Records management or information governance?

• Author: Saffady, William
• Position: RIM FUNDAMENTALS

Editor's note: This article was excerpted from the upcoming third edition of Records and Information Management: The Fundamentals of Professional Practice, which will be published by ARMA International this fall. Taken from Chapter 1, which examines the purpose and scope of records management as a business discipline, it defines records management and information governance, placing records management within the context of an information governance program.

Records management is a specialized discipline that is concerned with the systematic analysis and control of information created, received, maintained, or used by an organization pursuant to its mission, operations, and activities. By definition, records management is concerned with information that is recorded or "written down" as opposed to merely memorized or exchanged verbally.

A comprehensive records management program includes policies, procedures, and processes that ad dress significant recordkeeping issues, specifically:

* Determining how long recorded information needs to be kept to satisfy an organization's requirements

* Ensuring compliance with recordkeeping laws and regulations in all locations where an organization has business operations

* Managing inactive records in a cost-effective manner

* Organizing active records for retrieval when needed

* Protecting recorded information that supports mission-critical business operations

These programmatic aspects are embodied in Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[R] (Principles), which were issued by ARMA International in 2009 to foster general awareness of records management systems and standards and to assist organizations in developing effective programs for records management programs and information governance. The set of eight recordkeeping principles are paraphrased below:

Accountability

A senior executive should be in charge of the records management program. The accountable executive will delegate program responsibility to appropriate individuals, adopt records management policies and procedures to guide program personnel, and ensure that the program can be audited for compliance. A governance structure must be established for program development and implementation.

Transparency

An organization's recordkeeping processes and activities must be documented in an open and verifiable manner. Such documentation must confirm that the organization's recordkeeping policies and practices comply with applicable legal requirements and accurately and completely reflect the organization's activities. The documentation must be available to employees and appropriate interested parties.

Integrity

An organization's records must have a reasonable and suitable guarantee of authenticity and reliability. Recordkeeping processes, including audit processes, must provide reasonable assurance that the origin, time or creation or transmission, and...