Managing Records in 21st Century

Stories from the World Bank Group

Challenges & Solutions

• Documents includes a wider range of content types - documents & reports, publications, communications, people & communities, knowledge, services,

• Documents may or may not be a Bank record - records derive from & are defined in association with Bank business processes

• Wide range of systems used to create & manage documents, including traditional ‘document management’ systems and new content management systems, user-created databases, web sites

• Records management functions are not programmed into all of the systems that manage documents

• Records management systems do not & cannot contain all records - needs to be some decentralized records management functionality in document management systems

• Integration issues at every point

Content Types - Challenge

• Bank records as defined in a general records schedule cover all of the Bank’s business processes

• Bank records may take the form of: – ‘documents’ (program files, project files, lending records,

investment records, etc.), – publications (monographs, series & serials)– data (data sets, data models, statistical reports, ...)– communications (news, press releases, speeches, ...)– knowledge (discussions, collaborative spaces, Q&A sources,

FAQs, training materials, stories, lessons learned, best practices)

– services (referral services, procurement, translation, ...)– people & communities (experts, staff profiles, organizational

affiliations & partnerships, ....)– collections (databases, web sites, container files,....)

Content Types - Challenge

• These types of records are not created in a single document management system

• They are created in xx’s of systems• Each system has its own business processes & its own business-

related metadata• Challenge is to:

– identify & capture all of the Bank’s records in each of these systems

– ensure that the coverage of the records retention & dispositioning schedules is complete

– ensure that there is a plan in place to preserve the records either in source system or in the centralized archiving system

• Current task highlights gaps in this area - working on designing a system to implement the Bank’s Information Disclosure policy - challenge is to ‘find’ the records that the Board has decided can be disclosed

Content Type Solution

• Bank Standard definitions of content types - superclass of types that maps all individual document types used in source systems

• Bank Standard Metadata attributes - function as a superclass of attributes to which source system metadata is mapped

• Four types of metadata attributes - identification/distinction, search/browse, use management, compliant document management

• Metadata Warehouse - thin layer of metadata extracted from source systems

• Serves as primary access point for:– Whole Bank search– information disclosure to world– triggering actions across source systems

Document Management Challenge

• Bank’s document management systems include:– IRIS (mix new & traditional document management)– IRAMS (traditional archive system)– Lotus Notes email & collaborative workspaces (new)– Websphere/Vignette content management system (new)– Access databases & Notes project libraries (new)– SAP Financial System, Business Warehouse data cubes (new)– Statistical databases (new)– Loan accounting system (new)– Legal department’s databases (new)– Network directories & personal workstation directories (new)– Procurement ordering systems (new)– Translation systems (new)

Document Management - Challenge

• Each system has its own:– philosphy regarding content management– types of metadata different metadata management tools– content management capabilities– access methods

• Need to be able to define fundamental document management capabilities to ensure that they are available in all source systems

• Current standards pertain primarily to traditional print content - final versions

• Challenge is to apply document management principles to all of these systems

Document Management Solution

• Integrate the functionality with as little impact as possible to staff - simply unrealistic to expect that all 11,xxx Bank staff will become document & records managers

• Ensure that Bank Standard Metadata for identification/distinction, use management, & compliant document management are implemented in some form in all source systems

• Harmonize variations in document management approaches at the Metadata Warehouse level - harmonization of values across systems, across time

• Implement centralized good Data Governance practices - making core metadata values available for download & use by any source system

• Disaggregate metadata & content - data structures used to describe file rooms represented as metadata

• Complex file level relationships should be maintained as reference structures

Records Management Challenge

• Everyone who creates content that is considered a Bank record now needs to be aware of that fact - regardless of whether its a web page, a print memo or a formal email communication to a Bank client country

• Systems ‘expire’ content periodically - content is lost if the retention policies are not engineered into the functions when the systems are implemented

• So much content is created electronically - system managers will tend to ‘flush’ content automatically just to manage storage space

• Only way to prevent loss of institutional records is to make an attempt to define records upon creation, rather than at the time of ‘disposal’

• Series need to be defined in a way that facilitates application when a document is created - by the time the retention timeline is triggered, the content could be long gone!!

• Need to re-examine our approach to defining record series

Records Management Solution

• Programmatic approach to defining records at the time they are created in their source systems

– business rules engine created outside of the source systems but interacting with source systems

– business rules triggered by -- content type, originating unit, business process

• Highlights need for an organization wide business function/process/task taxonomy

• Err on the side of capturing more rather than less• Appraisal takes a different form when records are identified

upon creation rather than upon appraisal

Records Storage Challenge

• Peter Van Garderen’s paper describes the challenges & our proposed solution

• Moving towards a centrally audited and managed solution, if not a single source capture and storage solution

• Source systems will take on responsibility for performing records management & preservation functions

• Records management systems have to have the functional capabilities of other source systems because we expect to continue to access the metadata & the content

• No longer just storage systems - remain access systems

Bank’s Proposed Solution

• Metadata as ‘middleware’ for managing the points of integration

• Metadata warehouse as– high level metadata management tool– Foundation for deep search– Supports content management functions such as

retentioning & dispositioning, disclosure decision recording & discovery, harmonization of data values

• Design sources for Bank standard metadata– GILS, Dublin Core, ISAD(G), PROV, TEI, EAD,

Purpose of Bank Metadata

Agent Country Authorized By

Record Identifier

Title Region Rights Management

Disposal Status

Date Abstract/ Summary

Access Rights

Disposal Review Date

Format Keywords Location Management History

Publisher Subject- Sector- Theme- Topic

Use History Retention Schedule/Mandate

Language Business Function

Disclosure Status

Preservation History

Version Aggregation Level

Series Name & Series #

Relation

Content Type

Identification/ Distinction

Search & Browse

Use ManagementCompliant Document Management

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Big Picture

Warehouse of Core Metadata

JOLIS IRIS SAPLotus Notes

WebContentMgmt.System

PeopleSoft

System

Office of

PublisherCatalog

ISG ServiceCatalog

GeneralServices

Dept.Catalog

Automated Concept Extraction, Categorization & Summarization Tools

WBG ThesaurusPortal Profiling Tools & APIs Search Engine

IRAMS