This article should be read in conjunction with our earlier article US DoD publishes guidance on Technology planning for Electronic Records Management (ERM). Please read that article first if you haven't already done so, as this Part 2 provides some additional context and information.

Insights from the US DoD Records Management and IT teams.

An extremely informative and valuable webinar hosted by AIIM and including key members of the US DoD Records Management and IT staff provided clarity and insight on the new guidance document US DoD 8180.01 (See the article above for a summary). I believe the following insights are critical in order to understand the usage of the document, and also how it impacts on the Records and Information Management profession, and National Archives Regulatory authorities globally. NOTE. We have been saying many of these things for years, but the guidance documents puts everything into stark, blunt perspective.

In Mid 2024 COR Concepts was licensed to sell PECB training courses. This is a significant evolution for us and adds great value to our course offerings. Our courses now fit into three clear streams, although there is a strong overlap amongst them.

The traditional COR Concepts courses remain, and focus on Document and Records Management, with a strong emphasis on electronic records. Document and Records Management training courses

The AIIM Certified Information Governance course AIIM CIP exam preparation course

The PECB courses. PECB focuses on Certification and aligns strongly with ISO and other standards. This fits well with our approach as we have been involved in ISO standards development since 2004. PECB is undergoing their own strategic realignment, which is a close fit with all our consulting and training offerings. The emphasis will now be on Digital Trust. Expect to see lots of commentary from us regarding Digital Trust in the near future.

US DoD publishes guidance on Technology planning for Electronic Records Management (ERM)

This may be one of the most important guidance documents published in years. For many years, the US DoD 5015.2 Functional Requirements specification stood alongside the DLM forum’s MoReq (and MoReq 2010) and ISO 16175 as one of the key standards against which to benchmark Functional requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems. One thing which was missing however, was an internationally available set of implementation guidelines for ERM other than ISO standards, and documents requiring membership of organisations such as AIIM and ARMA.

Documentation is the core of most evidence relating to business activities. Since the introduction of the ISO 30300 Management System for Records series of standards, and the 2016 version of ISO 15489, the concept of "Documented Information" has become important, going beyond our traditional definition of a record. Changes, including the way that information is created, the vast volumes of documented information which include AI generated documents, webpages, e-mails etc, our need as information governance professionals to become extra vigilant becomes greater. And we need to take on an even greater advocacy role, educating business on how to and why they should create accurate, trustworthy documentation, which can be trusted as the authoritative source.

In December last year I was privileged to attend and facilitate sessions on #digitaltransformation and ##dataprotection #Culturalheritage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. What was unique about this conference that it wasn't held in a hotel, but rather was hosted at the The Ethiopian National Archives and Library Agency https://nationalreadingcampaign.org/nala/. A very special thanks must be given to the Ministry of Innovation and Technology and especially Yikunoamlak Mezgebu who really went out of their way to support the event.

But this post goes beyond that. In the reading library where the event was held, built by Emperor Haile Selassie, and where he used to read, the Archives presented a number of astounding manuscripts which are recognised by UNESCO as World Cultural heritage. Here are the key learnings for me of a deeply profound experience:

1. Firstly, these manuscripts are absolutely beautiful. Many were made from sheep skin, others from parchment, but all are magnificent pieces of art and heritage. This introduces its own challenges. They are fragile, and need to be preserved, as valuable museum pieces, as heritage artifacts of great beauty and historical value. The National Archives is doing this, and they are wonderfully preserved, even though they carry the natural damage expected after many hundreds of years.
2. The next one is more challenging. In addition to the heritage value, the content itself has value, and needs to be made available. The physical originals are clearly too valuable to be made available to researchers, but the content needs to be, and thus has been digitised.
3. This brings me to the most important point. Whilst I am a strong advocate of digitising, there will always remain the fact that some objects have more than one value. Historical, cultural, research, business or legal value. So even when digitising, part of the project, especially for archives, is to ensure that the originals (where they have historical or cultural value in their own right), must always be preserved, even if the content is digitised and made available for researchers and others.

Below are images and descriptions of some of the UNESCO World Heritage Documents at the Library.

Click the thumbnail to view all the images.

For information, the specific artifacts declared as UNESCO World Heritage Documents are:

1. The Four Gospels. the Gospel of Matthew, Luke, Mark and John which was written in the 14th AD in Geez language on a parchment
2. The book of the prophet Enoch written in Geez language in 14th AD on a parchment
3. The 14 Epistles of St.Paul, a book written in a Geez language in the 15th AD
4. Psalms of king David, a book written in Geez in the 16th AD
5. The Book of Justice, a book that served as a source of law in Ethiopia and was written over parchment
6. The Book of Liturgy, a book written on parchment during the 17th century AD
7. The book of chronicles, a book written on parchment and narrates the story of kings and queens of Ethiopia since the 10th century BC
8. The history book of Emperor Menilk II King of Kings Ethiopia, a book written in the 20th AD
9. The book of the passion week, a book written on parchment with horse skin in the 15th AD
10. The letter of Emperor Menilik II to the Russian king Nicholas. This is a letter written in Amharic to address Italy’s aggression on Ethiopia
11. The letter of King Sahleselasie of Shewa to the Queen of England. A letter written in the 19th century AD in Amharic to the Queen regarding the status of British who were living in Ethiopia
12. The letter of Emperor Tewodros to Queen Victoria of England. The letter is written in Amharic which expresses the Emperor’s aspirations for modernization.

Information Governance - Certified Information Professional (CIP)

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that COR Concepts has been granted approval to train on the various AIIM courses. AIIM is widely recognised as the global industry body for:

1. Enterprise Content Management (ECM),
2. Electronic Document and Records Management Systems (EDRMS), 
3. Intelligent Information Management
4. Certified Information Professional Certification. (CIP), which is an Information Governance Certification and is highly recommended for anyone embarking on a digitalisation or Digital Transformation journey.

We are able to provide training on all of these. Most importantly, the CIP, and you can find details at CIP Preparation and Certification.