This page provides information on the Digital Continuity Action Plan: Consultation draft document consultation process.
The Digital Continuity Action Plan Consultation Wiki
Why do we need the Digital Continuity Action Plan?
The Development Process
Key Strategy Aims and Objectives
Where to find out more
The Digital Continuity Strategy Consultation Draft can be accessed here 241kb
Feedback to the Archives New Zealand whole-of-government draft Digital Continuity Strategy officially closed on the 14th November 2008. We are pleased to have received more than 60 submissions to date. As part of the redrafting process the Strategy was renamed the Action Plan to better reflect its new focus as a suite of work packages rather than a high level strategic direction document.
Thanks to all those who took the time to respond to the invitation - we now have the job of digesting a few hundred pages of comment - we will keep you posted on progress!
Archives New Zealand is hosting its very own Digital Continuity Action Plan Wiki to support dynamic feedback and as an opportunity to chat and exchange ideas with other contributors here
The wiki is open access and all you have to do is choose a log in name and password and go!
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 planning, strategies and systems to ensure the ongoing integrity of these resources and their accessibility.
In 2007 Cabinet tasked Archives New Zealand with leading the development of a whole-of-government Digital Continuity Strategy 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 Strategy consultation phase the strategy 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.
The overarching aim of the action plan is to provide the framework for an environment where organisations do not have to supply the resources and expertise necessary to implementation strategies and methodologies for digital preservation on an individual unco-ordinated basis. It will provide a mechanism where organisations will not have to craft unique solutions in isolation and duplacate resources being deployed elsewhere. 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.
For further information, please contact the Digital Continuity Action Plan project manager:
Stephen Clarke
Senior Advisor
Digital Sustainability Programme
Archives New Zealand
PO Box 12-050, Wellington
Telephone: 04 499 5595
Fax: 04 495 6210
Email: stephen.clarke@archives.govt.nz