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3.1 Agent
Each Agent (M12) describes an actor that has been involved with the record. Typical actors are the person that sent a letter, the person that registers a record in the recordkeeping system, the person that decides to dispose of a record, and the organisation that controls the records. Agents may be individuals or organisations. A set of record metadata typically contains a number of Agent (M12) elements, one for each individual or organisation that has been involved in the record (see Figure 4).
Agent is equivalent to three distinct AGLS elements: Creator, Publisher and Contributor. The equivalent VERS Agent Types are: Document Author/Record Creator, Publisher, and Transactor/Action Officer (respectively).
The VERS Standard and the NAA Recordkeeping Standard use Agent for subtly different purposes.
In VERS, agents are primarily used to document actors involved in the activity that was the subject of the record. For example, the people or organisations that wrote a letter or that received copies of the letter. Documenting these agents is intended to assist future users in finding the records.
In the NAA Recordkeeping Standard, agents appear to be primarily intended to document the actors inside an organisation who were responsible for managing the record. These agents include the person registering the record, the records manager, and the system administrator. The NAA Recordkeeping Standard envisages that actions documented in the Management History (M66), Use History (M71), and Preservation History (M76) elements would refer to these agents.
Figure 4. Subelements of the Record Metadata element.
This difference in the way VERS and NAA use the Agent (M12) element accounts for a number of subtle differences in emphasis in the description of the subelements within Agent.
An Agent (M12) element can contain up to 11 subelements. The information in these elements describes the agent.
- Agent Type (M13). This subelement distinguishes between the various roles an individual or organisation played in respect to this record. This element must be present. It may be repeated within an Agent (M12) if the person or organisation has several roles.
There are 19 predefined agent types and an agency may define extensions to the list. The predefined types reflect the focus of the VERS and NAA standards. The agent types defined by the NAA focus on roles related to records management, while the VERS extensions focus on roles related to the action the record documents. The VERS extensions are all indicated in the description of Agent Type (M13) in PROS 99/007 Specification 2: VERS Metadata Scheme.
- Jurisdiction (M14). This subelement identifies the jurisdiction in which the agent operates and would be of most use when referring to a local, state, or commonwealth government agency. This element is optional.
- Corporate ID (M15). This subelement contains the identifier of an organisation. It may be used to identify the agent (when the agent is an organisation) or the organisation the agent belongs to (when the agent is a person). Typical identifiers are the Australian Business Number and PROV's 'Victorian Agency' number. Note that this element may not be repeated.
The definition of this element has been changed slightly from that used by NAA. In the NAA standard, this element is always used to identify the agency that creates the record. This definition has been broadened in VERS as many of the agents involved in a record may not belong to the agency that created the record.
- Corporate Name (M16). This subelement contains the name of an organisation. It may be used to identify the agent (when the agent is an organisation) or the organisation the agent belongs to (when the agent is a person). Note that this element is mandatory; if an agent does not belong to an organisation we recommend that you use the text 'Not Known'. The element is repeatable, which allows alternative variations of the name to be used (e.g. 'PROV' and 'Public Record Office Victoria').
Note that, like Corporate Id (M15), the definition of this element has been changed slightly from that used by NAA. In the NAA standard, this element is always used to identify the name of the agency that creates the record. This definition has been broadened in VERS as many of the agents involved in a record may not belong to the agency that created the record.
- Person Id (M17). This subelement contains the identifier of a person, for example, a payroll identifier. It should only be present if the agent is a person.
- Personal Name (M18). This subelement contains the name of the agent. Clearly, it should only be present if the agent is a person.
- Section Name (M19). This subelement contains the name of the business unit (section, department) within the organisation. If the agent is a person, this subelement would indicate where the person worked. Section Name is repeatable, so it is possible to include all of the sections in the corporate hierarchy but, note that it is not possible to relate the separate section names together so it is not possible to indicate the actual hierarchy. We recommend that the section names be listed with the largest (broadest, highest) organisation unit first.
- Position Name (M20). This subelement contains the position (or role) the agent occupied.
- Contact Details (M21). This subelement contains information on how to contact the agent. Example of such information include: postal addresses, telephone numbers, or street addresses. Note that an email address should not be placed in this subelement, as there is a specific subelement for this information. This information would normally have only a fleeting validity and so its value in an archival environment is mainly restricted to providing further evidence as to the identity of the agent.
- Email (M22). This subelement contains the email address that should be used to contact the agent. Again, this information would normally have only a fleeting validity and so its value in an archival environment is mainly restricted to providing further evidence as to the identity of the agent.
- Digital Signature (M23). This subelement contains a digital signature applied by the agent to provide proof as to the authenticity and integrity of the record. This element is deprecated in VERS, as the same function is performed by the Signature Block (M134) element. This subelement could be used if the record has been digitally signed outside the VERS system, but agencies should note that a significant amount of information must be available to validate a digital signature.
An example of the XML representation of a minimal agent element follows:
<naa:Agent>
<naa:AgentType>Record Creator</naa:AgentType>
<naa:CorporateName>Public Record Office Victoria</naa:CorporateName>
</naa:Agent>
A more typical example of an organisational agent is:
<naa:Agent>
<naa:AgentType>Record Creator</naa:AgentType>
<naa:CorporateId>VA 683</naa:CorporateId>
<naa:CorporateName>Public Record Office Victoria</naa:CorporateName>
<naa:SectionName>VERS Centre of Excellence</naa:SectionName>
</naa:Agent>
A more extensive example of an organisational agent is:
<naa:Agent>
<naa:AgentType>Record Creator</naa:AgentType>
<naa:Jurisdiction>VIC</naa:Jurisdiction>
<naa:CorporateId>VA 683</naa:CorporateId>
<naa:CorporateName>Public Record Office Victoria</naa:CorporateName>
<naa:SectionName>VERS Centre of Excellence</naa:SectionName>
<naa:ContactDetails>PO Box 2100, Nth Melbourne, VIC 3051, Australia </naa:ContactDetails>
<naa:Email>vers@dpc.vic.gov.au</naa:Email>
</naa:Agent>
A minimal personal agent element is:
<naa:Agent>
<naa:AgentType>Registrar</naa:AgentType>
<naa:CorporateName>Public Record Office Victoria</naa:CorporateName>
<naa:PersonalName>John Smith</naa:PersonalName>
</naa:Agent>
A more extensive example of a personal agent is:
<naa:Agent>
<naa:AgentType>Registrar</naa:AgentType>
<naa:Jurisdiction>Victoria</naa:Jurisdiction>
<naa:CorporateId>VA 654</naa:CorporateId>
<naa:CorporateName>Public Record Office Victoria</naa:CorporateName>
<naa:PersonalName>John Smith</naa:PersonalName>
<naa:SectionName>VERS Centre of Excellence</naa:SectionName>
<naa:PositionName>Technical Research Manager</naa:PositionName>
<naa:ContactDetails>PO Box 2100 North Melbourne Victoria 3051 Australia</naa:ContactDetails>
<naa:Email>John.Smith@dpc.prov.vic.gov.au</naa:Email>
</naa:Agent>
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