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= Digital Continuity Action Plan =
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== What is the Digital Continuity Action Plan? ==
Digital continuity is the ability to ensure digital information is usable for as long as it is needed. The shift to digital creation and business processes has created a challenge to the management and longer-term sustainability of the resulting information. This requires sustained resources and positive, frequent actions to ensure any degree of integrity and accessibility.
Archives New Zealand has been mandated to lead the development of the whole-of-government Digital Continuity Action Plan. The Digital Continuity Action Plan will inform the creation of policies and actions across government by articulating the issues and detailing actions for dealing with them; the Action Plan is currently undergoing the Cabinet consideration process.
== The Development Process ==
In 2007 Cabinet tasked Archives New Zealand with leading the development of a whole-of-government Digital Continuity Action Plan and signed-off the consultation draft for open comment on August 28th 2008.
Development of this document has been multi-lateral, involving external organisations by means of an external advisory group as well as discussion with individual stakeholders in government departments.
Subsequent to the Digital Continuity Action Plan consultation phase the Action Plan will be updated on a regular basis to reflect progress that has been made and advances in research and development. The lead for this will come from the results of the ongoing evaluation of its effectiveness and stakeholder feedback.
== External advisory group members ==
<br>Hamish James, Statistics New Zealand
<br>John Truesdale, National Library of New Zealand
<br>Keitha Booth, State Services Commission
<br>Mark Horgan, Ministry of Education
<br>Philippa Poynton, Ministry of Health
<br>Bradley Ward, Ministry of Economic Development
<br>George Slim, MORST
== Key Action Plan Aims and Objectives ==
The overarching aim of the Action Plan is to provide the framework for an environment where individual organisations and organisations do not have to supply the resources and expertise necessary for the implementation of strategies and methodologies for digital preservation on an individual uncoordinated basis. The vision can be succinctly stated as follows:
Information is trusted and accessible when it is needed, now and in the future.
Key messages arising from this vision statement are:
*'''There when you need it. '''Public sector digital information will be maintained so that it can be accessed when it is needed. Some information is required only for a few months or years. A small proportion needs to be preserved for many decades for future users.
*'''Authentic and reliable.''' Public sector digital information is tamper-proof and free of technological digital rights restrictions. It can be trusted to be authentic and reliable.
*'''Trusted access. '''New Zealanders can be confident that they will be able to find, retrieve and use all government digital information that can be made publicly available, and that their sensitive information will be protected from unauthorised access.
*'''Do nothing, lose everything.''' If no action is taken, public sector digital information will be lost. Government should take a proactive approach to maintain information for the future.
The key actions are:
*Develop a comprehensive framework of standards and guidance for digital recordkeeping and preservation across the public sector
*Investigate the feasibility of providing agencies with an assessment of vendor electronic records management software and the aggregation of procurement of such systems
*Conduct and report on ongoing audits of digital information practice across government and monitor information management in the public sector
*Identify the information of significance to the New Zealand public sector and establish a prioritisation programme of digital preservation to ensure that it is accessible for the long-term
*Establish a robust governance layer for public sector digital continuity initiatives to ensure effective leadership and value for money expenditure
*Create communities of practice to found a broad cross-sectoral understanding of digital continuity issues; harmonise the legislative definitions of information management and compile a New Zealand digital glossary.
== What are the Benefits of the Digital Continuity Action Plan? ==
The benefits of implementing the action plan are:
*Efficiency of government spend by developing standards and guidance for procurement, cross-agency interoperable systems, efficient information use and reuse and government collaboration
*Good government information infrastructure for digital continuity should result in significant economic savings and as it will remove the need for each public sector agency to develop its own solution independently
*Quality information access, focussing on the high value information for government supports timely retrieval of business information. Disposal of ‘chaff’ helps to identify the business critical content
*Not reinventing the wheel, by leveraging existing research and development and repurposing existing assets we can add value to existing government investment. Pay for information creation once, benefit from this expenditure many times.
== Why is the Digital Continuity Action Plan important? ==
We need to ensure that digital content that is important to New Zealand is managed and kept safe for use by current users and appropriately maintained by government organisations to be accessible as public archives for as long as they are required for future generations. The challenges of ensuring long-term access across the public sector cannot be underestimated, and cannot be achieved by any individual organisation in isolation.
The shift to digital creation of information and ICT-based business processes, while enabling transformation in the way business and service delivery is carried out, has created a challenge to managing and sustaining the resulting information. In the rapidly changing technological world most new organisational knowledge and information content is digitally created and managed in digital formats only. This has meant great changes to the way in which we save, access, manage risk and (re)use this information.
Digital content cannot be managed in the same way as content created in more traditional ways. We need long-term systems to ensure the ongoing integrity of these resources and their accessibility. The Digital Continuity Action Plan is crucial to government’s continued goal for New Zealand digital public sector service delivery.
== Webpage and Feedback Forms ==
* [http://continuum.archives.govt.nz/digital-continuity-Action Plan.html Digital Continuity Action Plan webpage on ''Continuum'']
== Contact Us ==
Project Manager:
'''Stephen Clarke'''<br>
Senior Advisor
Digital Sustainability Programme<br>
Archives New Zealand - Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga<br>
10 Mulgrave St, PO Box 12050, Wellington, New Zealand<br>
Phone: 64-4-894 6030 <br>
Email: [mailto:stephen.clarke@archives.govt.nz stephen.clarke@archives.govt.nz]<br>
Fax: 64-4-495 6210<br>
I: http://www.archives.govt.nz/continuum
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