electronic records
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What are electronic records?
Electronic records are digital evidence of transactions by individuals or organizations. Though similar to paper records, their creation poses practical, legal, and technological challenges to public accountability.
Since the 1960s, the increasing creation of large databases has been driven by business needs. However, data storage systems become obsolete, which creates difficulties in retrieving and making data available. Each data migration leads to some loss in data quality. Organizations face challenges in maintaining accountability over time.
To resolve these problems, software companies developed electronic-records-management (ERM) tools to capture evidence of business transactions and associated metadata needed to interpret the transactions.
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How are electronic records different from paper records?
Electronic records differ from paper records not only in their physical form but also in the practical, legal, and technological challenges they pose for public accountability.
The creation of electronic records has been driven by the need for ever-larger databases and unstructured office systems. Unlike paper records, electronic records require maintenance and migration to new software platforms as systems become obsolete. Each migration may cause data quality loss, which makes it difficult for organizations to maintain accountability over time. Saving records in paper form has been found to be unsatisfactory because paper records do not have the same functionality as their electronic counterparts.
Electronic records' essential characteristics emphasize authenticity, reliability, integrity, and usability. Software companies have developed electronic-records-management (ERM) tools to capture evidence of business transactions and associated metadata to interpret those transactions.
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What devices or systems are used to create and store electronic records?
Electronic records are created and stored using various devices and systems. Modern information systems use binary devices that represent data as the presence or absence of energy, which are the basic components of digital technology. Databases are used to organize data for rapid search and retrieval, with database management systems (DBMS) extracting information in response to queries.
Storage media include magnetic tape, magnetic disks, and optical discs. Digital scanners and digital cameras are used to convert documents and images into digital form, while digital signal processor (DSP) chips capture sound.
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Why is security important for electronic records?
Electronic records must be secure to guarantee accountability, reliability, and integrity. Security measures ensure that records are authentic, trustworthy, complete, and readily accessible when needed.
Threats to security include computer viruses and obsolete software. Cryptographic techniques can authenticate software by creating a unique "signature" for the computer code, which is checked before each election to detect any changes. Proactive records management and collaboration with software developers are crucial for maintaining accessible and secure electronic records.
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How do people organize and find electronic records in large systems?
Electronic records in large systems are organized and found using methods that ensure authenticity, reliability, integrity, and usability. This involves using specialized electronic-records-management (ERM) tools alongside primary software to capture evidence of business transactions and associated metadata, which helps in interpreting these transactions.
Digital information is stored in complex patterns, and storage structures vary based on the relationships they represent. Common structures include sequential files, chained structures (hierarchical and network), and relational structures. Relational structures, with their two-dimensional tables, have become increasingly popular for their ability to handle unanticipated data relationships without pointers.
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What are some challenges or risks that come with using electronic records in information technology?
Electronic records in information technology present several challenges and risks. One primary concern involves maintaining data quality through migrations when systems become obsolete, which can lead to loss of data and accountability issues. Security is also a major issue; for example, electronic voting systems are vulnerable to insider attacks via malicious software. Additionally, computer viruses can infect machines, potentially altering recorded votes. Protecting the privacy and security of patient and provider information is another concern that can impede the effectiveness of electronic health records.
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electronic records, evidence, in digital form, of transactions undertaken by individuals or by organizations.
At first glance, electronic records may seem to differ only in their physical medium from paper records. But the creation of records in electronic form has created practical, legal, and technological obstacles to public accountability that have yet to be fully overcome.
The challenges are simple to illustrate. The creation since the 1960s of ever-larger databases and, subsequently, of unstructured office systems has been driven by business needâwhether in government or in the private sector. But when the systems used to store the data become obsolete, those responsible for the data are faced with formidable challenges if they are to continue to retrieve the data and to make them available. The originating software may no longer be supported by software suppliers, or it may be necessary to migrate data onto new software platforms. Each migration of data customarily involves some loss in data quality. Either way, organizations struggle to maintain accountability over timeâwhether they are pharmaceutical companies demonstrating the lineage of their products or governments responding to freedom-of-information requests.
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Attempts to resolve these problems by saving records in paper form have been found to be unsatisfactory. Paper records do not have the same functionality as their electronic counterparts. In the United States, for example, the courts held that e-mail records of the White House during the Ronald Reagan administration should not be destroyed, because paper printouts are not acceptable substitutes for the electronic records. In 1993 the trial judge in Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President commented that the two versions were not interchangeable.
During the last two decades of the 20th century, government and private agencies came to recognize that electronic records represented a significant challenge to business effectiveness and to accountability. By the turn of the century, most organizational responses to the challenge proceeded from a delineation of the essential characteristics of electronic recordsâa characterization that emphasizes the recordâs authenticity (it is what it says it is), its reliability (it is authoritative and trustworthy), its integrity (it is complete and unaltered), and its usability (it can be located, retrieved, and presented). Early in the 21st century, this focus on ârecordnessâ began finding its way into statutory definitions of records and into national and international standards.
Software companies responded to the challenge by developing specialized electronic-records-management (ERM) tools to sit alongside office systemsâand other primary softwareâand capture not just evidence of business transactions but the associated metadata needed to interpret those transactions (e.g., evidence of who sent what to whom, when). The prize in this branch of systems development is to achieve a better integration of ERM tools with desktop software and to reduce dependence on the userâwhose focus will rarely be on the archiving of the data he or she has just processed.
It is now commonly accepted that capturing and storing records in accessible form requires much earlier intervention by archivists and information managers than was the case with paper records. Within government, national archives have been seen to reorient themselves to focus much more than before on proactive records management, working with software developers and with records-creating agencies to influence how records are created. Archives failing to do this will struggle to maintain an accessible record of government.
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