NARA’s Federal Electronic Records Modernization Initiative: An Overview

Today’s post comes from NARA’s Office of the Chief Records Officer. 

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched the Federal Electronic Modernization Initiative (FERMI) to help agencies procure the services and solutions they need to manage their electronic records. We are approaching this in a few different ways. While Federal agencies may have different missions, structures, and resources, they do have common needs for managing their electronic records. They all need to manage their records in compliance NARA’s statutes, regulations, and guidance. We want to make it easier to figure out which services and solutions meet the requirements.

FERMI emerged from the Automated Electronic Records Management Plan, written to support the Managing Government Records Directive (M-12-18). FERMI aims to to provide a government-wide, modern, cost-effective, standardized, and inter-operable set of records management solutions providing common, core functionality to support records management services for Federal agencies.

First, we are working with two groups at the General Services Administration (GSA): the Unified Shared Services Management (USSM) office under the Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement (OSSPI) and the Schedule 36 team under the Federal Acquisitions Services (FAS).   

Unified Shared Services Management

NARA is the Standards Lead for Records Management and participates on the Business Standards Council. We provide records management input to the other Services Areas (Human Capital, Financial Management, Grants Management, IT, etc.). USSM produced the Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF)  to help the Federal Government better coordinate and document common business needs across agencies and focus on outcomes, data, processes and performance.

GSA’s Schedule 36

We worked with GSA to create a Special Item Number (SIN) for Electronic Records Management (ERM) in Schedule 36. The existing SIN 51 504 was updated to solely include services related to physical records management. SIN 51 600 – Electronic Records Management Solutions was created for services necessary to provide a total ERM solution.  Vendors must self-certify they meet the Universal ERM Requirements to be included in SIN 51 600.

Universal ERM Requirements

The Universal ERM Requirements identify high level business needs for managing electronic records. They are baseline ERM program requirements derived from existing NARA regulations, policy, and guidance. They are a starting point for agencies to use when developing system requirements. Records management staff should work with acquisitions and IT personnel to tailor any final system requirements.

In addition, we worked with our stakeholder groups to develop the following two products:

Electronic Records Management Federal Integrated Business Framework (ERM-FIBF)

The ERM-FIBF is a model framework that identifies the key functions, activities, and capabilities necessary for agencies to manage their electronic records. The ERM-FIBF was developed according to standards set out in USSM’s FIBF. This document maps capabilities to authoritative references, including statutes, regulations, guidance, and standards.

Use Cases for Electronic Messages

The Use Cases for Electronic Messages serve as a tool agencies can use when procuring services or solutions to manage electronic messages. They can be used by agencies to demonstrate how vendors perform the described requirements and workflows. These are built directly off the ERM- FIBF. They tell the “stories” of how to manage electronic messages.

We posted the ERM-FIBF and Use of Cases for Electronic Messages for comment in January and received over 200 comments.

We are excited to share these updates about our FERMI project. If you are planning to attend the Joint Annual Meeting in August, you can hear more about FERMI by attending Session #405. Also you can follow NARA’s Record Express blog for FERMI updates!

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Enter the Personal Health Records Librarian (when Managing Patients’ Records, Part 3)

In Part 1 of this discussion of Managing Patients’ Records, a mobile healthcare digital assistant was identified.  It could help patients to be more engaged with managing their medical issues.  In Part 2 of this discussion, the patient, Anne, was described.  Her healthcare was not managed well due to miscommunication or no communication.  It was not because she did not want to follow-up.  She did not know when and for what to follow-up on in her healthcare until it was almost too late.  In order for the patient to understand what is going on, there has to be true patient engagement.

For Your Consideration: Adjusting the level of Archival (and RM) appraisal

A signal boost to this important post on NDIIPP’s The Signal blog, in which Meg Phillips discusses the impact of distant reading/text mining/computational analysis on the nature of archival appraisal (and, incidentally, the records management scheduling that supports same). The key passage, in my opinion, is the following:

The interesting thing about these questions is that the answersmay rely on the presence of records that would clearly be temporary if judged on their individual merits. Consider email messages like “Really sick today – not coming in” or a message from the executive of a  regulated company saying “Want to meet for lunch?” to a government policymaker. In the aggregate, the patterns of these messages  may paint a picture of disease spread or the inner workings of access and influence in government.  Those are exactly the kinds of messages traditional archival practice would try to cull. In these cases, appraising an entire corpus of records as permanent would support distant reading much better.  The informational value of the whole corpus cannot be captured by selecting just the records with individual value.

If we adjusted practice to support more distant reading, archivists would still do appraisal, deciding what is worth permanent preservation.  We would just be doing it at a different level of granularity – appraising the research value of an entire email system, SharePoint site or social media account, for example.

Yee-ikes. In a way, this isn’t new– the Capstone plan for dealing with email of the top administration of federal agencies is kind of based on the same principle, for example– but this is talking about the issue at an entirely different scale. Providing permanent access to the entirety of an organization’s information ecosystem seems like it would be a herculean task logistically, not to mention the privacy/confidentiality concerns that would come into play. Plus, I wonder if maintaining a system in its entirety would have a deleterious effect on the ability of researchers who DO still want to do close reading of individual documents to find what they’re looking for. Quicker searching and location of documents by the records creator is, after all, on of our profession’s major selling points for why people should practice records management. (To be fair, Meg does acknowledge these difficulties in her post.)

On the other hand, the overall point is a good one, and sort of gets to the heart of one of the major archival appraisal arguments: “Who are WE to determine what it is that future researchers will find useful?” Even in our own analog materials here at UWM, we have a number of records in our collections that I as a records manager would recommend be destroyed if they were being produced today–except that those records get a LOT of use from researchers looking for historical context. So maybe this shift is just proof of cycles in Archival and RM practice.  In any case, a lot to chew on– Please weigh in on the comments there or here.

Oh, also, an aside from Meg’s post: “Incidentally, on a practical level this level of appraisal might also lead to disposition instructions that are easier for creating offices to carry out.” Possibly THAT is the key point, rather than the above.

NARA’s Capstone Email Initiative: Video of Hangout Available

Many thanks to Arian and Beth for a great overview of the Initiative, and to our readers who posted questions that encouraged a great discussion!

Meet the RMRT Steering Committee: Meg Tuomala

Over the next few weeks we will be posting a little bit more about the Records Management Roundtable Steering Committee members who contribute to this blog. First up is me, Meg Tuomala!

Hello! I am Meg Tuomala, and I have been on the RMRT SC since the spring of 2012. I work in University Archives and Records Management Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where I am the electronic records archivist.

Meg Tuomala, electronic records archivist at UNC

As electronic records archivist I lead efforts within University Archives a to acquire, manage, and preserve born-digital materials. I also assist the other special collections at UNC acquire, manage, and preserve the born-digital materials that they collect. Additionally, I support UNC faculty, students, and staff in depositing digital materials into the Carolina Digital Repository (CDR), and  work with other library staff to define and implement repository policies, workflows, and capabilities. And last but not least, I’m also responsible for ensuring that the electronic records created and used by everyone here at UNC are being properly managed and preserved.

Before I came (back) to UNC, I was the Digital Archivist at the University Archives of Washington University in St. Louis. And before that I worked at at UNC as the Records Services Archivist. I have a M.S.L.S. and a B.A., you guessed it, from UNC. As you can probably gather I’m a Tar Heel born, I’m a Tar Heel bred, and when I die I’ll be a Tar Heel dead!

“[Lyrics from ‘Hark the Sound’]” in North Carolina Postcard Collection (P052), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Although I’m an archivist and not a records manager I really love records management work, and one of my favorite parts of my current job is getting to help my fellow UNC colleagues better manage their electronic records. It’s really gratifying, plus I just love going to different offices on campus and meeting new people.

Other things I love are Tar Heel basketball, Carolina BBQ (both Eastern and Lexington-styles), cooking and eating good food, and spending time with dear friends and family.