1. Rallying to the Standards
Frank Rankin
Information Governance Manager
NHS Education for Scotland

2. standard “a published document which sets out specifications and procedures designed to ensure that a material, product, method or service is fit for its purpose and consistently performs the way it was intended to”
(Standards Australia)

3. No recordkeeping professional can be familiar with all relevant standards…

4. BSI alone has 125 information management standards and guidance documents…
BS ISO 11620:2008 Information and documentation. Library performance indicators
BS ISO 2709:2008 Information and documentation. Format for information exchange
08/ DC BS ISO Information and documentation. Registry services for libraries and related organizations
BS ISO 639-5:2008 Codes for the representation of names of languages. Alpha-3 code for language families and groups
DD :2008 Structured vocabularies for information retrieval. Guide. Exchange formats and protocols for interoperability
BS ISO 4217:2008 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds
PD ISO/TR 26122:2008 Information and documentation. Work process analysis for records
08/ DC BS ISO Language resource management. Feature structures. Part 2. Feature system declaration
BIP 0089:2008 A manager's guide to the long-term preservation of electronic documents
BS EN 14463:2007 Health informatics. A syntax to represent the content of medical classification systems. ClaML
BS ISO :2007 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions. Country subdivision code
08/ DC BS ISO Information and documentation. Boxes, file covers and other enclosures, made from cellulosic materials, for storage or paper and parchment documents
08/ DC BS ISO Information and documentation. Records management processes for Metadata. Part 2. Conceptual and implementation issues
08/ DC BS ISO Information and documentation. International standard music number (ISMN)
BS :2007 Structured vocabularies for information retrieval. Guide. Vocabularies other than thesauri Industry standards

5. Standards include… Recordkeeping Professional standards
Sectoral standards
Competency standards
Industry standards – that impact on recordkeeping
Industry standards – to which good recordkeeping can contribute
ISO15489, ICA-ISDF, International Standard for Describing Functions , ISO :2006
Information and documentation -- Records management processes -- Metadata for records -- Part 1: Principles
ISO27001
Quality Standards

6. We are not alone…
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. The consortium produces more Web services standards than any other organization along with standards for security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. ( )
The eGov committee of OASIS has among its projects developments on e records management standards and common libraries of XML business document types and, open standards for XML application, and harmonization of taxonomies. (Borras)
A number of communities have identified the need to share authoritative models identifying the range and nature of metadata[1] elements attached to digital objects, and the recordkeeping community is doing likewise in the emergent Recordkeeping Metadata Standard (ISO 23081) (Gilliland et al).
[1] The use of Metadata does not presuppose the use of EDRMS. XML supports most EDRMS solutions and this or a similar mark-up language provides a self-documenting method of storing and exchanging electronic records (McKenna, 2007). XML also allows us to impose structure – or diplomatic­ - on apparently unstructured documents.

7. Standards can…
Support efficiency, consistency, integrity, interoperability etc.
Allow us to co-operate and benchmark as professionals
Provides us with the framework to argue for resources/support
Help us speak the language of colleagues in other disciplines
Give us credibility in speaking to other communities
Be overused as a “crutch”
Bamboozle us
Fence us in
Give us reach/influence beyond our immediate sphere
Allow suppliers to hoodwink us
Help us to influence suppliers

8. Standards allow us to influence suppliers

9. Rallying to the standard doesn’t in itself guarantee success…

10. “… we have yet to gain an adequate understanding of how the modern office functions, how people collaborate, how decisions are made and how information is generated, shared used and maintained. Recordkeeping standards and practices will be difficult to implement as long as there is an absence of standards and practices for managing the way work is undertaken in the modern office”
McDonald, J (2005) “The wild frontier ten years on” in McLeod, J and Hare, C (eds)
Managing Electronic Records, Facet Publishing, London.

11. But surely, Australia…

12. ANAO audit of govt records, 2006
“[Australian National] Archives should… set minimum recordkeeping standards and requirements and develop further practical guidance. Archives should also coordinate, and periodically publish, details of the legislation, policies, standards, and guidance that impact on entities recordkeeping responsibilities…”
Australian National Audit Office (2006) Recordkeeping including the Management of Electronic Records, Canberra.

14. We need to map the standards universe
Map elements between standards – a new “Dublin Core”
Map recordkeeping contributions to other standards
Make explicit the core standards that underpin sector and other specific standards
Keep challenging and revisiting the theoretical underpinning of standards
Draw out basic messages for “how-to” guidance and for lobbying suppliers and industry leaders
Look to the horizon - identify opportunities in the wider standards communities
Easy?

15. Thank you!
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