1. The Electronic Records
Committee and State
Standards
Charles Arp, State Archivist
Judy Walker, Assistant State Archivist
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

2. Introduction
• The Ohio Historical Society/State Archives
– Work with electronic records
• Problems with electronic records
• The Ohio Electronic Records Committee
– The Electronic Records Policy
• H.B. 488 - UETA
• Guidelines for Managing Electronic Mail
• Joint Electronic Records Repository Initiative
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

3. OHS and the State Archives
• Section 149.31 of the ORC
The Ohio Historical Society, in addition to its other
functions, shall function as the state archives
administration for the state and its political
subdivisions.
It shall be the function of the state archives to preserve
government archives, documents, and records of
historical value which may come into its possession
from public or private sources.
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

4. OHS and the State Archives
• Section 149.31 of the ORC
The archives administration shall evaluate, preserve,
arrange, service, repair or make other disposition…of
those public records of the state or its political
subdivisions which may come into its possession
under the provisions of this section.
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

5. Problems with E-Records
“For years, computer scientists said the ones and
zeros of digital data would stick around forever.
They were wrong.” Newsweek July 12, 1999
Tests by the National Media Lab found that magnetic tapes might
last only a decade. The fate of floppy disks, videotape, hard
drives, and CDROMs is just as bleak.
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

6. Problems with E-Records
Electronic Records are inherently unstable
• Hardware dependent
• Software dependent
• Inscribed on impermanent media
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

7. Problems with E-Records
• Great for access and manipulation
• Must be created reliably and maintained
authentically
• Must include content, context, and
structure
• Preservation is difficult and expensive
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

8. Problems with E-Records
Attributes that we take for granted are not
always present in e-records
Records Managers and Archivists must work
together
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

9. Problems with E-Records
• Reliability is the measure of a records authority and is
a function of the records creation
• Authenticity is proven reliability over time and is a
function of a record preservation
• System documentation
• Metadata
• Audit trails
• Security Measures
• Disaster Recovery Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

10. Problems with E-Records
The cost of accessing and recovering digital
information may far exceed the cost of
dealing with the year 2000 computer
problem
National Science Foundation
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

11. Problems with E-Records
The Gartner Group recommends:
• that any record stored longer than 10 years
should be stored in an "analog, human-
readable form" such as paper or microfilm.
– those formats are inexpensive
– the media are relatively stable
– they avoid problems with compatibility with newer
technologies.
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

12. E-Records Work
What has been done?
• 1996 first Electronic Records Archivist
• 1997 NHPRC grant
– Hedstrom report
• Digitization projects
• GILS
• Ohio ERC
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

13. Current E-Records Work
• MN Educating Archivists and Their Constituencies
• OCLC Digital Preservation Project Partner
• XML work with San Diego Supercomputer Center
– OBES email
• TIS Working Group
• Database Subcommittee
• JERRI
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

14. Ohio Electronic Records
Committee
• ERC made up of 30 - 35 members
– IT professionals
– records managers
– archivists
– attorneys
– policy experts
• Meet twice a year
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

15. Ohio Electronic Records
Committee
– Electronic Records Policy adopted by DAS
– Managing Email Guidelines
– Digital Imaging Guidelines
– Electronic Records Management Guidelines
– General Schedules - Administrative Electronic Records
– Trustworthy Information Systems Handbook
– Guidelines for responding to public records requests for
databases
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

16. Ohio Electronic Records
Committee
• Continue to meet to draft guidelines for specific issues
– Recommendations on DOD 5015.2 software
– Website Management guidelines
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

17. ER Policy
• 4.1 Electronic information is a record if it satisfies the
criteria defined by Ohio law.
– Records are compilations of data that document the
organization, functions, policies, procedures, operations, or
other activities of the office ORC 149.011
– E-records may exist in non-traditional structures
– E-records are subject to public records access requirements
– E-records are subject to audit and legal proceedings
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

18. ER Policy
• 4.2 Electronic records should be managed effectively
as part of a comprehensive records management
program
– “the head of each state agency, office, institution, board, or
commission shall…establish, maintain, and direct an active
continuing program for the effective management of the
records of the state agency…” ORC 149.34(A)
– Employing records management procedures will facilitate
the most cost effective use of the state’s computer resources
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

19. ER Policy
• 4.3 State agencies, boards and commissions should
keep and manage their electronic records in
compliance with standards, best practices and
guidelines
– non-proprietary formats
– ANSI standards, ITP best practices, ERC guidelines
– ERC subcommittees
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

20. ER Policy
• 4.4 Work processes and tools should support the
creation and management of electronic records
– provision for adequate maintenance, disposal, and
preservation of e-records should be built into work
processes and tools
– capture of descriptive metadata at the time of creation
– records management should be designed into new systems
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

21. ER Policy
• 4.5 Electronic records should be create and
maintained in reliable and secure systems
– identify systems that create and maintain records
– reliability and authenticity
– context, content and structure
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

22. ER Policy
• 4.6 In most cases, electronic records should be
maintained in electronic fom, because preserving the
context and structure of and facilitating access to
those records are best accomplished in the electronic
environment
– system dependent records
– system independent records
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

23. ER Policy
• 4.7 Maintaining and providing access to electronic
records over time is a shared responsibility
– records managers, IT managers, State Records
Administrator and the State Archives must work together
to manage, preserve and provide access to electronic records
– transferring all historical significant e-records to State
Archives is not feasible
• SA will provide guidance
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

24. Uniform Electronic Transactions Act
In 2000 the CIO and DAS
– H.B. 488 passed - Section 1306 of the ORC
– Digital signatures and Electronic Records Act or
UETA
– Legal foundation for the use of digital signatures
• Administrative rules for use of digital signatures
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

25. Uniform Electronic Transactions Act
Gives DAS “in consultation with the State Archivist” the
ability to create administrative rules that:
– Document the migration of data (1306.20)
– Provide minimum requirements for the creation,
maintenance, and security of electronic records... to ensure
adequate preservation, disposition, integrity, security,
confidentiality, and auditability of electronic records
(1306.21)
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

26. Managing E-mail
“Almost every workplace lawsuit today,especially a
sexual harassment case, has an E-mail
component”
Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute,
which develops E-mail and Internet policies for
employers. US News and World Report
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

27. Managing E-mail
• Some consider email to be the most legally risky form
of business communication
– users assume, incorrectly, that their messages are private
and not subject to public access requirements
– email encourages “chatty” modes of expression
– used like voice-mail -- once it has been read, it is
presumed to have no more value
– this email usage culture is entrenched and difficult to
change
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

28. Managing E-mail
• Email use in the U.S. will grow from the current 3.2
billion messages daily to over 9 billion by 2003
• Critical Networks reports that 60% of business
critical information is stored within messaging systems
• Many organizations estimate that up to 70% of the
email data they currently receive is not necessary and
could be eliminated prior to archiving
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

29. Managing E-mail
• Email is a fast growing technology
– 50 millions users worldwide
• Email has become so prevalent that it is now often
used as the de facto tool for enterprise-wide
communication and collaboration
• However….
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

30. Managing E-mail
• Email systems were never intended to support the
need to manage and archive an organization’s huge
volume of business data.
• Many email systems have become long-term stores of
business critical information
– up to one-third of the information used by employees of
large companies resides within the email system
• An email system is a communication system, not a
recordkeeping system
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

31. Managing E-mail
• Need solutions
– policy
– tools
• Solutions need to take into account
– IT issues (performance and storage volume)
– Records Management compliance
– Business practices of the office
– And they must benefit the organization
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

32. Managing E-mail
• Email - is it a public record?
– ORC 149.43
• fixed medium
• created, received by, jurisdiction of the office
• documents the functions of the office
• Email must be filed and maintained per retention
requirements
– transient documents
– correspondence
– permanent record (executive level correspondence)
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

33. Managing E-mail
• The strategy that is used within an organization
should be an analysis of several factors including:
– how email is used and user sophistication
– IT environment
– records management environment
– litigation concern
– fiscal resources
– support from upper management
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

34. Managing E-mail
• Draft and Implement an email policy
– circumstances under which email messages are
records
– how should email be used (ex. administrative use
only)
– retention requirements and implementation
– how to file and retain
– backup and purge cycles
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

35. Managing E-mail
• Email backup and purge
– assure that email backups are deleted when all
retention requirements expire
• legal liability to maintain
– assure that users understand purge cycles and know
what to do if they need to retain a message beyond
the purge time period
• save to hard drive or central file repository
• print
• User Training is vital
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

36. Managing E-mail -- options
1. Don’t use email
2. No organizational policy/guidelines
– let email users manage email however they want to
3. Policy stating email will be used only for
transient communications
4. Print what is important and purge everything
else
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

37. Email -- options
5. Purge messages that aren’t needed; create simple
file structures for some messages; print messages
that are important
– Where should messages be stored?
• Hard drive, email system, central filing repository
6. Develop an internal email/RM system
– pop-up boxes, filing options, plan for maintaining
messages in the system, security
7. RMA
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

38. RMA
• Records Management Application
– products based on the DoD5015.2 standard
– software that incorporates recordkeeping into the desktop
• records retention schedules
• security
• versions
• disposition of records
• web pages
• email
– Ohio Department of Insurance
– MI NHPRC project
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

39. RMA
• Example
– TrueArc
– www.truearc.com
– white papers about email
– demonstration of email management
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

40. Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

41. Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

42. Email -- options
• None of these strategies is without problems
– decide what will work best in the organization’s
environment
• Make sure you do something to deal with email
messages that meet the ORC definition of a “record”
• Ohio Electronic Records Committee Guidelines
for Managing Electronic Mail
– http://www.ohiojunction.net/erc
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

43. Preserving Electronic Records
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

44. Preserving Electronic Records
• About 3-5% of all records have enduring historical
value and need to be preserved in the archives
• Preserving electronic records is more difficult than
preserving paper and microfilm
– hardware and software dependence/obsolescence
– proprietary formats
– no standards
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

45. Preserving Electronic Records
• Eye-readable formats
• Technology museum
• Migration
– the period transfer of digital material from one
hardware/software configuration to another
• Emulation
– programs that mimic the behavior of other (older)
computers
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

46. Preserving Electronic Records
Migration
• Data Loss and Corruption
– In one case involving FDA-mandated records of drug
testing, blood pressure numbers were randomly off by up
to 8 digits following data transfer from UNIX platforms
to Windows NT operating systems Business Week April 20, 1998
• It has to be done every 5 - 7 years
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

47. Preserving Electronic Records
• The migration must be documented
– ORC 13206.20 If a state agency... alters the format of the records, the state agency
shall create a certificate of authenticity for each set of records that is altered -
DAS in consultation with the state archivist, shall adopt rules IAW section 111.15
of the Revised Code that establish the methods for creating certificates of
authenticity
• Cost
– In some instances migration can cost up to 2.5 times the original cost
of creating the information in the first place
– IT managers routinely budget 20% to 30% of the cost of an
application for upgrades
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

48. Preserving Electronic Records
Emulation
• Emulator will work for all records using that
operating system
– Emulator will be migrated, not the records
• Three commercial emulators available now:
– SoftWindows and VirtualPC both run Windows on
Macintosh operating system
– Wine runs Windows in Unix
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

49. Preserving Electronic Records
• Largely theoretical - no practical model
– Archivists have not used it for preservation yet
– Has been used for other applications - browsers and games
– University of Michigan and Leeds University are working
on a model for archival preservation
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

50. JERRI
Joint Electronic
Records Repository Partners
Initiative – OHS/State Archives
– State Library of Ohio
Goal: to create an archival – DAS
repository for electronic – Ohio SuperComputer
Center
records and resources for the
state and its political
subdivisions in Ohio
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

51. Conclusion
• State Archives will continue to work on these issues
through
– ERC
– JERRI
– other ongoing initiatives
• There are no easy solutions
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001

52. Questions???
Thank you
Managing Electronic Records -- 1 Nov 2001