Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project Automating Recordkeeping Metadata Capture

Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project Automating Recordkeeping Metadata Capture and Re-use: Translations from Theory to Practice Joanne Evans, Karuna Bhoday, Sue Mc. Kemmish and Sergio Viademonte Association of Canadian Archivists Conference 2005 June 8 -11, Saskatoon, Canada www. monash. edu. au

Recasting Paper Minds • ‘recast our ‘paper minds’ to deal with electronic realities’ • ‘if improved ways and means are applied to the wrong ends, to the old archival paradigms. . . then these ways and means will not solve the problems that we face. ’ Terry Cook, 'Electronic Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Post-Custodial and Post-Modern Era', Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 22, no. 2, November 1994, pp. 300 -329. www. monash. edu. au 2

Recordkeeping Metadata Standards Records Continuum Theoretical Framework Recordkeeping metadata: ‘structured or semi-structured information that enables the creation, management and use of records in and through time, and within and across the domains in which they are created and used. Recordkeeping metadata is used to identify, authenticate, and contextualise records, as well as the people, processes and systems involved in their creation, management and use. ’ David Wallace, ‘Archiving Metadata Forum: Report from the Recordkeeping Metadata Working Meeting, June 2000’, Archival Science, vol. 1, no. 3, 2001, pp. 253 -269. Standards SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project Outcomes Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema Conceptual Models of Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies New South Wales Recordkeeping Metadata Standard State Records of South Australia Recordkeeping www. monash. edu. au Metadata Standard 3

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Transforming Paper Practices • Recast our paper minds but yet to transform our paper practices and systems? Ø Need for research to investigate how theoretical understandings are translated into practice Ø Conceptualise new methods, tools and infrastructure to support recordkeeping in electronic environments www. monash. edu. au 5

Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project Chief Investigator • Professor Sue Mc. Kemmish, Monash University Partner Investigators • • Professor Anne Gilliland-Swetland, UCLA Mr Adrian Cunningham, National Archives of Australia Industry Partners and Collaborators • • • National Archives of Australia State Records Authority of New South Wales Australia Society of Archivists, Committee on Descriptive Standards www. monash. edu. au 6

Create once use many times Practical Perspectives Research Perspectives Overcome barriers to implementation of recordkeeping and resource discovery standards Explore role of recordkeeping metadata in support of business and recordkeeping processes How to enable metadata interoperability? Demonstrate the business case for recordkeeping metadata Impact on recordkeeping and archiving functions Requirements for meta-tools for recordkeeping metadata management www. monash. edu. au 7

System Development Research Method Step 1 Concept Building Step 2 System Building Step 3 System Evaluation • Demonstrate the concept of automated metadata capture and re-use through iterative prototyping: – Small scale startup leading to more sophisticated development – Simulated real world scenario - generalise to other environments – Test aspects of the concept and use to champion the concept Burstein 2002 (after Nunamaker, Chen & Purdin 1990 -91) www. monash. edu. au 8

First iteration • Scope: – Establish a scenario of recordkeeping metadata capture and re-use, and – Instantiate this scenario to show metadata re-use using existing technologies and instruments for metadata translation • Simple solution: – Defined set of metadata re-use scenarios – Translations as crosswalks instantiated as XSLT files • Expectations: – Identify barriers to metadata interoperability – Test existing instruments and technologies – Make the case for meta-tools www. monash. edu. au 9

e. Government Policy Development – Recordkeeping – Publishing – Archiving Scenario Desktop Applications Records Management Application Intranet Public Website Archival Management Application Metadata Standards – Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema, RKMSCA, AGLS, CRS, Digital Object Preservation Archival Gateways Learning Object Portal Other Portals www. monash. edu. au 10

Metadata Re-use Scenarios Records Management Application Email and Desktop Applications Web Management Systems Metadata Broker Business Information Systems Archival Management Application Archival Gateway Learning Object Portal Other Portals www. monash. edu. au 11

Metadata Re-use Scenario - Publishing • Re-use of recordkeeping metadata as resource discovery metadata RKMS Metadata XSLT RKMS – Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies AGLS Metadata AGLS – Australian Government Locator Service www. monash. edu. au 12

Metadata Re-use Scenario - Archiving • Re-use of metadata from business recordkeeping system as archival description RKMS Metadata XSLT & Java Objects RKMS – Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies CRS Item Metadata CRS Series Metadata CRS – Commonwealth Record Series www. monash. edu. au 13

Findings and Challenges 1. Recordkeeping metadata re-use is possible … but feasibility and sustainability are key issues Ø Further conceptualisation of the functionality of the metadata broker using a prototyping approach www. monash. edu. au 14

CRKM Metadata Broker Metadata registry Authoritative information on metadata schemas, elements and translations in human readable and machine processable forms Translation services Target metadata Source metadata Repository Machine processable representations of metadata schemas, elements and translations Temporary store of metadata instances undergoing translation www. monash. edu. au 15

Findings and Challenges 2. Systems integration is constrained by interoperability limitations of current business, records and archival management applications Ø Conceive of metadata broker as a service within an integrated systems environment based on a service oriented architecture (SOA) www. monash. edu. au 17

Findings and Challenges 3. Existing metadata standards are not as interoperable as developers assumed RKMS Date • Created • Transacted • Registered RKMS Identifier AGLS Date • Created • Modified • Valid • Issued AGLS Identifier www. monash. edu. au 18

Findings and Challenges 4. Recordkeeping metadata re-use is dynamic and complex Ø Demonstrate metadata interoperability taking into account element semantics, their value domains and encoding schemes Ø Investigate recordkeeping metadata standards based on dynamic rather than static metadata models with multiple entities Ø Semi-automation – where full automation is not possible, how can existing metadata be repurposed to facilitate metadata attribution? www. monash. edu. au 19

Findings and Challenges 5. Recordkeeping metadata re-use constrained by workflow configured around retrospective metadata creation Ø Re-engineering and re-positioning of recordkeeping and archiving processes in line with a continuum view www. monash. edu. au 20

Metadata Re-use Scenarios Records Management Application Email and Desktop Applications Web Management Systems Metadata Broker Business Information Systems Archival Management Application Archival Gateway Learning Object Portal Other Portals www. monash. edu. au 21

Findings and Challenges 6. Role of action research in developing theory and practice Ø Greater and growing understandings of the complexity of recordkeeping metadata re-use Ø Feedback to metadata standards developers of requirements: - to support implementation to support interoperability www. monash. edu. au 22

Conclusion • Strive for tandem development of theory and practice • Role of action research in deepening our theoretical understandings and developing practice to meet the challenges of new technologies www. monash. edu. au 23