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Capturing the Evidence: Strategies for Keeping
Records of Web Activity
A presentation by Adrian Cunningham from the National Archives
of Australia for the Keeping Government Publications Online : Guidelines
for Commonwealth Publishers Seminar, July 2002.
If you have Powerpoint available you may access the actual
presentation - Capturing the Evidence: Strategies for
Keeping Records of Web Activity
An outline of the presentation is below.
Key Points
- Online Service Delivery can place corporate memory and evidence at
risk if recordkeeping precautions are not put in place
- Archives produces guidelines that can help agencies to address the
problem
- Guidelines are mandated by the Government Online Strategy
Recordkeeping issues for Web resources
- Is a web site a publication or record?
- How do we capture and maintain records of web-based activity?
- Can an agency be held accountable for something it had on its web
site a year ago?
- No single 'rule' exists to cover all types of scenarios
Diversity of web resources
- Static websites/resources
- Static websites/resources with form-based interactivity
- Web sites/resources based on dynamic data access
- Dynamically-generated websites/resources
Archiving Web Resources
A policy for keeping records of web-based activity in the Commonwealth
Government
First released in March 2000 - http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/publications/archiving-web-policy.aspx
Objective
To provide clear policy direction to Commonwealth Agencies on their
responsibilities to create, capture, manage and retain web-based records for as
long as required.
Agency responsibilities for recordkeeping
- creating and managing full & accurate records of transactions
and activities
- setting up appropriate systems
- written policies and user training
- ensuring records are kept secure, authentic and useable
- enabling public access when required
Best Practice Statements
- Full and accurate records of web-based activities and transactions
should be made and kept
- Agencies should conduct risk assessments of their web-based
activities
- Adequate metadata is essential to manage, understand and find the
records
- Agencies must keep reliable records of the information that is made
available via their web sites
Archiving Web Resources
Guidelines for keeping records of web-based activity in the
Commonwealth Government - Released March 2001
Content of the Guidelines
- Responsibilities
- Diversity of web-based resources
- Fundamentals of good web-based recordkeeping
- Risk Assessment
- Strategic and technological options
- Storage and preservation issues
- Determining the best option
Fundamentals of good web-based recordkeeping
- Take a systematic approach
- Assign and document responsibilities
- Determine requirements for records
- Apply metadata
- Capture records into recordkeeping systems
Assessing Risk
- Factors to consider:
- Public visibility of the agency
- Purpose of the web site
- Complexity of the web site
- Frequency and regularity of content change
Strategic and Technological Options
Object and/or Event Driven Approaches
Object Driven Approaches
Managing the 'objects' that constitute or are made available via a web
site
Site maps are important to preserve as a record of relationships
between content
Managing Objects Separately
metadata store:
absolute URI
data object
MIME
type
Start and end date of data object-URI association
Publication
records
AGLS metadata
"Snapshots of Web sites"
- Example of an object-driven approach
- Taking periodic snapshots of the site in combination with tracking
changes to the site
- Can be useful for simple, stable sites
Factors to Consider
- Complexity of the site
- Purpose of the site
- Results of risk assessment
- Results of analysis of recordkeeping requirements
Event Driven Approaches
Capturing 'events' or transactions that occur between the website and
the user
Capturing Events
- date / time of event
- domain address of user
- user profile
- query or other actions performed
- the resources served to the user with relevant metadata attached
What About Metadata?
- Use AGLS metadata to help people find your online publications
- Create and manage recordkeeping metadata for administrative and
evidential purposes
- The NAA maintains the standards for both AGLS and recordkeeping
metadata
- There is overlap between AGLS and R/K metadata - the same metadata
can often be reused for both purposes
Preservation Issues
Maintaining web-based records over time:
- Ensure records are properly managed and protected
- Coping with Obsolescence - copying, migrating, reformatting
- Use Open Architecture standards
- Use persistent identifiers for online resources
Retention/Disposal Options
- Web objects can be 'sentenced' under the AFDA/Keyword AAA
Publication Function
- Records of events/transactions should be sentenced under the
appropriate Function/Activity, usually in an agency Records Disposal Authority
- Archival records can be transferred to NAA custody, unless they
have been taken into PANDORA
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