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

2 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

3 Recordkeeping Metadata Standards Records Continuum Theoretical Framework SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project Outcomes Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Schema Conceptual Models of Recordkeeping Standards Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies New South Wales Recordkeeping Metadata Standard State Records of South Australia Recordkeeping Metadata Standard 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

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

6 Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project Chief Investigator Professor Sue McKemmish, 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

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

8 System Development Research Method 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 Step 1 Concept Building Step 2 System Building Step 3 System Evaluation Burstein 2002 (after Nunamaker, Chen & Purdin )

9 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

16 CRKM Metadata Broker Repository Machine processable representations of metadata schemas, elements and translations Source metadata Target metadata Translation services Crosswalk compiler Metadata registry

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

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

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

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

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

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

23 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