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Accessibility of records over time: Shared Workspace Project



APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING

I am posting this message on behalf of Mike Pearson, who is not subscribed
to this list. If you can help him, please reply to:

Mike Pearson                         DDI  : +64 (4) 495-6769
S.E.E. Project Manager               Fax  : +64 (4) 495-6669
E-government Unit                    Cell : +64 (21) 631-731
State Services Commission            Email: mike.pearson@ssc.govt.nz

MESSAGE STARTS

Hi, this is a practical question for the list members.

I'm on a Shared Workspace Project:-
The goal of the Shared Workspace Project is to investigate the viability of
implementing a secure, electronic shared workspace for project and policy
development across government agencies.
http://e.govt.nz/projects/see/space/

The Workspace will
be a body of knowledge increasing over time
include records (information + context)
be in a proprietary format (e.g. MS-Word 97)
require all records to be accessible for the life of the system (say 20
years)

As we upgrade our software versions we run the risk of corporate Alzheimers,
as we lose access to information stored in earlier formats.

There are apparently three techniques for archiving /accessibility:
1. Migration "resave all documents in the latest format"
2. Emulation "Swiss army knife of converters"
3. Standard Format "lowest common denominator (ASCII)"

ASCII is not great, because you would lose information, such as "track
changes document markup".  With the advent of XML, technique 3 becomes
interesting.  You could have a cross-platform, cross-version standard format
capable of representing not only the content, but the presentation and
representation.

I am interested in whether:
1. Anyone else has considered ASCII / XML
2. There are any Wordprocessor/XML tools available

Thanks, Mike

Some more discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of each technique:

MIGRATION
+ Always accessible by people with the latest version.
Potentially unscaleable i.e. you can't convert all the old format
documents into the new version, before the next new version comes out.
Potentially inaccessible by people on older versions that can't read the
new format.
May unknowingly lose information during each conversion.

EMULATION
+ No conversion ever required just need a copy of the Swiss army knife.
Risky assumes all old formats will be included in the Swiss army knife.
Does such a Swiss army knife exist ?

STANDARD FORMAT
The text will always be available.  The attributes can be defined by XML.
May not have enough contextual information in the standard format.
May unknowingly lose information during the conversion.
No applications currently support this approach?

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MESSAGE ENDS

Deirdre T Wogan
Records Management & Archives Consultant
10 Darwin Street
Karori
Wellington
Tel 00 64 4 934 4342
Fax 00 64 4 934 4341
email dtw@actrix.gen.nz

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