Presentation at Govtech South Africa 2012 about transversal ECM for government based on FOSS Technology

1. Seaparo Phala
Preserving our administrative
memory: A Business Case for
an interoperable ECM Solution

2. Agenda
1. An overview: Department of Arts and Culture
2. DAC’s Constitutional Mandate
3. Towards fulfilling the DAC mandate
4. The Role of NARSSA on issues of electronic records managements
5. Current government challenges on information and records
management
6. Current technology landscape
7. Towards an interoperable ECM solution … Why?
8. Current Initiative
9. The role-players
10. Closure

3. An Overview: Department of Arts and
Culture
Strategic priorities:-
• Development, preservation and promotion of arts and
culture
• Promotion and preservation of cultural heritage
• To provide access to information
• Promote the official languages of South Africa and
enhance the linguistic diversity of the country
Mzanzi Golden Economy: a strategy to ensure that the
contributions of the arts, culture and heritage sector to
economic growth and development can be quantified

4. Overview of DAC: Constitutional Mandate
Section 16(1): Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes:
a. freedom of the press and other media;
b. freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
c. freedom of artistic creativity; and
d. academic freedom and freedom of scientific research
Section 30: Everyone has the right to use the language and to participate in the
cultural life of their choice, but no one exercising these rights may do so in a
manner inconsistent with any provision of the Bill of Rights.
Section 32(1): Everyone has the right of access to:
any information held by the state; and any information that is held by another
person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights

5. Towards fulfilling our Mandate
Enabling Access to Information
• Aspiration to become the ‘Google of government’
• Digitization of South African heritage resources –
Digitization Policy
• Claim our space by fulfilling our regulatory role on
issues of information and records management in
government through the National Archives and Records
Service of SA

6. The role of NARSSA
• The National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (No.43 of 1996
as amended) gives National Archives and Records Service of SA (NARSSA) a
regulatory role re records management in government.
• According to Section 13 (2)(b)(iii) of the National Archives Act the National
Archivist shall determine the conditions subject to which electronic records
systems should be managed in governmental bodies.
• According to section 13 (2) (a), no public records can be transferred,
destroyed or otherwise disposed of without the written consent of the
National Archivisit

7. The role of NARSSA
The NARSSA requires governmental bodies to implement and
maintain Integrated Document and Records Management
System/Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system that provide
as a minimum the following document and records management
functionality:
 managing a corporate file plan
according to which records are filed;
 managing e-mail as records;
 managing websites as records;
 maintaining the relationships
between records and files, and
between file series and the file plan;
 identifying records that are due for
disposal and managing the disposal
process;
 associating the contextual and
structural data within a document;
 constructing and managing audit
trails;
 managing record version control;
 managing the integrity and
reliability of records once they have
been declared as such; and
 managing records in all formats in
an integrated manner.

8. Current Challenges
• Governance challenges
• Adverse audit findings due to poor records management
• Inefficient administration e.g case files
• Business processes not defined and documented
• Compliance to legislation and the resulting litigation
• Government ECM systems that are not interoperable
• Difficulties with information sharing between government departments
• Poor service delivery
• Slow pace of information dissemination
• Long waiting periods due to manual processes

9. Current landscape in government
Technologies deployed (List not
exhaustive)
Functions and business processes
automated
OpenText
Documentum
Microsoft Sharepoint
PaperTrail
Alfresco
Nuxeo
Oracle
Records management
Submission workflows
Correspondence
Parliamentary questions
Leave management
Contracts management
Case Files
Patient records
HR records
Legal records (management)

10. Towards an Interoperable ECM Solution
WHY?
For the Department of Arts and Culture and NARSSA:
• To fulfill our legislative mandate/policy role on records management
• Enable access to government information
• Build capacity and capability to accept ‘born digital records’ and electronic
records transfers from other government departments (every 20 years)
• To have an up to date National Archives repository
Other reasons:
• Open government – South Africa is a member of the Open Government
Partnership
• Green ICT
• Implementation of the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) Policy
• Improve service delivery and address compliance challenges

11. Current Initiative
• DAC and NARSSA has engaged the services of SITA to investigate, customizse and
deploy an interoperable ECM solution for the department and NARSSA
• The solution to be provided by SITA should address these policies:-
Managing electronic records in governmental bodies: Policy, principles and requirements
Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments
adopted by the International Council on Archives in 2008. Module 2 of these publications,
Guidelines and Functional Requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems relates
to the structured records systems such as those in which records are managed according to a
file plan.
• A product that complies with these standards or those contained in the European
Commission’s Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records
(MoReq2010) or the Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management
Software Applications (US dod 5015.2) would ensure that the electronic records
management application has the generic records management functionality required by
NARSSA.

12. Current Initiative …… Cont
• Government departments and municipalities that have not deployed any systems
could also tap into this system once fully deployed at DAC and NARSSA
• For the success of this initiative, we count on the support of:-
GITOC Through the Standing Committee on Knowledge and Information
Management, to address duplication in government by promoting common
solutions for common requirements across departments wherever possible
Lead a drive towards integration for new and existing systems
NARSSA Provide policy direction and regulatory directives on issues of information
and records management
SITA Provide the technology support e.g through cloud technology but also
ensure information systems security environment according to approved
policy and standards.

13. In Conclusion
• A ‘Lula moment’ is still possible for the South African ICT space
“We had to choose: or we were going to the kitchen to prepare
this dish the way we wanted to eat, with the seasoning that we
wanted, to give a Brazillian taste to our food, or …….”
President Lula da Silva, Brazil

14. THANK YOU, DANKIE, NGIYATHOKOZA, KE A
LEBOHA,KE A LEBOGA, SIYABONGA, NDO LIVHUWA
/ RO LIVHUWA, ENKOSI,NGIYABONGA