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Guide to Minimum Website Standards - Electronic Record Keeping and Archiving
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This guidance has been superseded by the Australian Government Web Publishing Guide and should be used for reference purposes only. |
April 2003 edition. Contact details updated July 2004.
Chapter Headings:
What is the standard, and which agency issued the standard? - Implementation requirements - Background - Key things you should know - Further Assistance - FAQ
Electronic Record Keeping and Archiving
What is the standard, and which agency issued the standard?
The standard for electronic record keeping and archiving is the e-permanence suite of best practice standards, policies and guidelines, issued by the National Archives of Australia. These are available at: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/default.html
Implementation requirements
All agencies were required to meet the guidelines for electronically published material for new website content from 1 June 2000, and existing website material from 1 December 2000.
Background
All digital data created or received in the conduct of Commonwealth business are Commonwealth records under the Archives Act 1983 and need to be managed in accordance with that Act. To ensure efficient, accountable and cost-effective government, agencies must keep full and accurate records of their decisions, transactions and activities in a form that ensures the reliability and accessibility of those records for as long as they are required.
Commonwealth Government agencies must create and manage electronic records with the same care as they manage paper records. Agencies must not dispose of electronic records except under an appropriate disposal authority issued by the National Archives of Australia.
To protect the interests of agencies and citizens it is important for agencies to design and implement recordkeeping systems that can capture and retain full and accurate records of their activities, which can also operate as a source of corporate and national memory.
With agencies conducting an increasing proportion of their business over the web, it is essential to ensure that web publishing and online service delivery systems have good record keeping capabilities and/or are linked to corporate record keeping systems. Failure to capture full and accurate records of web-based activity will leave agencies exposed to considerable legal, financial and political risk. Compliance with the policies and guidelines issued by the National Archives will assist agencies to meet their legal obligations and will also, in the longer term, save money by ensuring a greater return on the agency's investment in its information assets.
Key things you should know
The Government Online Strategy required agencies to capture and retain full and accurate records of their online activity, including electronic publishing.
Under Better Services, Better Government: The Federal Government's E-government Strategy, released in November 2002, this requirement continues. Agencies should comply with the National Archives of Australia's policy statement Archiving Web Resources: A policy for keeping records of web-based activity in the Commonwealth Government: www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/er/web_records/intro.html
This policy stipulates a number of best practices that agencies should adopt for keeping records of their web-based activity. These include:
- Agencies must identify records which exist on their websites, or which are about to be placed online. They must ensure that these records are captured into a formal record keeping system, along with sufficient Metadata documenting the content, context and structure of the records, and their placement on the website;
- Agencies must ensure that full and accurate records of their web resources are captured and maintained for as long as they are required - whether for business reasons, to meet accountability requirements or to meet the expectations of the Australian community;
- Agencies need to make and keep records that accurately document their web resources over time, so that it is possible to reliably establish the content of their websites at any particular point in time in the past; and
- Agencies must capture full and accurate records of web-based transactions into record keeping systems that can guarantee the authenticity, reliability and accessibility of the records.
For practical advice on how to comply with this policy, agencies are encouraged to read the National Archives publication Archiving Web Resources: Guidelines for keeping records of web-based activity in the Commonwealth Government: www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/er/web_records/intro.html
The policy and guidelines for archiving web resources form part of a broader suite of standards, policies and guidelines for good record keeping that have been issued by the National Archives under the e-permanence banner. Collectively, these standards, manuals and guidelines provide detailed guidance to agencies on how to implement systems, policies and business processes that will help ensure that they create and retain authentic, reliable, accessible and durable records of their decisions and activities. Included amongst these publications are the following:
- Managing Business Information - DIRKS www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/dirks/summary.html
- Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/control/rkms/summary.htm
- Developing a Functions Thesaurus: Guidelines for Commonwealth Agencies www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/control/functions_thesaur/intro.html
- Administrative Functions Disposal Authority www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/disposal/authorities/GDA/AFDA/summary.html
- Appraisal Guidelines for Commonwealth Records www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/disposal/appraisal/intro.html
A checklist to help agencies implement the guidelines is at Attachment B.
Further Assistance
Websites - http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/default.html
Contact Person - Agency Service Centre, National Archives of Australia
Telephone - (02) 6212 3610
Fax - (02) 6212 3989
E-mail - recordkeeping@naa.gov.au
Address - National Archives of Australia, PO Box 7425, Canberra Business Centre. ACT 2610; Queen Victoria Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600
FAQ
Q. Does my agency need to retain superseded pages from our Website?
A. It is essential for agencies to create and retain full and accurate records of all the advice and information they have published on their Website even after that information is superseded. Agencies can be held to account, sometimes in a court of law, for any advice or information it issues via the Web or via other means of communication. If an agency does not have appropriate recordkeeping systems and procedures in place to capture and retain these records in a reliable and durable form, it may find that it is unable to account for its actions with reference to authentic evidence of its past decisions and activities.
Q. Are regular snapshots of our agency's website a good strategy for ensuring full and accurate records of our web-based activity?
A. While regular snapshots of an entire website or of parts of a website are a legitimate strategy for retaining evidence of the informational component of a website, by themselves snapshots will rarely ensure that full and accurate records of the entire range of an agency's web-based activity are created and retained. With the trend towards deploying dynamically generated web pages and with the increasing use of the Web as a vehicle for interactive service delivery, it is essential to develop and implement other recordkeeping policies and procedures to ensure that adequate evidence of the more dynamic and interactive web-based activity is created and retained. It is also essential to create and retain records of any changes made to the website in between snapshots.