The  New  Information  Landscape  The  Archivist  and  Architect  –  Drawing  on  a  Common  Map?    Göran  Samuelsson  Mid-­‐Sweden  University,  CEDIF  -­‐  Centre  for  Digital  Management   Abstract  For a long time the archival profession has argued with great tenacity for the importance of working proactively. Nevertheless, we are still far from achieving this goal. In today’s environment in which an increasing volume of digital information is used by more and more over longer periods of time, the need for orderliness is increased. How can we get a better map of todays digital information flows and simultaneously assure the quality of information over time? This paper highlights the need to focus on an overall information management from the first sketch of an information system to eternity. To create the conditions for a good information management it is necessary for archivists to improve their knowledge in information architecture and establish liaison with enterprise information architects. This paper aims to develop a mutual understanding for both disciplines’ techniques and methods and suggests ways they can work together to develop even more efficient information management strategies and methods. Author  Göran Samuelsson PhD is Assistant Professor in Archives and Information Science at Mid Sweden University and Project Leader for CEDIF, the Centre for Digital Information Management. Earlier he worked as an archive coordinator at the National Land Survey of Sweden, dealing with organizational, strategic questions and large digitization projects. His research interests include storage and long-term preservation of records in the digital environment; recordkeeping systems dealing with geospatial information; and education and professional development for the archives and records management community. He is a member of the Swedish ISO/SIS group for records management, the Swedish representative for European Spatial Data Research (EuroSDR) and a member of the Data Archiving Working Group.

1.  Introduction  

For a long time the archival profession has argued with great tenacity for the importance of working pro-actively. Nevertheless, we are still far from achieving this goal. This article aims to highlight the problem and will suggest some ways to achieve these objectives sooner. It draws from research undertaken within

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the Centre for Digital Information Management (CEDIF) at Mid Sweden University.1 The project had four main tasks. To:

• Develop and establish a centre for archives and information management at the Mid Sweden University

• Develop models for electronic information management (Research part) • Develop a digital systems laboratory • Disseminate and communicate experiences, knowledge and results. This article will primarily focus on phase (b) dealing with research. The research part of the project

had the ambition to cover the total range of information management in seven different aspects (see below) whereas the main focus for this text is on the first dot points:

1. Enterprise content management & enterprise architecture 2. Business process management 3. Documentation 4. Records management/ recordkeeping 5. Metadata 6. The borders between records management and archives management: The archive as a function 7. Systems for long-term preservation

In one way this structure with seven dots also reflected the information flow and it´s way from a

think/planning phase to management of information for eternity. This ambition emerges among others from the strong growth in digital information. In the last decade we have seen an increase and widespread re-use of information through different e-services. Another drivers had been legal aspect in the finance sector as – SOX2 and the European Basel,3 collecting and gathering of information in the area of Environment and Health. Even the European PSI-directive (Public Sector Information 1 July 2005)4 has actively influenced the business to create more structured and complete digital information flows for access. Then we have the more internal and business-driven reason for the growing amount of information. The Business Applications has striving towards fully digital management and an online e-services 24 hours seven days a week. The need for the business to support long-term customer and business relations create information to be kept for many years. Using older data for statistics and analysis is a growing business either it´s called Business Intelligence or Big Data. The storage industry expects the information to grow 50 times compered with today to year 2020.5 All this information will require more storage space. The only thing we with some certainty can say about the future of everyday life is; an increasing amount of information that is used longer by growing numbers of people. Therefore it is becoming increasingly important to have good order at an early stage. To come from a stage where the business process looks more like a mess. 1 www.miun.se/cedif 2 Sarbanes–Oxley, Sarbox or SOX, is a United States federal law that set new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. It is named after sponsors U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH) 3 Basel III is a global regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and market liquidity risk agreed upon by the members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010-11 4 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/actions_eu/policy_actions/index_en.htm 5 http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2011/06/2011-idc-digital-universe-study-big-data-is-here-now-what.html

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Figure 1.1. Information flow mess

To a more analysed and structure way is the goal for many business today.

Figure 2.1. Information flow good order

2.  The  Archivist’s  Mission  -­‐  tools  and  methods  

Before I describe in more detail the (Swedish) archivist’s method and approach to creating this “good order at an early stage” you need some knowledge about the settings in a Swedish context and about the Swedish framework. First and quite important, why create and keep archives? In Sweden we have the

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Archive Act6 stating that public records must be preserved, kept and managed so that they meet the rights of:

1. Access to public records, 2.The need for justice and administration 3. Research

It indicates strong support for transparency and control of government functions. Since 1766 Sweden has had a Freedom of the Press Act. It provides each and every one of the Swedes free access to all records of central and local government. This is called the Principle of Public Access (Offentlighetsprincipen). And in an archival context it might also be important to add that Sweden doesn’t distinguish between Records managers and Archivists. We have just one profession dealing with the information from creation to eternity – the archivist.

In 2009 the Swedish National Archives published a regulation for dealing with electronic information and records.7 The regulation stresses that the electronic information should be useable for eternity. “The electronic records shall continuously be produced, transmitted, recorded, handled, stored and managed so that they can be presented repeatedly during the time that they will be preserved...”8 These activities shall be executed in accordance with the strategy stated in chapter 3 “Strategy and planning for preservation of electronic documents.” The first and second paragraph in that chapter say that an “Agency shall establish a strategy for preservation of electronic documents… which should be continuously supplemented and updated.”9 The documentation must be presented in a cohesive way and also linked to or integrated with the agencies’ archival descriptions.10 This archival description has it own regulation (RAFS 2008:4), which should make it possible to:

• Understand the relationships between business and actions, • Give a total overview of the documentation • Make it possible to search in this documentation • Support the handling and management of these documents.

The archival description must cover all the Agency's documents and also have a classification structure with process descriptions and an archival inventory.11 In the next part will we have closer look at the method and tools to master these requirements.

3.  Methodology  for  business  analysis  and  document  classification    

Swedish archivists are now required to use a process-oriented description system based on their knowledge of how business information is generated within the organisation. The basis for this work has often been to use the information and documentation plan for the actual business. The documentation plan

6 The Swedish Archive Act (SFS 1990:782 §3) 7 RAFS 2009:1 (Swedish National Archives regulations) 8 RAFS 2009:1 Chapter 4 - 1 §. 9 RAFS 2009:1 Chapter 3 – 2-3 § 10 RAFS 2009:1 Chapter 5 Documentation 1 § 11 RAFS 2008:4Chapter

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gives authority for the necessary controls and oversight of the public documents, facilitates the archivist’s work and improves the public's ability to access and re-use information. The plan indicates what processes and activities exist and what documents are created and managed in them; records the document types, formats, media and appropriate storage strategies for them; and which records are protected by confidentiality, retention periods, etc. I will shortly describe the different steps in the creation of this plan. These steps closely follow the first part of ISO 15489 (Step A: Preliminary investigation, Step B: Analysis of business activity, Step C: Identification of recordkeeping requirements). First, the business purpose and mission, etc. is documented. Then the most important processes are documented, activities are described and an overarching process map is created, preferably also documenting the processes graphically.

Figure 3.1. Overarching process map  

3.1  Requirements  for  records  

After these first steps it´s time to focus on information about the core business processes and connect the records/information objects to functions, processes, activities and transactions.

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Figure 4.1. Processes and information objects

At this point the archival format and storage medium for digital documents is decided, and appraisal and disposal is determined. The criteria for sufficient metadata must also be defined. This results in a document-plan or information-plan where all essential data about the business information assets will be documented.

Figure 5.1. Document Plan

Bˆ rjan Aktivitet 1 Aktivitet 2 Aktivitet 3Beslut Slut

Dokument DokumentDokument

ProcessnivÂ

AktivitetsnivÂ

Transaktions-nivÂ

Dokument

PROCESS

Dokument

TransaktionTransaktionTransaktion

TransaktionTransaktion

TransaktionTransaktion

Transaktion

Dokument Dokument

Symboler enl SS-ISO 5807

Transaktion H‰ndelseTransaktion Transaktion

Nämnd VerksamhetProcessområden

Processer/Aktiviteter:

IT-stöd

Senast ändrad

Format Förvar Format Förvar

Inköp av mediaSambindningslistor S P Avd 1 år -Inköpsförslag och gallringsförslag S P Avd (Word) (N) Vid inakt -Minnesanteckningar, tidskrifts-inköpsmöten

S P Avd Word N 10 år -

o s v

Kultur- och fritidsnämndenKultur - Museum - BibliotekInformation - Program - Mediaförsörjning

Inköp av media - Katalogisering - Libra-registrering - Cirkulation - Fjärrlån - Mediagallring

Officepaketet, LibraDokumentombud

Process (rubrik)-Handlingsslag-Handlingsslag-

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I Bengtsson

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4.  Architect  -­‐  Mission,  tools  and  working  methods  

Parallel to these “archival” developments, a new cadre of information workers has emerged over the past two decades. An overarching description for them could be ‘IT-architect’ and although the ‘T’ in ‘IT’ was initially over-emphasised by this new group, the importance of information has increasingly come into focus. This group originated as an information technology (IT) discipline. Initially it focused on promoting the strategic development of an organisation’s IT systems by modelling the organisation and by aligning IT purchasing and development with business priorities. In recent years the scope of enterprise architecture has expanded beyond the IT domain and enterprise architects are increasingly taking on broader roles relating to organisational strategy and change management.

It was around the year 1987 when this field that soon came to be known as enterprise architecture (EA) was born. The field initially began to address two problems:

• System complexity - organisations were spending more and more money building IT systems;

and; • Poor business alignment - organisations were finding it more and more difficult to keep those

increasingly expensive IT systems aligned with business need. An IT system was unmanageably complex and increasingly costly to maintain. They hindered the organisation's ability to respond to current and future market conditions in a timely and cost-effective manner. Mission-critical information consistently was out-of-date and/or just plain wrong.

Many times almost a culture of distrust emerges between the business and technology sides of the organisation.12

Figure 6.1. Mr. Business/IT

12 Roger Sessions, Object Watch Inc (2007). http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx

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4.1  Some  definitions  of  EA  

Regardless of perspective in different EA-traditions, the idea is to establish a more holistic perspective over the organization with a mission to facilitate more efficient management.13 The Gartner group had defined EA as “the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution”.14 In the United States the government had worked intensively to create a more overarching vision for their work and state that EA “ … defines the mission of an agency and describes the technology and information needed to perform that mission, along with descriptions of how the architecture of the organisation should be changed in order to respond to changes in the mission”.15

The scope for EA is generally widely applicable and possible to adopt in both the public and the private sector. It is possible to create an architecture for an entire business or corporation or a part of a larger enterprise, a conglomerate of several organisations, such as a joint venture or partnership, or a multiply-outsourced business operation. Since the scope could be so wide, an important first step is to define the boundary of the enterprise to be described. “Enterprise” means often more than the information systems employed by an organisation, the term enterprise includes the whole complex, socio-technical system, including people, information, technology and business (e.g. operations). Composing holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them. 4.2  Methods  and  tools  

Enterprise architects use various methods and tools to capture the structure and dynamics of an enterprise. In doing so, they produce taxonomies, diagrams, documents and models. The first attempt to give EA more formal structure was The Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architectures, although self-described as a framework, it is actually more accurately defined as a taxonomy.16

13 Tamm, T., Seddon, P. B., Shanks, G. & Reynolds, P. (2011), Delivering Business Value Through Enterprise Architecture. http://toomastamm.com/cv/files/BusinessValueOfEA.pdf. 14 http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-architecture-ea/ 15 http://us-code.vlex.com/vid/sec-definitions-19256361 16 Zachman, J. A. 1987. A framework for information systems architecture. IBM Systems Journal, 26, 276-292.

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Figure 7.1. Zachman grid Another, more cooperatively developed framework, which is more accurately labelled as a process is “The Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF)”. The Gartner Methodology can be best described as an enterprise architectural practice. A blended methodology is that in which bits and pieces from each of these or other methodologies are chosen modified and merged according to the specific needs of your organisation.17

TOGAF divides enterprise architecture into four categories: 1. Business architecture—Describes the processes the business uses to meet its goals 2. Application architecture—Describes how specific applications are designed and how they interact

with each other 3. Data architecture—Describes how the enterprise data stores are organized and accessed 4. Technical architecture—Describes the hardware and software infrastructure that supports

applications and their interactions

17 Roger Sessions ObjectWatch, Inc. May 2007. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx

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TOGAF describes itself as a framework. But the most important part of TOGAF is the Architecture Development Method, ADM, a recipe for creating architecture, a process. Viewed as an architectural process, TOGAF in many ways complements Zachmans model which is an architectural taxonomy. Zachman tells you how to categorize your artefacts. TOGAF gives you a process for creating them. TOGAF views the world of enterprise architecture as a continuum of architectures, ranging from highly generic to highly specific. It calls this continuum the Enterprise Continuum. TOGAF's ADM provides a process for driving this movement from the generic to the specific.18

Examples of enterprises where information management is the business – or an important part of the business:

• Business intelligence systems • Public libraries, databases, and register systems • Production of official statistics • Knowledge bases and open access journals • Research-support systems • E-commerce systems • Archive management

I think it is important to note that most of these enterprises are multi-purpose and serve partly unknown customers and needs. Complex metadata subsystems and data quality issues are typically essential.

There are many different definitions of information architects. In this context, I will mainly focus on the category known as business information architects.

Figure 8.1. Architect levels

18 Roger Sessions ObjectWatch, Inc. May 2007. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx

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5.  Modeling  and  analysing  the  business  

The Business Architect works and analyses mainly within these three areas: the processes, the information objects and the IT-system. It´s common for the business information architects to start to create a process map.

Figure 9.1. Modelling and analysing the business  

5.1  Process  

The event or events that start the processes are mapped, then the directional flow of processes and the sequence of processes in the business are outlined, finally the outcomes of the processes are documented. The processes are also described in plain text.

Figure 10.1. Process Flowchart

 

 

5.2  Information  

The next step is to create a comprehensive information model. Master data, that is more stable data, is oriented towards a person, infrastructure or product. Business activities are less stable and have a high

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modification rate with additional data. An information object must be essential to the business, have one or more attribute and be identified by a stable and unique key.

Figure11.1. Information objects

Find the most central information objects - like a classic object as Customer, Employer, and Product etc.

• Prioritize until a manageable number of key objects remain (about 25-35) • Make the array of relationships based on these objects • Have an information modeller make proposals for object grouping. Reconcile this with

business, management and IT architects. It is also common to colour-code the different objects/resources, and group them with business events in the middle and the various resources around.

Object

EMPLOYEE

EMPLNO NAME ADDRESS PHONE NO

Attribute Key EMPLOYEE

STAFF No NAME ADDRESS PHONE NO 1234 Malmgren Birgit Lövstigen 23 08-252610 3418 Månsson Bertil Storgatan 16A 0431-16105 4567 Malmgren Birgit Riddarvägen 32 0523-61200 9291 Malmqvist Owe Lövstigen 23 021-147031

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Figure12.1. Information objects – summary 5.3  Analysis  

The analysis provided by a business architect is based on the current situation, but its primary purpose is to sketch out a more optimal scenario and improved flow for the business.

To get an overview of how information is handled in the current system a matrix is developed in which the most important IT-systems are represented, indicating which information objects are supported by which system(s).

Figure13.1. Information analyse

Person Infrastructure Product Business activities

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Several black dots in the same column mean that the same data is created in multiple processes. It's not good to have different systems that create the same data. Second, it shows that a particular process is dependent on the data produced in another process. This shows the necessity of making data available in the entire operation to prevent duplication. This provides great potential for improvement. The objective is to:

1. Obtaining data once at the source and making it available to all systems 2. Make data/information system structure independent of the organization 3. Ensure that information resources support business development

Figure14.1. Vision

6.  Conclusion  -­‐  Similarities  and  Differences  

The Business Architect’s focus is here and now and then his next step is to create a map showing the way to improvement. The Archivist also focuses on here and now but looks further forward in time - in principle towards eternity. He does not have a stated goal of improving operations, as does the business architect. The Archivist’s mission is to document the business, as it is - good or bad. 6.1  Common  characteristics  

The Archivist usually makes a more detailed process map and follows the different parts of the process down to the document/information object level, whereas the business architect usually stays at an overview level. In the two professions’ approaches to information modelling one can find buried in the archivist’s document plan traces of the business architect’s ways of working with information objects. There are, however, still major differences and further work is required to synchronize these two different ways of looking at information objects.

Both groups will benefit greatly by ensuring that their various tools and definitions for process mapping become harmonized, so that both groups use the same scales of notation, definition of common

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terms etc. Information modelling can then be supplemented by and harmonized with the archivist’s Document Plan

Collaboration is needed – otherwise it will be impossible to achieve the ambition of the regulations in the Swedish National Archive (RA-FS 2009:1). The DIRKS19 methodology is in many respects similar to developing enterprise architecture, particularly in the analysis of an organisation’s business activities (Step C of the DIRKS Methodology). A functional analysis closely matches the business layer of enterprise architecture. Business classification schemes can therefore be very useful resources when shared. Records and archive managers have sound knowledge of their organisation’s information assets (taxonomies, retention and disposal authorities, records control systems, preservation regulations). Business architecture is also used as a strategic tool, aiming to influence how the organization works towards achieving its goals/mission. Linking archival and records management goals to that vision of an organisation’s future promotes the strategic development of the organisation’s archive- and records management capacity.

In today’s environment in which an increasing volume of information is used by more and more over longer periods of time, the need for orderliness and collaboration is increased. Thus it is very important that the long-term accessibility of information is considered in the initial mapping of business activities. If we want to create better quality in our information flows, it is necessary that the two groups start to cooperate. So it´s time to create benefits for the future – begin immediately to integrate the long-term supply of information in the information architect's first sketch map. Finally I would like to emphasize the importance of including the archivist clearly and highlight their role in the future of information management and the need of a common map. If you do not know the past, you will not understand the present, and then not be able to shape the future.

19 DIRKS (Developing and Implementing a RecordKeeping System) presented in ISO 15489 is an 8-step methodology familiar to systems developers. DIRKS is comprised of eight steps: Step A - Preliminary investigation Step B - Analysis of business activity Step C - Identification of recordkeeping requirements Step D - Assessment of existing systems Step E - Identification of strategies for recordkeeping Step F - Design of a recordkeeping system Step G - Implementation of a recordkeeping system Step H - Post implementation review Read more here: https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/dirks-manual/introducing-the-dirks-methodology/dirks-methodology-and-manual