A digital continuity glossary
Digital continuity is the ability to use your information in the way that you need, for as long as
you need.
This glossary also includes digital continuity-specific terms that are used within digital continuity
guidance that are drawn from across various professions, especially IT, Information Assurance
(IA) and Information Management (IM). Some terms may have generic, existing definitions – but
if they are listed on here it is because they have a specific meaning within digital continuity.
You can use this glossary in conjunction with the digital continuity guidance that is available on
our website: nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/projects-and-work/dcguidance.htm
The glossary
Jump to: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
TERM
A
Asset
Availability (of an
information asset)
DEFINITION
Any resource or capability. Assets of a service provider include
anything that could contribute to the delivery of a service. Assets
can be one of the following types: management, organisation,
process, knowledge, people, information, applications,
infrastructure, and financial capital.
See information asset also.
Ensuring information assets can be found, opened and worked
with in the way required. This extends the traditional understanding
of availability as having hardware, software and systems available
and working when needed, to one of full availability of the
information in the way you need to use it. This means having the
right processes and technology available for the way you want to
work with the information.
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B
Business continuity
Business needs/
requirements
Ensuring an organisation’s critical functions remain available over
time and through change. Ensuring the digital continuity of critical
business information should be one aspect of business continuity
planning.
The required purpose of an information asset. A combination of
why the asset is held, what it needs to be used for, how it will be
used and the value that this will bring to the organisation.
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C
Characterisation
The extraction of significant properties of a digital object – e.g. the
format of a file, dimensions of an image, the number of words in a
document.
Completeness (of
information assets)
Ensuring that neither the content nor the context of an information
asset is missing or degraded (either intentionally or accidentally) in
any way.
Configuration Item (CI)
Any individual component that is required to deliver an IT service.
CIs can vary widely in size and type, though typically include IT
services, IT systems, hardware, software, documentation,
supporting staff and buildings.
Configuration
management
The process responsible for ensuring an IT service’s performance
and functionality remain consistent with the requirements and
design for that system throughout its lifespan. It maintains
information about Configuration Items required to deliver an IT
Service, including the relationships between them.
(Information) Content
The human or machine readable representation of the information
stored in a file, e.g. words, images, sounds, figures. Layout, design
attributes, colours etc may be considered to be an element of
content.
(Information) Context
The information about information or an information asset that
enables us to understand what it is about. Metadata, location in a
file plan, protective marking and associated records are all
examples of context.
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D
Digital archiving
Storing, preserving and providing access to electronic government
records – everything from emails and web pages to multimedia
formats.
Digital continuity
The ability to use your information in the way you need, for as long
as you need.
Digital Continuity
Framework
A catalogue of tools and services to support the management of
digital continuity issues and risks, which public sector organisations
can procure through Buying Solutions.
Digital continuity
requirements
The completeness and availability your information assets must
have in order to deliver your usability requirements.
Digital obsolescence
The inability to read a digital object because the software,
hardware or systems required are no longer available or are no
longer supported. Digital obsolescence may result from the
supplier no longer trading, having ceased support or only
supporting newer versions of its products.
Digital preservation
The long-term archival management of digital information assets
selected for their historical value, once they have passed out of
business ownership.
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E
e-Discovery
Electronic Document and
Records Management
System (EDRMS)
The evidential retrieval of relevant information from a large body of
unstructured data (e.g. documents and emails). An e-discovery
process goes beyond simple searching, to allow relationships
between the data to be explored and refined. E-discovery is
typically used in support of legal proceedings, but it has wider
applicability in digital information management.
A system designed to manage electronic content, documents and
records. EDRMS should support creation and capture, organisation
and curating of the content, collaboration and version control, and
output. Content is usually unstructured or semi-structured.
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F
File characterisation
The process of understanding significant properties of a file.
Examples of significant properties are: the file format type and
version (for any file), character encoding (for text files), dimensions
(for image files), or number of pages (for documents). Where only
the format type and version are identified, this is also known as file
format identification.
File format
The organisation of binary data within an individual file. File
formats are sometimes indicated by the file name extension, if
present (e.g. .doc for some Word documents), but this is not
always reliable.
File format identification
The process of understanding both the format type and version of
a file. See also file characterisation.
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H
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I
Incident reporting
The process by which the occurrence of an issue is formally
reported.
Information asset
An information asset is a body of information, defined and
managed as a single unit so it can be understood, shared,
protected and exploited effectively. Information assets have
recognisable and manageable value, risk, content and lifecycles.
Information Asset Owner
(IAO)
Information Asset Owner is a role assigned to a senior member of
staff by the SIRO to ensure specific information assets are handled
and managed appropriately. This means making sure information
assets are properly protected against risk and that their value to
the organisation is fully recognised.
Information Asset
Register (IAR)
A mechanism for recording your information assets, which should
be used for documenting what you know about your information
assets, business needs and technical environment. In practice, it
may consist of a number of separate registers documenting
particular aspects of your digital information and its environment.
Information assurance
The practice of managing information risks. See also information
risk management. The key elements of information assurance are:
confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, availability and nonrepudiation.
Information Assurance
Maturity Model (IAMM)
The National Information Assurance Strategy requires government
to ensure its information is protected and available as needed and
the supporting IAMM includes loss of digital continuity as an
information risk to be managed.
This model includes five clearly defined stages of information
assurance maturity within an organisation. The model is aimed at
SIROs and designed to deliver key information assurance goals of
embedding information and records management culture, best
practice information assurance and effective compliance.
Information Technology
Infrastructure Library
(ITIL)
A set of consistent and comprehensive documentation of best
practice for IT Service Management released as a series of
guidance books.
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K
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L
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M
Machinery of
Government (MoG)
Metadata
The structures and processes of government. It is often referred to
in the context of change, i.e. the creation of a new department or
the merging of existing departments.
Data about data. Metadata describes various attributes of a file.
For example, technical metadata will describe file format, size,
creation date etc; descriptive metadata will describe title, author,
classification etc.
Limited technical and descriptive metadata may be attached to the
file itself. More detailed metadata is often added through an
information management system, such as an EDRMS.
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N
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O
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P
Provenance
The associated understanding of an information asset’s origins,
custody and ownership, which enables the user to understand its
source and integrity (i.e. the user can trust the information they
have).
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Q
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R
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S
Senior Information Risk
Owner (SIRO)
Senior Responsible
Owner (SRO)
The SIRO is an executive accountable for information risks and
leads the department’s response. The SIRO ensures the risk to
digital continuity is being managed efficiently and effectively and
ensures there is a multi-disciplinary approach to information risk
management in an organisation. The SIRO appoints the SRO to
manage digital continuity.
The Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) is the individual with overall
responsibility for ensuring digital continuity in an organisation.
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T
Technical environment
The systems on which information assets are stored, the hardware
and software they rely on.
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U
Usability requirements
The requirements for how each piece of information or information
asset needs to be found, opened, worked with, understood and
trusted. Your usability requirements can then be used to define the
completeness and availability required to maintain continuity.
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Y
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Z