Victorian Electronic Records Strategy


VERS STORY	STANDARD	ASSESSMENT	PROJECTS	DIGITAL ARCHIVE	TRAINING	TOOLKIT	PUBLICATIONS

Introduction

Standard
(Version 1)
  Specification 1
  Specification 2
  Specification 3

Standard
(Version 2)
  Specification 1
  Specification 2
  Specification 3
  Specification 4
  Specification 5
  Advice 9
  Advice 10
  Advice 11
  Advice 12
  Advice 13
  Advice 14

Home > Standard > Standard (Version 2) > Advice 10 > Introduction

1 Introduction

Information in this guide is purely informative. Nothing in this guide imposes any requirements on a VERS compliant implementation; requirements are only imposed by the associated Specifications.

This guide provides information about implementation of the requirements in PROS 99/007 Specification 1: System Requirements for Preserving Electronic Records.

PROS 99/007 Specification 1 contains the functions that a recordkeeping system must support if it is to preserve records for a significant period.

The Specification is mandatory for any system that holds permanent electronic records; that is, those records judged to be of permanent value to the State of Victoria. Permanent records are specified in an agency's disposal authority. It is optional but strongly recommended that systems that hold long-term temporary records for a significant period should also conform to the Specification. A significant period is one where the records have a life longer than the expected life of:

the system holding the records, or
the organisation holding the records.

In this Specification, a recordkeeping system is considered to be the entire system holding records. The system may include business processes, one or more software applications that manage records (which may or may not be named a 'recordkeeping system'), and any supporting computer systems (such as storage networks and servers). In consequence, the functions required in this Specification may be the responsibility of an agency, the vendor of a recordkeeping application, or the vendor of a supporting system.

The Specification covers only those functions necessary to support long-term preservation using VERS. A complete recordkeeping system must support many other functions as well. The reader is referred to the referenced standards and recommendations below for guidance on these other functions.

There are many different ways in which these functions could be implemented, depending on the applications from which records are captured and the computer technology chosen.

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