Records Management for Web-based Records

6.3 Technical Guidelines for Scheduling and Managing Web Sites

There are essentially three overall strategies for scheduling and managing complex web sites:

· The object driven approach,

· The event driven approach, and

· Maintaining an online web site reproduction

Each of these approaches will be discussed below. However, the options suggested here are not mutually exclusive. Agencies should pursue a combination of strategies designed to fit their circumstances and environment.

Object Based vs. Event Based Approaches

The major issues dynamic sites raise is the need to choose whether to use an object based or an event based approach to managing records of web resources and activities. That is, an agency needs to determine whether it wishes to focus on scheduling and managing records of:

The objects that comprise the content of the site at any given time; or
The individual transactions (events) between clients (users) and servers (agencies)

It is important to note that the options suggested here are not mutually exclusive. In most cases agencies should pursue a combination of strategies designed to fit their circumstances and environment.

6.3.1 Object-driven Approach

This approach concentrates on scheduling and managing the 'objects' that constitute or are made available via a web site. Adopting an object-driven approach for web sites that primarily provide transactional services may be futile. In such circumstances, an event-driven approach may be more appropriate.

Implementing the object-driven approach

This approach can be implemented in different ways, depending on your environment. These implementation strategies include:

Object Approach Implementation Strategy 1

Managing records of a dynamic site using the object-driven approach would involve keeping track of changes to enable its full reconstruction at any given date. This would require the capture, storage, and scheduling of:

· User profiles

· Style sheets

· Search engine

· Scripts and programs

· Regular snapshots of the database

· Database transaction logs

 

Object Approach Implementation Strategy 2

The object approach could entail taking periodic snapshots of collections of web resources in combination with tracking changes to the site and logging transaction details. The snapshots and tracking and transaction information should be included on agency retention schedules according to the content of the web resource(s).

Procedures for snapshots, tracking changes and logging transaction details are included as Appendix A, Object Driven Approach Implementation Strategy 2, to these Guidelines.

 

Object Approach Implementation Strategy 3

Alternatively, objects or individual web resources could be separately captured and managed in association with metadata that described the relationship between specified versions of the object and its unique URI. This approach focuses on managing the data objects and associated metadata instead of attempting to preserve entire systems that support web resources.

Procedures for managing objects separately are include as Appendix B, Object Driven Approach Implementation Strategy 3, to these Guidelines.

 

6.3.2 Event-driven Approach

This approach focuses of capturing 'events' or transactions that occur between the web site and the user.

This approach is most suited when a dynamically generated site is database-driven and relies on stored user profiles, search mechanisms, SQL-HTML translation scripts, and other programs to enable functionality. For these types of sites, it may be feasible to capture and schedule 'events' -- single transactions between web site and user -- rather than the objects that comprise the site at the time of the transaction. An event driven approach would involve capturing:

· Date and time of event

· IP or domain address of the user

· User profile

· Query or other action performed

· The resource served to the user with relevant metadata attached

Any web-enabled service or transaction facility provided by an agency will both generate and be made possible by records. In the absence of a record, there is no evidence of the transaction having occurred. In the absence of legally sustainable evidence of a transaction having occurred, the transaction may be repudiated and/or deemed by a court of law to have not taken place. It is therefore essential that agencies capture, schedule and manage full and accurate records of web-based transactions that can guarantee the authenticity, reliability and accessibility of the records.

Procedures for the event driven approach are include as Appendix C, Event Driven Approach Implementation Strategy, to these Guidelines.

 

6.3.3 Maintaining an Online Web Site Reproduction

An online web site reproduction is intended to replicate, at the time of posting, all material posted to the active website. Unlike an active website, the online reproduction must capture past as well as present postings throughout their retention period. It is essentially an online "archive" of all the content ever included on the web site.

The main advantages of this option include:

· Facilitating maximum functionality of archived postings;

· Providing greater accessibility to archived postings, instead of reconstructing sites from an offline storage medium;

· Offering a more appropriate option for complex sites that are more than simple static electronic publications; and

· Enabling the reconstruction of the site at any point in time rather than only when a snapshot is created and therefore providing greater accountability for the agency.

Where an online reproduction is carefully planned and responsibilities are documented and assigned, there are few deficiencies associated with this option. Costs and other practical considerations associated with establishing and maintaining such a server will need to be balanced against benefits. In particular, maintaining all past and current website postings may require large amounts of storage space, with negative cost implications for this strategy.

Procedures for creating an online reproduction are included as Appendix D, Implementation Strategy for Establishing an Online Reproduction of a Web Site, to these Guidelines.

 

Conclusions

The most appropriate records management strategy is likely to use a combination of approaches. For example, taking a regular snapshot of the site, maintaining a log of each change made to the website and maintaining a log of transactions.

Careful consideration of the deficiencies and advantages of each approach, along with other practical considerations, such as feasibility and cost-benefit analysis, will determine choices. The rationale for selecting a particular approach should be documented.

Section 6.4: Selection of Storage Media