3.6 Digital Archives Identification and Administration
3.6.1 Digital archiving practices
3.6.1.8 Access to digital archives
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records managers must confront and deal with the myriad of information security threats occurring in cyberspace, commonly referred to as cyberspace crimes which affect the trustworthiness of digital records and archives. In this respect, the InterPARES Trust Project recognized that blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) can be applied to records management and digital archiving to secure digital records from tampering and manipulation (Bralic, Stancic and Stengard 2020). Though there is no universally agreed definition of blockchain, the term can be described as a form of open-source technology which supports reliable, authentic records of business transactions stored and preserved in automated accessible ledgers which are devolved and distributed (Lemieux et al. 2019:6), a technology that is mainly applied in financial, land and health records. However, research is still underway regarding the use of blockchain technology in digital records and archives authentication.
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repositories. According to Bacon (2014), access to government records encourages citizen participation, promotes democracy, transparency and accountability, while secrecy and dishonoring citizen’s privacy are tenets of dictatorship regimes. In the same vein, Chaterera (2017:3) posits that access and use of archives contributes towards the political, social and economic development of citizenry. Further, Thurston (2015:704) and Murambiwa and Ngulube (2011:92) concur that access to public archives promotes transparency, accountability and good governance and accords people the opportunity to exercise their rights as citizens in a country.
Matangira and Lowry (2013:78) share similar sentiments and concur that citizens can be inclined to vouch for their government’s integrity and honesty if they are allowed access to public records.
In view of the societal significance of archival materials, preservation is recognized as a key concern for archivists in ensuring the continued survival and access of archives, otherwise known as digital continuity. An et al (2017:22) define digital continuity as the maintenance of digital information in a way that ensures the information is readily available when required and the surety that the information remains continuously accessible, usable and trustworthy for the required length of time. Therefore, digital continuity constitutes a rounded approach that aims to ensure trustworthiness, traceability and findability of digital archives in support of digital identity, e- discovery, online culture and prolonged digital life of the archival resources.
Open data and LOD are the current technological trends in the access of archival materials. In a study examining the extent to which social media platforms provide new opportunities for promoting access to archives, Garaba (2012:27) expressed the need to ensure survival and increased accessibility of archives by the public, especially in the present Millennial era where the generation of records is predominantly on social media platforms. Bacon (2014) cautioned that just as preservation is affirmed by one’s ability to access a record, accessibility can be measured by whether a record can be retrieved, comprehended and used for a specific purpose. Therefore, the two functions of preservation and access are intertwined in a continuum of related archival activities.
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Saurombe and Ngulube (2016), Onyancha, Mokwatlo and Saurombe (2013), Ngoepe and Ngulube (2011) voiced the need for archival institutions to strengthen their public image and improve on their accessibility and visibility. In agreement with these sentiments, Garaba (2012:26) alluded to the long-held perception of archives having an image problem and postulated that the onus was upon archivists to create a web presence by developing strategies to sensitize and educate potential users about the materials in their digital archival repositories. To this effect, Chaterera (2017:70) reiterates that digital technologies have unique offerings and opportunities for archivists to leverage in boosting the accessibility and use of resources in archival institutions and repositories.
Presently, archival repositories are increasingly engaging in outreach and advocacy programmes to enhance access to their resources and increase their reach, for example by digitizing their collections and creatively utilizing the new technologies which enable remote web access (Garaba 2012:22). Some commonly used technologies for outreach and advocacy include mobile devices, social media (Facebook, blogs, twitter, Wikipedia, among others), multimedia, online applications and cloud computing (Chaterera 2017:10; Garaba 2012:27-8). This new trend has been lauded by a number of scholars who have carried out studies on the opportunities presented by social media as a tool for promoting accessibility of archives (Mukwevho and Ngoepe 2019; Garaba 2012; Kallberg 2012). Besides outreach and advocacy activities, public programming has also been encouraged by scholars as a strategy for promoting access and use of archival materials (Saurombe 2016; Saurombe and Ngulube 2016; Kamatula 2010; Ngoepe and Ngulube 2011). Nevertheless, archivists need to equip themselves with relevant skills to keep pace with the changing technologies in order to persist and continue in the quest to ensure discoverability, findability, accessibility and usability of digital archives by future generations.
Privacy and security issues are intricate concerns for digital archives in universities because of the varied needs for confidentiality and privacy (Brantley 2010:9). Just like for paper records, archivists must develop access policies to protect the confidentiality of digital archives and to define any existing restrictions to safeguard the privacy of the records. In this regard, metadata is essential in affirming the authenticity of digital archives, maintaining their contextual value and enabling their
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efficient retrieval, access and use (Brantley 2010:10). Additionally, system security should be enforced at all levels (that is, system log-in, folder and file levels) by making use of technologies such as passwords, encryption and digital signatures to protect records while on transit across networks, more so in this era of de- perimeterisation or open interconnected environments (Cherdantseva and Hilton 2013:2-5). The choice of security strategies to be adopted is dependent on the format of digital archives, as well as the ICT architecture in use (Ambira 2016:90).
Last but not least, the process of records access must be guided by legal and regulatory requirements at national and organizational levels. Bacon (2014) advises that greater legal freedom to access records should be encouraged by enacting national laws that are permissive to access. Kallberg (2012) carried out a study on the role of archivists in the digital (Web 2.0) era and disclosed that archivists need skills in interpreting and applying archival legislation to guide them in making decisions on retrieval and access of archives for public use (Kallberg 2012:101). Therefore, archivists should possess knowledge and skills in legal interpretation to guide them in making decisions on access of archives. The issues revolving around records access in the age of digital technologies resonated well with the focus of this study and constituted an essential segment of this research in the context of higher learning institutions.
Efficient and effective digital archiving is a consequence of systematic and intentional records management from the point of creation to disposal. The researcher has provided a preview of continuum management activities for records in the preceding section. The records continuum model is the predominant universal framework for the management of records and is the basis for ISO 15489-2016, which is globally accepted as the best practice standard for the life-cycle management of records in all formats (Colwell 2020:24). Therefore, the present research paid attention to all recordkeeping requirements in the RC model throughout the study.
Metadata and digital archiving
Metadata focuses on aiding in the discovery of information resources and is simply defined as data about data. Recordkeeping professionals must concern themselves with collecting as much ‘data’ about ‘data’ as possible right from creation
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(Plozszajski 2017:16). According to ISO 15489:2001 Standard (section 3.12), metadata is data describing the content, context and structure of records as well as their management through time, which includes security issues, conditions of use, relationships and linkages to other records, and to records creators and business processes. Citing Beagrie and Jones (2008), Laughton (2011:51) defined metadata as information describing essential elements of a resource. A more befitting definition adopted for this study is provided by Robertson and Cunningham (2013:191). They define metadata as structured, descriptive information that enables archivists to locate, understand, manage, control and preserve d-records over time. This definition is supported by the UNESCO/PERSIST Content Task Force (2016:12) in their declaration that the five basic functional requirements for d-records metadata include enabling identification, location, description, readability and rights management.
There are six distinct types of metadata identified in the literature namely:
i. Structural metadata (gives information about how digital objects in a record group relate to each other);
ii. Descriptive metadata (provides information about digital objects to ensure their identification and retrieval);
iii. Administrative metadata (gives information about provenance, format types and rights);
iv. Preservation metadata (a subset of administrative metadata, preservation metadata documents the provenance of digital objects and the maintenance actions applied to them over time);
v. Provenance metadata (useful for evaluating the trustworthiness and authenticity of d-records); and
vi. Rights metadata (useful for controlling access to digital records and their content) (Note 2020:38; Plozszajski 2017:16).
Groenewald and Breytenbach (2010:241) reiterate that for digital objects to have any meaning to users, the content must be described with structural, technical and descriptive metadata at creation. Therefore, metadata is important in enhancing the accessibility and use of archival records, especially in digital and hybrid environments. Baron and Thurston (2016:212) opine that computer systems should be designed to systematically capture records along with metadata that describe their
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context, content, structure and management; otherwise the captured information will lack legal value because it will not be possible to demonstrate that it is authentic. The authors further advised that recordkeeping systems should be designed to automatically and systematically capture records together with metadata describing their content, context and structure and accompanying management activities, for purposes of maintaining their authenticity and subsequent legal value as evidence of business transactions (Baron and Thurston 2016:212).
Robertson and Cunningham (2013:195) summarized the purposes of recordkeeping metadata as constituting documentation of metadata attribution; documenting the history of recordkeeping events; establishing connections between related entities;
identifying all entities at all levels of aggregation; sustaining record structure, content and accessibility through time; administering or resolving recordkeeping business, including terms and conditions of access, use and disposal; and; facilitating discovery, understanding, retrieval and delivery of records.
Whereas documents may be stored in document management systems or word- processing systems for example, metadata is stored in different systems such as workflow management systems, e-mail systems or registry systems. In a nutshell therefore, to ensure effective preservation of digital archives, the metadata captured should include provenance, authenticity, preservation activities, technical environment, and rights management issues (Oehlerts and Lui 2013:89). The longevity of metadata about metadata (or meta-metadata) is therefore crucial in maintaining metadata over a long period in a usable and understandable state (Adu 2015:86). The success of digital archiving practices is determined by the importance accorded to the task of metadata harvesting, an aspect that the present study did not to ignore.