Arkib Negara ELECTRONIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT and archive mgmt guideline_eng

e-SPARK
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Identifying and assessing legal, financial, political, social or other positive gains from
preserving records to serve the interests of research and society as a whole.
Following regulations of the competent archival authority where applicable.
Records identified for continuing retention are likely to be those which :
Provide evidence and information about the public office’s policies and actions.
Provide evidence and information about the public office’s interaction with the client
community it served.
Document the rights and obligations of individuals.
Contribute to the building of a public office’s memory for scientific, cultural or historical
purposes.
Contain evidence and information about activities of interest to internal and external
stakeholders.
An electronic record must be managed, and remain accessible, for its lifetime. How long an
electronic record needs to be kept will influence its management. Given the vulnerable
nature of most digital media and the frequency of technology change, ‘long term’ for
electronic records generally means longer than one generation of technology. Electronic
records that must be retained for the long term will require active management to ensure
their continued accessibility.
3.3 Storing Electronic Records
To ensure the ongoing protection of electronic records, public offices require efficient and
effective means for maintaining, handling, and storing electronic records – both active and
inactive – over time. Policies, guidelines and procedures for the storage of electronic records
should be an integral component of a public office’s recordkeeping framework.
There are three ways in which public offices may store electronic records – online, offline or
near-line.
• Online – Online records can be contained on a range of storage devices (e.g. mainframe
storage, network attached storage or PC hard drive) that are available for immediate
retrieval and access. Generally, records stored online will be active electronic records –
i.e. records that are regularly required for business purposes. Electronic messaging
systems and word-processed documents saved to the network server fall into this
category.
• Offline – Offline electronic records are contained on a system or storage device that is
not directly accessible through the public office’s network and which requires human
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