This glossary provides definitions, and sometimes further explanations, of key terms and abbreviations as they are used in the AIIM ERM Courses. Where appropriate, formal definitions are taken from country or international standards referred to in the courses.

Access
The ability or opportunity to gain knowledge of stored information.
Source: US DOD 5015.2-STD.

Accessibility
The availability and usability to specific groups.
Source: UK e-Government Metadata Standard v3.
This describes the degree to which records are usable by users with physical, visual, hearing, and cognitive or neurological disabilities.

Administration
Activities performed by a system administrator … such as monitoring security configuration, managing allocation of user names and passwords, monitoring disk space and other resource use, performing backups, and setting up new hardware and software.
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

Aggregation
A collection of records – a volume, a file or a class.

AIIM
Association for Information and Image Management
See www.aiim.org

Asymmetric key encryption
A way to encrypt data that uses two keys, one to encrypt data and the second to decrypt it. One key is called the private key because it is always kept secret, and the other key is called the public key because it can be freely shared.
Also called public key cryptography.

Audit Trail
An electronic means of tracking interactions with records within an electronic system so that any access to the record within the electronic system can be documented as it occurs or afterward.
Source: US DOD 5015.2-STD (extract).

Authenticity
An authentic record is one that is proven:
• To be what it purports to be,
• To have been created or sent by the person purported to have created it or sent it,
• To have been created or sent at the time purported.
Source: ISO 15489

Authoritative
Four characteristics of an authoritative record:
• Authenticity,
• Integrity,
• Reliability,
• Usability.
Source: ISO 15489

BCS
Business Classification Scheme.

Bitwise checking
A technique to detect and correct corruption caused by media degradation.
The technique relies on continual checking of copies against each other and the replacement of any copy found to have an error with a fresh copy.

Born Digital
Created in electronic form rather than on a physical medium such as paper.

Bulk import
The automatic transfer of numerous electronic documents and/or records, from a network file system, legacy, or other system into the ERM system.

Capture
Registration, classification, addition of metadata and storage of a record in a system that manages records.

Certification Scheme
A procedure that provides an independent test of ERM software against a standard specification, issuing a certificate of the results.
Sometimes called testing regime.

Checksum Calculation
A technique to detect and correct corruption caused by media degradation.
The technique relies on continual re-calculation of checksums and the replacement of any copy found to have an error with a fresh copy.

Class
A set of related classes or files.

Classification scheme
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 system.
Source: ISO 15489 (definition of “classification” from this standard).
See also fileplan.

Close
(verb) The process of changing the attributes of a file or volume so that it is no longer able to accept the addition of records.

Closed
Describes a file or volume which has been closed and so cannot accept the addition of records.

Compliance
Obey[ing] an order, rule or request.
Source: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
In the context of ERM, used to mean obeying laws, regulations and standards.

Concept of Operations
A high-level document produced at the start of an ERM implementation project, which lays out the broad vision of the ERM-enabled organisation and some of its key components.

ConOps
See Concept of Operations.

Controlled vocabulary
A set of terms used to limit or validate metadata entered by users.
Examples include: a list of languages; a list of office codes; a list of document types.

CSF
Critical Success Factor.

DCMI
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.
“…an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.”
Source: http://dublincore.org

Declaration
The process of defining that a document’s contents (and some of its metadata attributes) are frozen as it formally passes into corporate control and is thereby declared as a record.
Source: UK TNA 2002 specification.

Description
An account of the content of the resource.
Examples of description include, but are not limited to: an abstract, table of contents, reference to a graphical representation of content or a free-text account of the content.
Source: http://dublincore.org

Dewey Decimal Classification
A classification scheme used in libraries.

Digital Certificate
The form in which public keys are exchanged.
A digital certificate not only stores the public key for distribution, it also binds the key to its owner.
See Public-key Infrastructure.

Digital preservation
The process of ensuring that a digital object is accessible over the long term.

Digital Rights Management
A group of technical methods used to control or restrict the use of digital content.
For example: watermarking, copy protection and expiry dates can be used to protect the content of records.

Digital signature
Extra data appended to a message which identifies and authenticates the sender and message data using public-key encryption.

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing http://www.foldoc.org

Discovery
The phase in a legal dispute when the opposing parties gather evidence and share it before the trial goes to court.
Note: may not apply in all jurisdictions.

Disclosure
The act of making information available because of a legal requirement.
For example, in response to freedom of information or privacy requests.

Disposition
The action that is taken when a record reaches the end of its retention period. The three main options are: destroy/delete, transfer to an archive, or review by the record owner.

Document
Recorded information or object which can be treated as a unit.
Source: ISO 15489.

DRM
See Digital Rights Management.

EDM
Electronic document management.

EDRM
Electronic document and records management.

e-GIF
The UK e-Government Interoperability Framework.
See http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif.asp

Electronic records management
The application of records management to physical and electronic records by a computer system.

Electronic records management system
A computer application that can manage electronic records and physical records.

Element
(in the context of metadata) a property of a resource. As intended here, “properties” are attributes of resources – characteristics that a resource may “have”, such as a Title, Publisher, or Subject.
Source: Dublin Core Initiative.
An “element” can be considered equivalent to a “field” in IT terms.

Emulation
The imitation of the behaviour of a computer system with the help of another type of computer or system.
For example, used in a Digital Preservation situation to enable the old ERM system that created the records to run on a new platform (computer operating system and/or hardware).
Source http://en.wikipedia.org

Encryption
To alter (a file, for example) using a secret code so as to be unintelligible to unauthorized parties.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

Ephemeral
Not sufficiently significant, and without sufficient long term interest, to be considered a record.

ERMS
See electronic records management system.

Evidential weight
Weight, or importance, a court (that is, the judges or jury) can give to the evidence.
See also Legal admissibility.

File
1. (Physical file): A device for holding physical documents
2. (Electronic file): A set of related electronic records.

File Format
The internal structure and/or encoding of a file that allows it to be interpreted or rendered in human accessible form.
Source: Cornwell/TNA.

Fileplan
The full set of classes, and the folders which are allocated to them, together make up a fileplan.
Source UK TNA Specification 2002.

Format
See File Format.

Format obsolescence
The inability to continue to use a file format because one or more of the many software components involved in the processing ‘chain’ between the information stored in that format and the rendered information has changed, is no longer available, or is no longer supported by the supplier.
For example: encoding standards, file formats, and application, database, utility, and operating system software.

Globally Unique Identifier
A 128 bit number conventionally expressed as groups of hexadecimal numbers.

GUID
Globally Unique Identifier.

HSM
1. Hierarchic Storage Management.
2. Hierarchic Storage Manager.

Hybrid
In the context of ERM, used to indicate a mixture of electronic physical records.
For example: a hybrid file contains physical and electronic records.

ICR
Intelligent Character Recognition.

Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.
Source: http://http://dublincore.org
For example, in the context of ERM, the resources are records, files, classes etc.

iHub
Information specialist team working in close proximity to the end users, to help them configure the ERM system to their preferred ways of working, and to provide hands-on support.

Indexing
1. The process of capturing relevant metadata associated with records.
2. The process that supports full-text search of records, by generating a complete index, for all records that can be searched, of the exact position of every occurrence of every word, except for common words like conjunctions and prepositions, in the repository.

Information Governance
The accountability for the management of an organisation’s information assets (especially its records), in order to achieve business purposes, and compliance with any relevant legislation or regulations.

Information Governance Framework
Group of elements that, taken together, ensure information is well managed within an organisation.
Typically includes policies, processes, standards, people (roles and responsibilities), supporting tools and technology, and regular auditing to ensure compliance with these policies and standards.
Sometimes known as IGF.

Information Manager
Role in an organization responsible for aspects of information provision within a business area.

Inheritance
Principle by which an object can take on a metadata attribute of its ‘parent’ entity, by either:
• Inheritance on creation, where the subordinate (or ‘child’) object takes the value of that attribute when it is created,
• Retrospective inheritance, where either the attribute of the parent object is changed or the parent object is altered (e.g. by moving a folder in the fileplan so that it has a new parent object).

Instrument
Any construct which needs to be prepared, then governed and maintained, to ensure the integrity of the ERM system at all times.
For example: a classification scheme based on business activities, a records disposition authority, a security and access classification scheme, a register of employees and system user permissions, a thesaurus of preferred terms, a glossary of terms or other vocabulary controls.

Integrity
The property of being complete and unaltered.
Source: ISO 15489.

IPR
Intellectual Property Rights.

Keywords
Items in a Controlled Vocabulary.

Legal admissibility
Describes what a court of law will and will not accept as evidence in a case.
Sometimes used incorrectly to express Evidential Weight.

Legal Hold
A status applied to records that must not be disposed of, as they are required, or may be required, in a legal case.

Lexicon
A list of words together with additional word-specific information, i.e. a dictionary.
Comment: in ERM, it would be a dictionary of all the words used in a thesaurus or classification scheme, with their definitions.

Media obsolescence
The inability to continue to use a storage medium because the supplier is no longer prepared to support and maintain the devices needed to read media (for example CD-ROMs, tape cartridges), even though these devices may still be in good working order.

Media degradation
The inability to continue to use a storage medium because it has reached the end of its physical lifetime, and hence may become unreliable.

Metadata
Data describing context, content and structure of records and their management through time.
This is one of several current definitions; it is chosen for this glossary as it relates specifically to records management. Note that in practice metadata is also used to describe classes, files etc.
Source: ISO 15489.

Microform
Microfilm or microfiche.

Migration
Act of moving records from one system to another, while maintaining the records' authenticity, integrity, reliability and usability.
Source: ISO 15489.

Model Office
A controlled ‘laboratory’ ERM environment dedicated to designing, developing, and testing ERM functionality to ‘get it right’.

MoSCoW
Method of classifying requirements into one of four categories: M – Must have, S – Should have, Co – Could have, and W - Would have if we had time.
Attributed to the Dynamic Systems Development Methodology, DSDM.

NAS
Network Attached Storage.

OAIS
The Open Archival Information System reference model.
See: ISO 14721.

OCR
Optical character recognition.

Open
(verb) The process of creating a new volume.
(adjective) Describes a volume which has not yet been closed, and so is able to accept the addition of records.

PADI
Preservation and Access to Digital Information.
See: www.nla.gov.au/padi

PDF/A
See PDF/Archival.

PDF/Archival
A derivative of Portable Document Format. The US Library of Congress defines it as “…a constrained form of Adobe PDF version 1.4 intended to be suitable for long-term preservation of page-oriented documents”.
See: ISO 19005.

Physical record
A record held in non-electronic form.
Where a record is held electronically on a removable medium such as a DVD, the DVD may itself be considered a physical record.

Pilot
A trial of the proposed ERM system with a subset of users, usually in their normal working environment.

Protective Marking
1. (verb) The process of writing a security classification on a document, record or volume (UK).
2. (noun) The security classification written on a document, record or volume (UK).

Public key algorithm
See asymmetric key encryption.

Public-Key Infrastructure
In cryptography, a public key infrastructure (PKI) is an arrangement which provides for third-party vetting of, and vouching for, user identities. The public keys are typically in digital certificates.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Key_Infrastructure

RAID
1. Redundant Array of Independent Disks.
2. Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

Record
information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business.
Source: ISO 15489

Records Management
Field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records.
Source: ISO 15489.

Records Management instrument
See instrument.

Redaction
The process of hiding sensitive information in a record.
This can include applying opaque rectangles to obscure names etc. (the electronic equivalent of censoring paper documents with ink) or removing individual pages of records. It can also apply to video and audio records.

Refinement
A subdivision of a metadata element which shares some of its properties.
For a rigorous definition see http://dublincore.org/usage/documents/principles/#element-refinement

Reliability
The assurance that if a record is contained within an ERM system it belongs within that ERM system and it has not been placed there illegally.
Source: ISO 15489.

Render
… producing a representation on-screen (“displaying”) or printing; it may also imply playing audio and/or video.

Retention schedule
A set of instructions allocated to a class or file to determine the length of time for which its records should be retained by the organisation for business purposes, and the eventual fate of the records on completion of this period of time.

Review
The examination of a volume or file to decide whether its disposal can now be determined where this has not previously been possible (i.e. that it should be destroyed or transferred to an archive), or whether it needs to be retained for a further review at a later date.
Note: a different meaning attaches to this term in the document management environment, where it describes a stage within the document production cycle.

RFID
Radio Frequency ID.

Role
The name given to a position in an organization.
For example CIO, Managing Director, Local Records Officer, Information Manager, System Administrator, Scanning Supervisor.

RSA
A common public key algorithm.

SAN
Storage Area Network.

Scanning
The process of producing a digital image from a paper document or record.

Security Classification
The methodology and rules that are employed to grade and protect records that have a relevance to national security.

Security Clearance
A status granted to an individual, allowing access to Security Classified Information, usually in the public sector, or to commercially sensitive information in private sector organisations.

SRO
Senior Responsible Owner (sometimes Office)
Comment: The owner of an implementation program, and responsible for the delivery of its business benefits to the organization

Structured information
Information which has a defined structure and is intended to be processed by a computer program.
For example, most information held in relational databases and processed by computer systems is considered structured.

Stub
The metadata retained to indicate the prior existence of a class or file that has been deleted.

Sub-file
An intellectual subdivision of a file.

Symmetric encryption
A class of algorithms for cryptography that use trivially related cryptographic keys for both decryption and encryption, also known as secret key encryption.
For example: DES, Blowfish and IDES.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

Synonym rings
A ring of connected terms which are all treated as equivalent for searching.
Synonym rings can be used to link acronyms, variant spellings (for example program and programme) or scientific and popular terms to a Classification Scheme or Thesaurus.

Taxonomy
(In the context of ERM) a systematic way of organizing words.
The words can be in a straightforward list, in a hierarchy, or in any other systematic arrangement. By this definition, a hierarchic classification scheme is a taxonomy.

Thesaurus
1. A book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms.
2. A book of selected words or concepts, such as a specialized vocabulary of a particular field, as of medicine or music.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (both definitions).
In the context of ERM, a thesaurus is implemented in software rather than as a book.

Title
The name given to the resource. Typically, a Title will be a name by which the resource is formally known.
IN ERM, the “resources” are classes, files, records and (in some cases) documents.
Source: http://dublincore.org

TNA
The National Archives of England, Wales, and the United Kingdom.

UAT
User Acceptance Testing.

Unstructured information
Information without a fully defined structure, intended to be read and used by humans.
For examples, most information produced by common office applications (word processors, presentation programs) is considered unstructured.

Usability
A record can be found and understood if it has context within the structure of the records repository and the other records held there.
Source: ISO 15489.

Version control
A document management feature, often encountered in an ERM environment, allowing users to develop and manage successive drafts of their work in a controlled manner.

Volume
A mechanical sub-division of a file.

Watermarking
A technique that allows an individual to add hidden or visible copyright notices, or other verification messages, to digital audio, video, or image, signals and documents.
Comment: an embedded type of DRM.

Workflow
1. The operational aspect of a work procedure: how tasks are structured, who performs them, what their relative order is, how they are synchronised, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow
2. The computerised facilitation or automation of a process, in whole or part.
Source: Workflow Management Coalition glossary, http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/tc003v11.pdf
Comment: EDRM and ERM applications often provide the capability to manage the flow of electronic documents and records between people, departments and other systems.

XML
eXtensible Markup Language.
See ISO 15022.