Allegra Huxtable
Manager Government Recordkeeping
Tasmanian Archives and Heritage
Office
Overview
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Definitions
Selecting records, approach planning
Change management
Migration of digitised format
Technical specification - formats
Quality review
Destruction of source records
Managing digital records
Legal admissibility
Digitisation
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Its not the be all and end all
Its resource intensive
Risk Vs return based approach
There are a number of business issues to
consider
Definitions
What is Digitisation?
• Conversion of hard-copy or non-digital
records into digital formats.
Types of Digitisation
• Business process digitisation programs
• Back-capture digitisation projects
Business Considerations
Types of records and where they are in there
lifecycle
• Types of records
Business Records
Personal Records
Short term value records
• and where they are in there lifecycle
Active
Inactive
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Selecting records and approach
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Review business process
Identify frequency access records
Accessed where efficiency gains can be made
Improve management of permanent records
over time by digitising
• Learn business process mapping skills and
• Regularly step back and review processes
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Planning for Digitisation
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Select records and approach
Scope project
Consider access
Staffing space and change management
Reengineer business process don’t just
automate
• Policies, procedures, standardisation,
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Change Management
• The people factor -actively manage change
• Even a short term disruption ( change) to
established work process required proactive
change management
• Plan your change get senior management,
business unit staff on side
• Identify champions
• Offer training and support
• Even a small change for a records area is a big
change for a business area
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Migration of Digitised Records
Migration of Digitised Records into your
EDRMS
• Manual migration – saving individual
records and completing metadata form for
each is quite time consuming
• Automated bulk load by your IT staff this
process can be complicated
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Technical Specification - Formats
Recommend that permanent documents be
digitised in following formats
• PDF
• PDFA
• There are many other technical
considerations like resolution,
compression etc.
• See TAHO Advice
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Quality Review
Quality Review of Digitized Content
For business process digitisation need an
ongoing process of quality review to ensure
that the digitised image had been captured
correctly
For back capture digitisation project need to
quality review at least 80% of the digitised
content – particular if using external vendors
to complete this work
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Destruction of the original paper record
• Digital record is retained the official record
• Digital records must remain accessible
over time – for its entire retention period
• Digital images need to be managed as
part of records management program
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Managing Digital Images as Records
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Framework for digitisation
Policies procedures plans in place
Standards and QA in place
Technical requirement in place
Metadata requirements defined
Storage digital images – EDRMS
Long term management – migration
strategies
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Records with cultural value
Building files
Can be destroyed once they are digitised as long as they
meet the conditions set out in DA2159 and if they do not
include the following:
– Files relating to properties on the councils heritage
register
– Files relating to buildings identified by the council as
having significant architectural or cultural value
– Files containing building plans with an intrinsic artistic
value
These paper files cannot be destroyed
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Titling and Metadata standards
• Define standards for titling and metadata
including lists of acceptable acronyms that
you will allow
• This is important whether digitisation is in
house of by external vendor
• Remember metadata = access
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Legal admissibility digital records
Can digital images be admissible as
evidence?
In Tasmania there is no barrier to
organisations tendering digital images of
records as evidence. They can be
submitted in legal proceedings and used for
other evidentiary purposes.
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Pre 1950s Records
• Historical records or records created prior
to 1950 are not covered by any Disposal
Schedule and consequently cannot be
destroyed without approval from the State
Archivist. As there are so few historical
records surviving, TAHO would appraise
any pre 1950s records to see if we would
be interested in accepting them into the
state archive.
Digitisation – Business Considerations
Conclusions
• Its not digitisation or die – select process
to gain business efficiencies
• Start small but smart – define processes,
policies, manage change
• This is possible on a small scale
• Remember you can always alter the scope
of a pilot or trial process if it is a pilot or
trial
Questions?
Allegra Huxtable
Manager Government Recordkeeping
GRK@education.tas.gov.au
Acknowledgement
• Managing Digitisation programs and
projects State Records NSW