PRO EROS Industry Change Programme - Strategy

by Ian Macfarlane and Alun David

1.1	Background to Electronic Records in Office Systems (EROS)
As departments use electronic documents as the primary record of their business, management of those records, transfer to the Public Record Office (PRO), their long term storage and subsequent release for public reading becomes important.  The PRO does not intend to become a museum of document authoring packages used in government, nor can it support the range of hardware platforms needed to run them.  The basic requirement of the EROS Programme is to find ways acceptable to both departments and the PRO of transferring electronic records into the PRO, storing them and, eventually, making them available to the public electronically rather than on paper.
1.2	Introduction to the Industry Change Programme (ICP)
ICP is that part of the EROS Programme focusing on how the supply side, that is software and hardware suppliers, can help meet the Programme reqwuirement.  To focus the work required with the supply side, this strategy for bringing about industry change has been agreed by the EROS Programme Board.
This strategy is a ‘live document’ describing the situation as it is viewed now by the Board.  The strategy currently includes four complementary projects identified as ways to proceed with various supplier and other bodies.  More may be identified and some of those already present may prove nugatory.

2.	Statement of Requirements
Standards can be used in a number of ways to transfer, preserve and make electronic records available to the public:
•	take advantage of existing de jure or de facto industry standards;
•	develop and standardise new approaches that can access existing records but convert them into archival format;
•	encourage the suppliers of authoring packages to adopt standards that will facilitate archiving.
The PRO is looking at possible solutions to this problem all of which have factors to recommend them.  The ICP looks to target the supply side with a view to monitoring the development of standards to be included in authoring packages for the transfer and archiving of electronic documents.  In turn the PRO will work with departments to adopt those standards.  The advantage of this approach is that the PRO will maintain its position as a centre of national knowledge - an electronic records repository - and departments will be able to fulfil their obligations under public record legislation with minimal effort, cost or disturbance to their normal working practices.
3.	Identification of Issues
3.1	Technical feasibility
At present there is no complete, tested and robust way of addressing the transfer, preservation and presentation of electronic records.  In order to develop procedures for the archiving of electronic documents one objective must be the assurance of technical feasibility, ie will it work and will it continue to work?
3.2	Long term continuity
IT can be characterised by the rapid speed of change which, if anything, is accelerating.  Any technical solution to an archival problem must recognise the long term requirements stretching into scores if not hundreds of years. Proposed solutions to the problem of archiving electronic documents must attempt to demonstrate future proofing. One way of doing that is to base the solution on industry accepted standards owned and maintained by the international standards community.
3.3	Industry acceptance
The co-operation of the supply side is critical to the success of an approach dependant on the development, maintenance and adoption of standards.
3.4	Departmental take-up
As well as being supported by the major players on the supply side, the customer - in the case of the PRO, the departments of state, their associated executive agencies and other governmental bodies - must demonstrate their commitment to whatever approach to electronic records archiving is selected.
3.5	Information Completeness
Records based on documents have three aspects
•	Content
•	Structure
•	Context.
This remains true whether the medium on which the documents are held is paper or electronic.  Any approach for the archiving of electronic documents must address all three aspects or there will be information loss.
3.6	Cost & Overheads
To be successful, the archival route for electronic documents must not involve organisations supplying the records with excessive cost or extra work.  Archiving should form part of the normal and accepted back-up and maintenance procedures.
4.	Proposed ICP Projects
4.1	The Proposed BSI Standard for ‘Bundles of Records’
4.1.1	Objective and Description
“To create an overall standard for ‘bundles of records’ packaged with just enough software to find and represent those documents in their original form.”
This approach sets out to transfer electronic records bundled together with a viewer using a technology offering low obsolescence.  Further, this way of transferring records is likely to aid eventual presentation of those records.
4.1.2	Risks
1.	The standards process can become lengthy and may not deliver in a timely manner.
2.	This approach to the problem of archiving electronic records may prove to be too difficult to achieve in practical terms.
3.	The major suppliers of office systems may not adopt the standard.
4.	Control of the standard may move away from PRO and, therefore, the standard may not deliver the anticipated benefits.
5.	The standard may prove to be inflexible and not address all aspects of the problem.
6.	If such a standard were to remain UK based, there would be a possibility of departments and the PRO becoming ‘locked in’ to a limited group of suppliers.
4.1.3	Impacts
1.	If successfully developed and accepted by suppliers it will prove a ‘pain free’ way for departments to transfer their electronic records to the PRO.
2.	Any costs incurred by the transfer of electronic records would, effectively, be passed to the software supplier.
3.	This is, so far, the only proposal in the ICP that is targeted directly at archiving electronic records, its objectives are congruent with those of the EROS Programme..
4.2	Distributed Information Management Pre-Projects Study (DIMP)
4.2.1	Objective and Description
The DIMP Study has set out to devise methods for the management of change and evolution in distributed systems; it has focused on business process driven innovative architectures for systems and objects.  
DIMP is a proposed storage and transfer standard for objects (information and software combined) held in distributed environments to be developed by a group of supply side companies, the DTI and academia.
4.2.2	Risks
1.	The goal of this activity is not identical to that of the PRO EROS programme the ultimate deliverable has wider scope and may not satisfy the EROS requirement.
2.	The project may fail to deliver.
3.	Any deliverable from this work may have insufficient take-up in the office system areas of IT, this will render it less than useful for the PRO.
4.	The DIMP delivery schedule does not match the PRO requirement.
5.	The standard is implemented but may either not be maintained or allowed to change direction in ways not useful to the PRO.
4.2.3	Impacts
1.	This project looks, at present, as if it might address many intellectual issues relevant to the archiving of electronic records.  If solutions to many of the problems could be found by a neutral project the PRO would be saved much effort and resource plus the wider community might find the conclusions easier to adopt.
2.	The successful implementation of the DIMP standard targeted at the relevant IT areas would mean that with little effort on the part of the PRO mechanisms would begin to be put in place that would address the transfer of records from departments to the PRO, equally it might go quite some way to addressing the long term storage and subsequent presentation issues.
4.3	Direct Linkages eg ODMA
4.3.1	Objective and Description
There are a number of standards emerging from the supply side to facilitate the use of documents in disparate environments.  The Open Document Management API (ODMA) is one such.  It is designed so that it is possible to use one document management application to access a document from another such application elsewhere in an enterprise.  The Document Management Alliance (DMA) is looking at standards to permit different document management applications to inter-operate.  Any of these standards initiatives may prove to be valuable to the transfer and storage of electronic records and therefore, they should be monitored.
4.3.2	Risks
1.	As the objective of these linkages is to gain commercial advantage for their developers rather then work for the common good helping build electronic records repositories, they may not deliver anything useful to the PRO.  And even if they do it may not be timely.
2.	These standards are being developed by the large document management suppliers and software vendors, they may not be taken up by some of the smaller suppliers selling into government.
3.	The standards may prove to be not useful for archiving electronic records.
4.	The standard may not be delivered leaving the PRO exposed.
5.	Even being commercially driven, these standards may take a long time to develop and may not deliver in a timely manner.
6.	Even if successfully delivered and useful for records archiving, PRO would have little or no control so might prove reluctant to entrust long term archiving of electronic records to such standards.
4.3.3	Impacts
1.	These standards are part of global initiatives headed by organisations such as the Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM)  If successfully developed they are likely to have a broad base of industry take-up and easily be available.
2.	Most suppliers of office systems are likely to adopt these standards and, accordingly, they will probably be adopted sooner rather than later.  Such timeliness would be of great advantage to the PRO and departments.
3.	If these standards can be used as a basis for archiving electronic records, transfer and long term storage will be low cost and trouble free.
4.4	European Electronic Records Management Functional Requirement
4.4.1	Objective and Description
One of the primary follow-up actions to emerge from the European Union DLM/Electronic Records-Forum has been the clear understanding of the need for progress towards developing an electronic records keeping system.  To begin with, this will take the form of a comprehensive study of the relationship between public administration and archives services concerning electronic documents and records management to arrive at a definition for bolt-on software providing transfer functionality which departments could attach to existing document management applications.
4.4.2	Risks
1.	The level of bureaucracy implicit in many European activities may bog the initiative down so that little is delivered.
2.	The development of such an electronic records keeping system technically may be very time consuming and may deliver too late for practical application.
3.	The task may prove to difficult to achieve.
4.	Further study may identify factors unique to the UK making an international approach difficult to apply.
5.	There may be limited supply side take up of outputs from this work rendering the activity nugatory.
4.4.3	Impacts
An implication of this work taking on a European dimension is the opening up of bigger markets thus making it much more likely that the supply side will respond enthusiastically.  There has, to date, been strong CITU (UK Government’s Central IT strategy Unit)  encouragement to pursue this route as a means of developing a cross departmental strategy for electronic records and their transfer.

February 1997