Victorian Electronic Records Strategy


VERS STORY	STANDARD	ASSESSMENT	PROJECTS	DIGITAL ARCHIVE	TRAINING	TOOLKIT	PUBLICATIONS

Implementation Projects

Research
(1995/96)

Demonstrator

Standard

VERS @ DOI

Centre of
Excellence

VERS in Justice

VERS Implementation across Victorian Government
(2004 - 08)

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VERS Implementation across Victorian Government (2004)

Planning and implementing improvements to electronic records management is a long-term prospect. Subsequently WOVG implementation of VERS within departments is being conducted in stages.

Stage 1 - Deploy Primary Capability (1-3 years' duration)
Deploy a primary capability (for example a VERS compliant EDM or ERM system) which will deliver value to the organisation as a solution to basic EDM/ERM requirements and as a platform for future leverage. This may also include one or two business process automation initiatives.

Stage 2 - Deploy to Key Business Processes (3+ years' duration)
After the initial basic implementation, begin to focus on the organisation's high value, permanent value and long term temporary records needs. Gain an understanding and define the core business processes (or applications) that would benefit from improved records management requirements and records capture automation.

Stage 3 - Deploy Enterprise-wide (5+ years' duration)
Deploy remaining processes as an enterprise solution for electronic records management. This may include support for advanced capabilities such as inter-departmental process integration and automation, or electronic record discovery through the Victoria Online portal. For example, the potential to offer WOVG consistent archiving and retrieval of Lotus Notes email into the medium to long-term may be offered via VERS.

Staged approach to VERS government deployment

Sustaining VERS implementation

To enable the realisation of the VERS vision a number of key elements need to be sustained

Transfer of substantial volumes of records of permanent value to PROV

It is critical to support the number of practical projects that are being undertaken across the Victorian Government departments to gain practical experience of utilising the VERS format. With the implementation of these projects the volume of permanent digital records transferred to the Public Record Office will grow thus testing out the processes and procedures being developed for the Digital Archive.

Building and maintaining relationships across stakeholders and interested parties

To continue to progress with the VERS strategy will require the ongoing commitment to maintaining the relationships already established and forging new ones to address emerging priorities. It is also important to be sensitive to additional opportunities that may occur by connecting various stakeholders and interested parties together in delivering new services and solutions that support VERS objectives.

Promoting the value of digital records

When a digital object is captured in a VERS format, the resulting digital record (the VEO) gains additional attributes that are valuable both immediately and for the longer term. As the record has been 'sealed', it exhibits a level of integrity not necessarily available in the original digital object. With the converting of the encapsulated original digital objects into long-term formats, accessibility of the information is improved. For example, take a record containing a Microsoft Word document, PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Project file and an email originating from a Lotus Notes email environment. As these will all have been captured and converted into a PDF format, the record may be sent to users who do not have Microsoft Office (irrespective of the version) or Lotus Notes installed and the information will still be accessible via the PDF formats.

The adoption of VERS as an endorsed method of capturing, managing and transferring digital records at a National level

As a method of dealing with digital records, VERS has a substantial part to play in supporting the development and implementation of a digital records framework at the National level. By adopting the VERS standard as one of the framework components the market size for the software and services vendor community supporting the standard this will increase dramatically, encouraging a range of new vendors to enter the market space.

Increasing the number of COTS products that support the VERS standard

Ensuring that users have the widest possible selection of low cost commercial software and services requires the implementation of the VERS standard into as many products as possible. This can be positively influenced by requiring software products tendered to be VERS-compliant when undertaking the procurement process for new software acquisition. With the potential to increase the market size at a state, national and international level, there is also significant vendor interest in positioning their companies in this market by investing the necessary funding to achieve VERS certification. The VERS certification process has been developed and is maintained by the VERS Centre.

Developing a range of easy-to-engage implementation models

As more departments and organisations adopt and implement VERS a number of different implementation models are being used. These currently cover

manual capture of the VEO at the desktop;
periodic capture of the VEO from line-of-business applications;
capture of mandatory metadata and long-term formats within the business application;
export VEO compliance for commercial-off-the-shelf packages and;
'vers-on-wheels' service to eliminate the need to implement and maintain VERS compliant software onsite

Recognising organisational capability and maturity

The capability of an organisation to deal with the practical issues related to digital records needs to be realistically assessed. Some organisations will have sophisticated enterprise information architectures into which the generation of digital records can be 'slotted'. In others, they may well be struggling with basic information management concepts and processes. Consider that not all can be achieved at once and a gradual approach to the issue of managing digital records often needs to be adopted. In all cases it is vital for the records managers to identify key digital record sets (from the disposal schedule) and establish a strategy to capture, manage and transfer these records. This will involve working closely with the business, information technology and information management specialists.

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