Glossary

The purpose of this Glossary is to define and explain terms used in the Data Management Policies and Standards

Agencies affected by these policies and Standards

These policies apply where any agency creates, collects or has custody of data elements and/or business documents owned by the Crown. Responsibilities attributed to an agency in these policies and standards fall ultimately to the Chief Executive Officer. see also Copyright.

Approved Data/Document Store

See Data or Document Store

Attribute

A characteristic of an object or entity

Archives/Public Archives/Archived Records

The terms archives and archived are largely avoided in the policies and standards, with a preference for reference to the retention of data or documents, some of which may have continuing value. This avoidance is because the terms are used in a range of ways in different contexts.

Back-up

The process by which electronic data and document stores are regularly copied to a medium that can be used to restore data and systems at the same or at an independent location.

Business Requirements

Business requirements are those identified by an agency as essential or useful for its operation.

Classification

"Systematic identification and arrangement of business activities and/or records into categories according to logically structured conventions, methods, and procedural rules represented in a classification scheme." (ISO 15489-1 Draft standard on records management). See also Security-Classificationfor the particular use of classification for security purposes.

Classification Scheme

An arrangement or division of objects into groups based on characteristics that the objects have in common e.g. origin, composition, structure, application, function etc. (ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E))

Collection/Creation

The process of acquiring or creating data elements or business documents, describing them, and including them in a primary authoritative data source.

Copyright

A property right primarily concerned with publication of original material. See the Copyright Act 1994: sections 14-16 for a full definition.

Copyright does not affect Crown ownership of data or documents held in databases or stores which is governed by other legislation including the Privacy Act. If material from these stores is published then intellectual property agreements including copyright may apply.

The Crown may own and may also have copyright over a document without necessarily owning data contained in it.

The Copyright Act 1994 states that the Crown holds copyright over works produced by "a person employed or engaged by the Crown'. The Crown does not hold copyright over works produced by Crown entities or State Owned Enterprises. The list of these bodies is legislated and they are as a consequence not bound to these policies and standards unless they are specifically engaged by the Crown to produced or collect data. (see also Agencies affected by these policies and standards)

Custodian - Business Custodian

The agency with the prime statutory responsibility for the creation/collection, use, improvement, retention and disposal of primary authoritative data source(s). This agency will normally be the government agency with the greatest operational interest, even if the resource is managed externally on behalf of the Crown. The Business Custodian sets standards and responsibilities for the Physical Custodian, whether or not both roles exist in the same organisation.

Custodian - Physical Custodian

The organisation, group or individual responsible (through an explicit directive or agreement) to the Business Custodian for the physical preservation of data elements or documents and for making them available for use. This will normally be the service provider controlling the physical data or document store environments. The Physical Custodian could be in the same organisation to the Business Custodian or a separate one.

Data

A representation of facts, concepts or instructions in a formalized manner, suitable for communication, interpretation or processing by humans or by automated means (ISO 2382-4 also quoted in ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E)). See also Data Objects.

Data Catalogue

See Standards: Data catalogue and function map.

Database

A collection of related structures containing data and definitions of database objects.

Data Element

See Data Objects.

Data Item

One occurrence of a Data Element.

Data objects

Data element/Simple data object

A unit of data for which the definition, identification, representation, and permissible values are specified by means of a set of attributes. (ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E)) . Elements of data can be defined by their meaning, their context and their physical properties. Includes metadata about documents and text fields in databases

Document/Complex data object

Contains multiple data elements, and is a self-contained grouping of complex data objects formatted to convey information.

Includes:

• Static Documents - electronic, paper, microfilm, large text fields including presentation information (e.g. HTML or XML pages), database BLOBs, maps, photos, digital images;

• Material with a time-based aspect. Visual items, including films/video footage; photos; digital images. Audio items, including voice-mail messages, audio-tapes e.g. recorded speeches.

Excludes:

Physical items that are not themselves formatted to convey information, but that can be described by data elements or documents. Examples are biological material and geological samples.

Business document

Business documents are those documents with specified statutory and/or public purposes that support the business of the agency. They are self-contained records of business transactions, intended for person-to-person communication. They are primarily documents received or created as part of the agency's business, e.g. correspondence, reports, e-mail, and e-mail attachments.

Non-business document

Non-business documents are typically not business-driven but, if created using Crown equipment on Crown time, they are still owned by the Crown. They do not require the same level of control, definition or integrity assurance as business documents. Agencies benefit from managing them to ensure that they are distinguished from business documents and have appropriate (short) retention periods. They include:

• Non-work material, i.e. literally 'personal'

• Trivial work-related material such as the time and place for meetings, administrative details

• Material seen by no-one except the creator and not communicated to anyone else or to file

• Copies of material sent from elsewhere and not meant to result in an action on the part of the recipient, e.g. advertising, material from the Internet

• Dynamic linked documents. These do not meet the criteria of being self-contained, and pose issues about maintaining integrity over time. A static version of a dynamic linked document could be a business document.

Data or Document Store

The physical storage space for data elements or documents. Includes electronic file systems or databases, paper based storage systems, etc.

• Approved Data or Document Store

A store that meets the explicit requirements of the business custodian for control, definition and integrity assurance of data or documents in the store.

Includes:

Database management systems, document management systems, records management systems.

Excludes:

Personal databases or electronic documents held in personal drives and physical records, where these are known only to individuals and not to the agency. Excludes systems that only provide finding aids, but includes tools for control, definition and integrity assurance

Data Warehouse

One or more data stores originating from prime authoritative data sources by an auditable replication process.

Government Agency

See Agencies affected by these policies and Standards.

Data type

"The format used for the collection of letters, digits, and/or symbols, to depict values of a data element, determined by the operations that may be performed on the data element." (ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E))

Function Map

The correlation between the functions performed by an agency and data and document stores which support them.

Information

A collection of data objects presented with definitions in a form suitable for the intended audience. Effectively then:

Information = Data Object + Definition + Presentation.

Information Interchange

"The process of sending and receiving data in such a manner that information content or meaning assigned to the data is not altered during transmission." (ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E)).

Legislation

Government laws, including Acts, Regulations, Rules, Orders in Council

Metadata

"Metadata is data describing stored data: that is, data describing the structure, data elements, interrelationships, and other characteristics of electronic records." (DOD 5015.2-STD)

"Metadata is the information and documentation which makes data understandable and shareable for users over time." (ISO/IEC 11179-1:1999(E), p.30)

1. For data elements held in a data store, their properties are also called metadata. These typically include size, data type, textual definition, etc. plus context properties e.g. whether the data element is mandatory or optional within its data set.

2. For a business document this includes the name of the author and/or the creator, the date it was created and/or edited, the name of the document, access rights, classification, etc.

3. For data and document stores, metadata describes the properties of the store or dataset.

Ownership

See Policies: Ownership.

Policy

A course or principle of action. Policies arehigh level, focused, and specific actions can be derived from them.

Prime Authoritative Data Source

The data or document store that is authorised by the Business Custodian as the prime source for a defined set of data. This source will be the master record for any other copies, and holds the "correct" and up-to-date data for that data set.

Principle

A fundamental truth or law as the basis for reasoning or action. In particular here, principles are an agreed set of assumptions, as the basis for the derivation of policies.

Publish

Make publicly known (Concise Oxford Dictionary). Make widely available by one or more active delivery mechanisms, either within a specific group or agency or to a group of agencies or to the public in general.

A document management system alone is not a publishing system because it has a passive delivery mechanism - i.e. you search for what you want in a mixed set of unrestricted and restricted material. Production and distribution of printed material is publishing, as is electronic delivery via a structured website. Electronic publishing may be a replication of existing material or a link to material in a database or DMS.

Records

"Recorded information, in any form, including data in computer systems, created or received and maintained by an organization or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs and kept as evidence of such activity". (AS4390).

Recovery

The process of recovering electronic data or documents, without loss, from a corrupted state caused by system or other errors.

Representation (of data)

The combination of a value domain, data type, and, if necessary, a unit of measure or a character set.

Restore

The process of restoring an electronic data or document store from back-up media at the same or an alternate location. Normally only required in the event of a general disaster and may involve some data loss from work done after the last viable back-up.

Retention and Disposal Schedules

In order to manage records effectively, an agency should develop a retention and disposal schedule. A schedule allows the agency to describe classes or groups of records that are of archival value, while they are still current, and to ensure their appropriate management. It also permits the identification of other records for timely destruction. This applies to records in any medium.

If a Retention Schedule is agreed with National Archives, then disposal and archiving can be undertaken as normal business processes. The two parties also negotiate:

• Whether the records will be transferred to National Archives or retained in the agency to agreed standards

• What access the public will have to those archived records

Security-Classification

(Adapted from papers written by the Interdepartmental Committee on Security)

A system of graded levels of security, where each grade has a prescription based on the damage that is likely to result from the unauthorised disclosure of information or material. These security-classifications "shall be applied" for material relating to "the security, defence or international relations of New Zealand" and "may also be applied" to "information or material of special sensitivity relating to ... the maintenance of the law or the economy of New Zealand". (Cabinet Directive [CO (82) 14]). See also Classification, used for the categorisation of information.

Standard

"A standard is a published document that sets out the minimum requirements necessary to ensure that a material, structure, product, method or system will do the job it is intended to do." (Standards New Zealand)

Standards can demonstrably be met or not met through observable and testable evidence. They set limits and are more detailed and explicit than policies. They differ from procedures in that a procedure is a way of proceeding, especially a mode of conducting business or a description of how to do something.

Statutory requirements

Statutory requirements are those imposed on the agency by legislation (Acts and Regulations) or by court rules

Stewardship

See Stewardship Policy

Text

Text is the combination of alpha and numeric characters to denote words, terms, numbers, identifiers, etc. Text can occur in a data element, or can be part or all of the content of a document.

Version

A document version or (revision) is the form of a document that is saved as a version subsequent to the original or to another version. The form may be a draft or a final." (Sutton).

Vital Records

"Vital Records are those records without which the organization could not function. In identifying vital records, consideration should be given to those records which are needed to:

• Operate the organization's functions after an emergency or disaster

• Re-establish the organization's functions after an emergency or disaster

• Establish and protect the rights and interests of the organization and its clients"

• (Australian Records Management Standard AS4390)

"Records identified as essential for the continuing conduct of an organization's business, including the recreation of its legal status and determining the rights and obligations of its stakeholders." (ISO/CD 15489-1)

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