Can the Atom application perform the functions of tables for retention periods of Records

[محمود محمد‎]

Although the Appraisal, destruction and scheduling field on the system's archival description screen is responsible for this functionality, this element contains text-only data that is a guide to the mechanisms for implementing retention periods and document management policies.

After studying the application, it turns out that it is practically possible through the Rights Management screen, which is divided into two parts, a section for controlling access and publishing permissions = Rights Basic, and a section for procedural rights = Act/Granted Rights. Its expiration date

Present this topic to you for discussion

                The retention period schedules, Retention Schedule Policies are a tool for controlling the movements of documents and the powers of their uses and the final disposal of them [permanent preservation - total destruction after a certain period of time - partial destruction after a certain period of time] in its current administrative life after the end of its documentary cycle in the administrative office, as well as in its intermediate administrative life during Preserving them for use at irregular intervals until their final determination [destruction - permanent preservation], and in view of this, and in view of the various models of retention periods schedules, It is also an important component of the general archival description standard ( see ISAD G2 [3.3.2] ) the functions of retention periods schedules are as follows :

1-   Determining the period of time for the records in their current administrative life for the purposes of use and reference to them in the administrative office, Date from – to.

2-     Determining the period for keeping records in their intermediate administrative life, Date from – to.

3-      Final Determination of Her Fate [Destroy - Permanent Preservation]

4-      Determine the validity of use.

5-      Determining the destruction mechanism [Destroy the document and its metadata - destroy the records only and save its metadata].

                From this standpoint, can the Rights management unit and its sub-units: Rights basis and Act / Granted rights The performance of these functions if we compare them according to their elements, and By adapting some elements and adding new ones that are more suitable.

                From this standpoint, can the Rights management unit and its sub-units:  Rights basis and Act / Granted rights The performance of these functions if we compare them according to their elements, for example:

·         The date element from - to exists as in the picture.

·         The action element is present and contains the patterns of action to be taken, namely:

-        Delete in the sense of destruction.

-        Migration means migration of data and objects [it can be suggested to add the migration element of meta-registries only without the digital object.

                The table also shows the elements of the Rights management screen, which is divided into two parts, a section for controlling access and publishing rights = Rights Basic, and a section for procedural rights = Act / Granted Rights, in which the retention periods of documents are controlled and the nature of the action taken when the time period expires, with the AtoM system for scheduling documents and controlling durations Maintaining and disposing of them, and conforming to the following archival standards [ISAD G2 - RIC], in order to achieve the integrity of the documentary and archival system between all its ages as follows :

archival criteria                                             field name           NO

code     Standard          code     Standard

A16      RIC (V.2)           3.3.2     ISAD G2           Act       1

A16      RIC (V.2)           3.3.2     ISAD G2           Restriction        2

A16      RIC (V.2)           3.3.2     ISAD G2           Start  3

A16      RIC (V.2)           3.3.2     ISAD G2           End      4

[Dan Gillean]

Hi , 

Since you've posted twice and so far haven't received any feedback from the community, I thought I would contribute to the discussion you are trying to start with a few initial thoughts. Hopefully others might contribute to the discussion as well! 

A few of my thoughts: 

Do whatever works for you

AtoM is a flexible system that attempts to be permissive to however users want to implement it. It is not prescriptive - while it will provide warnings based on relevant content standards (such as when "required" fields are missing), nothing is enforced (you can create an entirely blank archival description if you want, for example). 

If you find that using the Rights module to capture records retention information meets your needs, great! You are welcome to use it as such, and share your experiences with others looking for a similar solution. 

If it is close to what you need but you want to make changes, AtoM is open source, so you are free to download, study, and modify the code as needed, and even redistribute your modifications. We have some developer resources on our wiki to help get you started. If you do not have the development skills necessary, you can hire PHP developers to help you. 

Personal thoughts on ISAD, AtoM, and record retention

What follows is only my own opinion! As noted above, you and others are welcome to arrive at a different conclusion, and are free to use AtoM however you want. 

In general, AtoM is designed for use in archives - archival descriptions are typically created by archivists after appraisal and selection has taken place, meaning that the decision to preserve has already happened and the records are no longer active. AtoM does not attempt to cover records management functionality such as providing a Records Retention module, as this is a whole other domain, best handled when the records are still active / semi-active and recorded and managed by software designed for such a purpose. 

The ISAD(G) 3.3.2 Appraisal field is intended to capture free-text notes about the outcome that any record schedule may have on the disposition of the records - as you can see from the examples provided in 3.3.2, because these are now archival records it is presupposed that they have been selected for some kind of preservation already, so in most cases, more than a free-text field is likely not necessary. 

Keep in mind that this is also a public-facing field - record retention schedules are not typically part of public-facing archival descriptions (or else we would have a whole dedicated section for them in ISAD(G) and other archival content standards). The goal here is to provide context - the ISAD rule clarifies that this is to help researchers in their interpretation of the records: 

Rules:
Record appraisal, destruction and scheduling actions taken on or planned for the unit of description, especially if they may affect the interpretation of the material.

(bolding mine, for emphasis)

Note that AtoM does have an accession record module. This is a record created during the archival appraisal process, and it also includes an Appraisal, destruction, and scheduling free-text field. In the upcoming 2.7 version, you can also capture information about events (including appraisal) that may meet more of your needs - the events are linked to a customizable taxonomy as well, so more can be added by an administrator. See: 

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/2.7/user-manual/add-edit-content/accessions/#add-events-to-an-accession-record
  

Additionally, Rights records can be added to accession records, so even if you still want to use the Rights module for this purpose, the Accession record may be a better place to capture more internal-facing information such as records retention and disposition information.

The Rights module

Keep in mind a couple things about the Rights module in AtoM: 

First, Rights statements are never shown to public users. If your goal is to make this information publicly visible, then using AtoM's Rights module will not achieve this without code changes

Second, the date fields in the Rights module are not currently actionable. If you set a start and end date for a Rights act, the act will not automatically expire or be removed when the end date is reached, nor will users be notified when the date is reached. So, while there are some controlled fields available, in terms of functionality they are currently no different than free-text fields. 

Finally, you have mentioned that you expect some modifications of the existing fields to achieve your goals - by "adapting some elements and adding new ones that are more suitable." If this is the case, then I would recommend only using the Rights module as inspiration, and creating a different module for Scheduling and Retention, rather than trying to shoe-horn functionality into the Rights module. You can even copy some relevant code. 

Even better would be to create a separate, lightweight application for scheduling outside of AtoM's symfony-bound PHP codebase, and integrating it where needed. For example, a small change in AtoM's footer could allow another application to inject JavaScript on an existing page to display related metadata from a separate application whose data is stored outside of AtoM. This would require a lot less forking and ongoing maintenance of your proposed customizations as AtoM continues to change and grow. 

Either way, good luck! 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

he / him

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[محمود محمد‎]

Thank you, Mr. Dan, for this information and directions. Thank you very much for your interest