# Presentation: 034866

- L Reynolds Cahoon
- CIO
- National Archives
- And
- Records Administration

- Embedding Electronic Records Management Into the Fabric of Your Agency

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## OUR PAINFUL REALITY

- THE RECORDS MANAGEMENT WORLD WE HAVE PREPARED FOR NO LONGER EXISTS

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Take Aways

- Effective Records Management requires:
- Simultaneous attention to People, Process and Technology
- Integrating Records Management into Agency Business Processes and IT Governance and Applications
- A Persistent E-Records Preservation and Access Capability-- critical to the future of Government and Society.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Records and Information Management From 30K Ft.

- Decline in number of staff specializing in filing
- Investment in Software functionality that creates records is growing
- Mission critical records are often not sharable, retrievable or useable
- Copies proliferate; data conflicts or is unreliable
- Email often replaces phone conversations, meetings and formal written communication
- Instant Messaging increasingly replaces email
- Litigation and discovery costs skyrocketing
- Authenticity is questioned
- Premature destruction
- Tools to manage electronic records lag far behind

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## The Challenge ofElectronic Records

- Authenticity – Over Time
- Variety – 4,800+ Different Types of E-Record Formats
- Complexity – Increasingly Sophisticated Formats
- Volume – Vast Quantities of Records
- Obsolescence – Constantly Changing Technology
- User Expectations –Evolving, Unrelenting

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
We are facing an electronic records challenge in the nation and specifically in the federal government.  With the rapid evolution of information, technology has produced large, ever-increasing volumes of diverse, and complex digital records.

Since NARA’s mission is to preserve the history of this Nation it is our responsibility to address the electronic records challenge. Nara is a small agency responsible for all other agencies (approx. 400)

Scope - We have to do this for records of the entire Federal Government, which have different laws and rules that apply to them depending on whether they are records of federal agencies, or of the President, the Congress, or the Supreme Court.  We also have to deal with donated materials, which are subject to their own rules, set out in deeds of gift.

Variety - There's a great variety in the kinds of electronic records we have to deal with.  This variety is already apparent in the records already in the National Archives:
White House e-mail from President’s Reagan, Bush, and Clinton
Casualty records from the wars in Korea and Vietnam
The American Soldier in World War II
National Collaborative Perinatal Project, 1959-1974 
Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife Recreation
Abstracts of testimony, interviews, diaries from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force
• • • • •

The variety will only increase in the future.

Complexity - Besides the variety in types of records, we also have to cope with a great variety of complex types of digital data.

Volume

Clinton Administration: 38 million email messages
  State Department: 25 million electronic diplomatic messages
  Department of Defense: > 50 million images of digital Official Military Personnel Files annually
  Census Bureau: 600 to 800 million image files (2000 census)

Currently, there is no system to preserve all types of digital records over time.

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## Slide 9

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## Slide 10

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## A System

- The performance of any part affects the performance of the whole
- How any part affects the performance of the whole depends on what one or more of the other parts are doing
- Group the parts in any way and the groups will possess the first two properties

- A collection of two or more parts which interact with each other to function as a whole. Systems have three fundamental properties:

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

##       Profound Conclusions

- A system is not the sum of its parts but a product of the part’s interactions.
- The essential properties that define any system are properties of the whole and none of the parts have those properties.
- When we take a system apart it loses its defining characteristics.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## So What? 

- Can not understand the whole system just by understanding the parts
- Obvious interventions often produce non-obvious consequences
- Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space
- Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## So What? 

- Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions
- There is no “Blame”
- If the parts are all trying to optimize themselves, the whole is sub-optimized

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Systems Thinking 

- Seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains
- Seeing processes of change rather than snapshots
- Helps us see how we create our reality

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Systems Thinking

- Points to higher leverage solutions to problems
- Helps us understand and describe complex issues
- A discipline for seeing structures underlying seemingly diverse personal, organizational and societal issues

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Events, Patterns, and Structure

- Structure is Harder to See

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Structure is Harder to See

- Move from thinking about events to observing history and on to uncovering structures.
- If we see the world as events causing further events, we can react.
- If we see trends and patterns, we can anticipate.
- But if we can understand the underlying structure, we can change it. This is the opportunity to influence the events and patterns in our favor.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Exploring Structure and Relationships

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- December 16,  2004

## The Big Picture Goals

- Enterprises economically and effectively create and manage records necessary to meet business needs,
- Records are kept long enough to protect rights and assure accountability, and
- Records of archival value are preserved and made available for future generations

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Creating The Balance

- National Archives and Records Administration

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## People Dynamics

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## The People DimensionRecords Managers

- Structure
- Authority
- Position Levels
- Reporting Relationships
- Development Team Composition
- Competencies
- Electronic Records Management
- Language
- Risk Assessment & Management
- Business Process Design
- Systems Analysis
- Requirements Development
- Project Management

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## The People Dimension

- Performance Management
- Expectations Management
- Incentives/Rewards
- Performance Plans
- Continuous Training
- Evolving Development Plans
- Evolving Curriculum
- Change Management

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Process

- Capital Planning and Control
- Enterprise Architecture
- Business Process Design
- Solution Development Lifecycle

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Records ManagementIn Capital Planning

- Will proposed system create records?
- Will proposed system be required to support electronic recordkeeping ?
- Who will represent records management on team?
- Will execution of system business processes result in the generation, management/distribution of intellectual capital, other products, or electronic files across the business and/or extended enterprise?
- Are resulting outcomes/products used in making business decisions?

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Federal Enterprise ArchitectureReference Models

**Performance and Business Driven**

**Component-Based Architectures**

**Performance Reference Model (PRM)**
-  Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes
-  Uniquely Tailored Performance Indicators

**Business Reference Model (BRM)**
-  Lines of Business
-  Agencies, Customers, Partners

**Service Component Reference Model (SRM)**
-  Service Domains, Service Types
-  Business & Service Components

**Data Reference Model (DRM)**
-  Business-focused Data Standardization
-  Cross-Agency Information Exchanges

**Technical Reference Model (TRM)**
-  Service Component Interfaces, Interoperability
-  Technologies, Recommendations

- National Archives and Records Administration

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- National Archives and Records Administration

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## Specify Records DuringBusiness Process Design

**Business**
**Result**

**Create Record**

- Start

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## Business Process Design

- Does this transaction require:
- Evidence of decisions or action?
- Evidence of performance?
- Compliance with applicable statutes, regulations, orders, and other directives that require business unit to create records?
- Documentation to enable business unit to protect its interests?
- Accountability for the use of resources?

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Business Process Design (cont.)

- Does this transaction require:
- Documentation of decision-making processes consistent with the law?
- Preservation of the agency’s corporate memory, and a capability for tracking business transactions over time?
- Creation of records of significant government policies and activities that must be kept for posterity?
- A record of communications within/between agencies, and between the agency and the general public (as applicable)?

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Solutions Development Life Cycle Method

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## RM in Solutions Development Life Cycle Methods

- Ensure records creation points in the Business Process Design are in the system design
- Re-evaluate records creation points at each iteration of system development/re-design
- Migrate records at system upgrade
- Manage records, including meta-data definitions & attributes at system retirement and roll over
- Transfer records, including meta-data definitions & attributes as appropriate

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Technology

- Enterprise Architecture
- Service Components
- Persistent Object Preservation

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Federal Enterprise ArchitectureReference Models

**Performance and Business Driven**

**Component-Based Architectures**

**Performance Reference Model (PRM)**
-  Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes
-  Uniquely Tailored Performance Indicators

**Business Reference Model (BRM)**
-  Lines of Business
-  Agencies, Customers, Partners

**Service Component Reference Model (SRM)**
-  Service Domains, Service Types
-  Business & Service Components

**Data Reference Model (DRM)**
-  Business-focused Data Standardization
-  Cross-Agency Information Exchanges

**Technical Reference Model (TRM)**
-  Service Component Interfaces, Interoperability
-  Technologies, Recommendations

**Records Mgt**
**Policy, Transaction **
**Outcomes, Records **
**Components,**
**Functions**

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Component Definition

- A self-contained
- business process or service
- with
- predetermined functionality
- that may be exposed through a business or technology interface.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Component Attributes

- A software component should be well documented to promote understanding of its capabilities, and encourage its consumption.
- A component should clearly separate the definition of the services that it provides from its implementation of those services.
- A true component can be independently developed, delivered, and installed without complex interdependencies on other external components.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Core RM Capabilities

- A “core” set of records management capabilities might include:
- Record Organization/classification scheme and file plan
- Record capture, declaration, and management
- Record search, display and presentation
- Record retention and disposal
- Access control

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Core RM Capabilities Provide

- Audit
- Reporting
- Usability
- Design & Performance
- Compliance with statutes, regulations, and standards

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Bringing It All Together

- Enterprise Architecture
- Aligns people, technology,				 and business goals
- Establishes the process for
- documenting lines of business
- funding review
- technology implementation
- Exposes business functions common to all agencies such as Records Management

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Bringing It All Together

- Capital Planning & Investment Process
- Ensure RM requirements are in the budget
- Fund/approve systems upgrade or initial purchase
- Include funding of RM components
- Ensure IT solution satisfies EA requirements
- Adjust/readjust ROI for re-used components

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Bringing It All Together

- Business Process Design Methods
- Identify business transactions
- Identify points for record creation
- Identify records management functions to be supported
- Identify RM components for re-use

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Bringing It All Together

- Solution Development Life Cycle
- Procure/acquire system
- Ensure BPDM & CP requirements are met
- Determine system life cycle review
- Initiate review, upgrade process
- Identify RM components for re-use

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Bringing It All Together

- Capital Planning & Investment Process

- SDLC
-  Concept
-  Requirements
-  Design
-  Develop
-  Test

- Review RM Components forRe-Use

- Business Process Design Methods

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## IT Management Processes

- Capital Planning & Investment Process

- SDLC
-  Concept
-  Requirements
-  Design
-  Develop
-  Test

- Enterprise Architecture

- Records Management Components

- Business Process Design Methods

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## The Challenge ofElectronic Records

**Authenticity – Over Time**
**Variety – 16,000+ Different E-Record Formats**
**Complexity – Increasingly Sophisticated Formats**
**Volume – Vast Quantities of Records**
**Obsolescence – Constantly Changing Technology**** **
**User Expectations – Evolving**

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
We are facing an electronic records challenge in the nation and specifically in the federal government.  With the rapid evolution of information, technology has produced large, ever-increasing volumes of diverse, and complex digital records.

Since NARA’s mission is to preserve the history of this Nation it is our responsibility to address the electronic records challenge. Nara is a small agency responsible for all other agencies (approx. 400)

Scope - We have to do this for records of the entire Federal Government, which have different laws and rules that apply to them depending on whether they are records of federal agencies, or of the President, the Congress, or the Supreme Court.  We also have to deal with donated materials, which are subject to their own rules, set out in deeds of gift.

Variety - There's a great variety in the kinds of electronic records we have to deal with.  This variety is already apparent in the records already in the National Archives:
White House e-mail from President’s Reagan, Bush, and Clinton
Casualty records from the wars in Korea and Vietnam
The American Soldier in World War II
National Collaborative Perinatal Project, 1959-1974 
Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife Recreation
Abstracts of testimony, interviews, diaries from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force
• • • • •

The variety will only increase in the future.

Complexity - Besides the variety in types of records, we also have to cope with a great variety of complex types of digital data.

Volume

Clinton Administration: 38 million email messages
  State Department: 25 million electronic diplomatic messages
  Department of Defense: > 50 million images of digital Official Military Personnel Files annually
  Census Bureau: 600 to 800 million image files (2000 census)

Currently, there is no system to preserve all types of digital records over time.

## The Electronic Records Archives

- NARA has 30 years of experience with electronic records
- Simple Files
- Comma delimited
- ASCII
- Flat Fixed Length
- Does not meet the need

- NARA’s Current Electronic Records System

- The Electronic Records Archives

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
Before we discuss how NARA plans to deal with these challenges let me first tell you where we are as it relates to preserving electronic records today. 

NARA has been in the business of preserving electronic records for 30 years.  So we know a thing or two about dealing with these types of records.  

If you search  through our electronic records holdings you will find that it mainly consists of simple files (i.e. structured databases, tables etc...).  You also find that our current preservation methods and storage capabilities are limited.

## Electronic Records Archives 

**The Archivist’s Directive:**
- ERA is NARA’s Strategic Response
- The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) is a comprehensive, systematic, and dynamic means of preserving and providing continuing access to authentic electronic records over time.
- The goal of ERA is to enable NARA to preserve and provide access to **any type of electronic record** created anywhere in the Federal Government.
- ERA’s Vision Statement
- "ERA will ***authentically preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record***, free from dependency on any specific hardware or software, enabling NARA to carry out its mission into the future."
*John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States*

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**

NARA’s Strategic Response is ERA:  
So after much evaluation the Archivist of the United States, John Carlin, decided since times were changing,  NARA had to change with the times.  Stepped up the to take action by establishing ERA>

In order to continue fulfilling our mission of preserving the Nation’s history NARA had no choice but to respond to this challenge.  That response was to create a program that would strategically manage the building of an electronic system that would enable NARA to preserve and provide access to any type of electronic record created anywhere in the federal government.

And so the ERA program was created.

ERA’s Vision:

 The vision for this electronic records archives is that it will authentically preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record, free from dependency on any specific hardware or software, enabling NARA to carry out it’s mission into the future

## Who Faces This Challenge?

- Any enterprise that
- creates information that
**must endure longer**
- than the **technology**
- that **created** it!

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
Manufacturing, Services, Health Care, Petrochemicals

## Who Else Needs This Capability?

- Aerospace
- Pharmaceuticals
- Energy
- Transportation
- Electronics
- Services
- Actually, every enterprise and individual who has need to access electronic materials beyond 5-10 years.

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## Create a Capability That Will:

**Preserve authentically any type of electronic record,**
**Created using any type of computer application,**
**On any computing platform,**
**From any entity in the Federal Government and any donor.**
**Provide discovery and delivery to anyone with an interest and legal right of access,**
**Now and for the life of the republic and beyond**

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
So, in considering what's involved in getting access to electronic records, you can see there are significant challenges.  NARA faces a major, multifaceted challenge in trying to accomplish its mission in the digital era.  We can sum up this challenge:

Now and for the life: not just delivering the records being created on computers today, but new types of records that will be created on computers that haven't been produced yet.

## ERA Requirements

**To **_**manage**_** and **_**access**_** the records over time.**
**Authentic**
**To ensure that these are the original records**
** ****Records that are created with attached documentary information**
**Scalable**
**To grow and adapt to increasing volumes and evolving types of electronic records**
**To serve a variety of user groups**

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
This system has 3 requirements that it must fulfill in order to meet NARA’s needs.

1) It must be persistent (it needs to have the ability to manage collections of records over time).

2) It must be authentic (it needs to have the ability to ensure collections of records are reliable).

3) And it must be scalable (it needs to have the ability to accommodate the increasing volumes and evaluating types of records being created in the federal government.

What does this system look like?  Well it will be a virtual system look like?  Well it will be a virtual system with the basic structure of any other archives.

So just like the archives building in College Park it will contain records - but they will be in form of 1’s and 0’s.

It will organize and save those 1’s and 0’s in electronic files instead of acid free folders and hollinger boxes.

It will store those files on hard drives, tapes, or disks instead of in stack areas.

And it will allow access to those hard drives, tapes, or disks by way of the next generation internet, instead of a physical research room.

Let me be clear in stating that ERA will in no way replace what we currently know as traditional archives for paper records, photographs, or permanently valuable items.  ERA is an expansion of our current capabilities, a tool that we can use to accommodate electronic records and continue to carry out our mission.

## Government and Private Sector Partners 

- Government and Private Sector Partners

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**

After we’ve identified the challenge, articulated the vision, and visualized the solution, we needed to move forward toward accomplishing the goal.

Our 1st step was partnering  with industry expert both in the federal and private sector.  NARA recognized that since we had never built a large scale information system and the agency was made up of mostly Archivist, Records Managers, Librarians, and Historians, we needed to learn from those who had much more experience than we did.

## ERA Virtual Workspace Model

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
   At NARA, we are using both the OAIS and InterPARES models to develop the “Electronic Records Archives.” In this effort, we are leveraging major computer and communications research and development activities of many other organizations, including the U.S. National Science Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Army Research Laboratory, and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Research (NPACI), including NPACI’s International Affiliate in archival research headquartered at the University of Urbino.
The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) is NARA’s strategic initiative to develop a comprehensive means for preserving electronic records of the U.S. government. A critical feature that sets ERA apart is that it explicitly addresses the archival desiderata listed previously, notably incorporating the expectation of change in the architecture of the system.
This conceptual model shows that ERA will comprise 3 virtual ‘work spaces’ corresponding to the basic OAIS functions. There are 3 important ideas behind the virtual work space concept: 1. Each will have built-in functionality to support core processes. 2.  Each work space will interact with the others, and with other systems, through software mediators. 3. Each work space will enable use of specialized tools when needed.  The last two features are designed to enable hardware and software components to be replaced with minimal impact on the system as a whole or on the records being preserved.

## Protect the system and the records with state-of-the-art security.
Accommodate substantial growth in volume & variety.
Support the collection, integration, and sharing of information about records. 
Support the workflow associated with business processes.
Interoperate with other systems. 
Maintain a complete audit trail.

**Accommodate substantial growth in volume & variety.**
**Support the collection, integration, and sharing of information about records. **
**Support the workflow associated with business processes.**
**Interoperate with other systems. **
**Maintain a complete audit trail.**

- What Will the System Do?

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
from  Features document, in handouts.

This slide lists basic things the system will do.  These are features needed in general, not specific to users.

## Architecture Requirements

- Open Event Driven Architecture (ESB)
- Evolvable
- Integrated COTS
- Central Business Rule Repository
- Distributed / Grid Centric / Self-managing
- Secure / Classified As Well As Unclassified
- Highly Scaleable In All Dimensions
- HW / SW Independent Component Intermediation
- Highly Reliable

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

## The Electronic Records ArchivesMajor Milestones 

- Awarded Two Design Contracts – 3Q04
- Select a Single Developer – 3Q05
- Initial Operating Capability – FY 2007
- Five Increments w/ Multiple Releases
- Full Operating Capability - 2011

**FY**** ****2007**

**12/03**

**Released Request for Proposal**

**Contract **
**Award**

**Select Single Developer**

**Initial Operating **
**Capability**
**(IOC)**

**Full **
**Operating **
**Capability**
**(FOC)**

**2011**

- The Electronic Records ArchivesMajor Milestones

**I1**

**3rd Qtr. 2004**

**3rd Qtr. 2005**

**I2**

**I3**

**I4**

**I5**

**2**** ****years**

**1 year**

**1 year**

**1 year**

**1**** ****year**

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

**Notes:**
Continue R& D
Fully staff the Program Management Office
04/02  Develop ERA Concept of Operations
07/02  Document System Requirements
07/02  Conduct an Analysis of Alternatives
The AoA identified four alternatives:
• Privatize ERA (systems, personnel, policies, and procedures).
• Use Current Systems (with no modification to these systems).
• Combine Current Systems (join current systems together with no modification of the
Develop a New System.

09/02  Conduct a Business Case Analysis

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## Slide 60

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## Rigorous Systems Thinking

- A state of mind
- Tools
- Casual Loop Diagrams
- Templates
- Computer models

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004

- National Archives and Records Administration

- December 16,  2004