Course Instructor:
Philip Bantin
This course will provide students with an opportunity to study in-depth issues, challenges, strategies associated with electronic records management. The class will address the following key questions:
- What is a record in the electronic environment, and what is the relationship between business processes and the creation of records?
- What impact has technology had on recordkeeping?
- What are the basic design features of various types of systems, such as on-line transaction processing systems (OLTP), enterprise content management systems (ECM), decision support systems (DSS), and data warehouses?
- What is a recordkeeping system?
- How does one model or analyze systems to identify business processes and the creation of records?
- What has been the impact of automation on such basic archival concepts as provenance, original order, authenticity, reliability, and the records life cycle?
- How do the concepts of evidence, accountability, risk, and user needs contribute to the development of requirements for recordkeeping systems?
- What is the value of partnerships in electronic records management, and who are the archivists/records managers "natural" allies?
- How have appraisal theory and practice been redefined in the automated environment?
- How do archivists propose to describe electronic records? What is metadata, and what are the various documentation models archivists and other information managers have proposed?
- What are the challenges of preserving electronic records over time?
- How have laws, regulations, and court decisions impacted electronic records management?
- What are the major implementation projects underway to manage electronic records, and how do they compare?
- What are the critical unresolved and presently unexamined issues in facing archivists/records managers in the quest to develop effective electronic records management programs?
