects an Australasian perspective on the nature of the crisis besetting archives and records management professions as people struggle to adjust to digitally converged information ecologies. It suggests recordkeeping informatics as an approach for refiguring thinking, systems, processes and practices as people confront ever increasing information convergence, chaos and complexity. It discusses continuum thinking and recordkeeping metadata as two key building blocks of the approach, along with three facets of recordkeeping analysis involving the understanding of organisational culture, business process analysis and archival access.Findings – Discussion of information and communication technologies as a “wild frontier” highlights the breaki...

Service‐oriented architectures and recordkeeping

Purpose – This paper aims to outline the concepts of web services architectures and to begin an exploration of the uses that recordkeeping professionals may define for such a potentially radical change to the way recordkeeping functionality is delivered.Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines narrative with argument and analysis of the issues surrounding records management.Findings – The paper shows that the digital world has introduced new challenges to recordkeeping professionals. The initial response has been to transfer traditional recordkeeping systems to automated solutions. Increasingly these are being challenged for fit in dynamic organizational environments. Web services as a building block for next generation software applications are growing in acceptance both in governments and innovative product offerings.Originality/value – Recordkeeping professionals should ensure that they are very firmly grounded in best professional practice in recordkeeping to grasp such a technology opportunity.

Interoperable data: Sustainable frameworks for creating and managing recordkeeping metadata

Purpose – The ability to establish sustainable frameworks for creating and managing recordkeeping metadata is one of the key challenges for recordkeeping in digital and networked environments. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project, an Australian research project which sought to investigate how the movement of recordkeeping metadata between systems could be automated. Design/methodology/approach – The project adopted an action research approach to the research, utilising a systems development method within this framework to iteratively build a prototype demonstrating how recordkeeping metadata could be created once in particular application environments, then used many times to meet a range of business and recordkeeping purposes. Findings – Recordkeeping metadata interoperability, like recordkeeping metadata itself, is complex and dynamic. The research identifies the need for standards and tools to reflect and have the capacity to handle this complexity. Originality/value – This paper provides insights into the complex nature of recordkeeping metadata and the kind of infrastructure that needs to be developed to support its automated capture and re‐use in integrated systems environments.

Winds of change: A recordkeeping informatics approach to information management needs in data-driven research environments

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the role a recordkeeping informatics approach can play in understanding and addressing these challenges. In 2011, the Wind Tunnel located at the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DTSO)’s Fisherman’s Bend site in Melbourne and managed by the Flight Systems Branch (FSB) celebrated its 70th anniversary. While cause for celebration, it also raised concerns for DSTO aeronautical scientists and engineers as to capacities to effectively and efficiently manage the data legacy of such an important research facility for the next 70 years, given increased technological, organisational and collaboration complexities. Design/methodology/approach – This paper will detail how, through a collaborative action research project, the twin pillars of continuum thinking and recordkeeping metadata and the three facets of organisational culture, business process analysis and archival access, were used to examine the data, information, records and knowledge management challenges in this...