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digital course descriptions (was Re: Archiving websites)



Wayne Miller wrote:
> Our college is about to do away with it's paper catalog. That is, course descriptions will be available online only. We
> respond to several queries each year from former students who require documentation (course descriptions) for courses
> they took five, ten, twenty years ago. This may be for degree, transfer, or certification purposes. Even if we 'archive'
> the website, how can we in all honesty certify, as I am sometimes required to do, that a copy of the site is a 'true
> representation' of the course description from that time?

I think there are two parts to this question:
- How do you ensure that the digital copy in your custody is official?
- How do you ensure that the copy that you just sent to someone is the same as the one in your
custody?

The answer to the first one involves having a good, well-documented electronic recordkeeping system.
For an excellent document on the sorts of considerations you should address to make sure that the
system is trustworthy, I would recommend the Trustworthy Information Systems Handbook from the
Minnesota Historical Society:
http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/tis/tis.html

One specific consideration is metadata, which should reflect things like when/how the course
description was preserved and any changes that have been made to it over time.  Obviously, it will be
important to ensure that historical values of fields in the relevant database are saved when they're
updated, rather than simply being overwritten.  As long as there are documented procedures in place
and they're followed consistently, I would be surprised if anyone challenged the legitimacy of the
course descriptions.

As for the second question, you would have to either provide digital access on your premises through a
secured machine or provide for some sort of remote authentication mechanism, most likely digital
signatures based on a public key infrastructure (PKI):
http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/ermlinks/digsig.htm

If you haven't had the chance to do so in the past, I would also suggest trying to attend the
Preservation and Access for Electronic College and University Records (ECURE) conference in Arizona in
October:
http://www.asu.edu/it/events/ecure/

It would mean a trek across the country, but the conference involves discussions of issues just like
the one you raised, among a lot of dedicated people who've been dealing with such issues in their own
university environments.  Of course, a lot of those very same people are members of this list, so
perhaps I should shut up and let them provide more helpful answers to your original question...

=========================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan             Phone: 734-647-0505
 School of Information
 http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/
   "To the extent that archival organizations are concerned
    with current record practices and the content of future
    holdings, they cannot long delay plans for appraising,
    accessioning, and servicing this new [computer] media
    of communication."
                                  - Meyer Fishbein, 1970

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