 Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our virtual bridge meeting. My name is Arnian Ravenbach, Policy and Program Support Team Supervisor, and I will be moderating today's bridge meeting. You may enter your questions for our presenters at any time into the chat box to the right of the YouTube video. If you are unable to log into YouTube to post your questions, please email your questions to us at rm.communications.nara.gov. As a friendly reminder, please keep the questions polite, professional, and relevant to today's discussion. If at any point you experience technical difficulties, you may also email rm.communications.nara.gov, and a member of our production team will be happy to reach out and assist you. This is a reminder to our viewers that if you're not able to ask your question in the individual queue and question and answer sessions after each presentation, you'll have a close-out general question and answer sessions with all the presenters from today's program. Now, please welcome Chris Pinkney, Director of Operations at the Federal Records Center Programs, who will be presenting updates on the Federal Records Center Program. Arnian, for letting me join you guys this morning. Gordon Everett normally does these for us, but he is on well-deserved personal leave today, so I'm kind of pinch-hitting here. Had we been providing an update three or four weeks ago, this would have been much more complicated. Unfortunately, due to the progress of the global pandemic, my life has become much easier. Most of our sites have now regressed to phase zero operations, and as of today, the only FRCs that remain at phase two status, where we have 20 to 50 percent of our staff on site are San Bruno, Pittsfield, and Boston. For the sites that have regressed to phase zero, we're operating in something like a modified phase zero, where we will have staff go on site to make sure records are safe, and we're servicing any emergency requests that come in as rapidly as possible. For our purposes, emergency requests remain defined as something related to life safety, law enforcement, and national security. We also got an update about 30 seconds ago that if the pandemic wasn't good enough, we've also added a nasty snowstorm in the northeast, and it looks like Boston and Pittsfield are closed today, hopefully reopening tomorrow, depending on how many inches of snow they get. The only other thing I wanted to immediately provide is information, is that if customers have requests found for the Philadelphia Record Center, we may have a little additional delay between now and Christmas. We had a potential exposure at that site, and most of our normal responders are quarantining this next week. I've been in communication with the designated official in Philadelphia, and we believe we have a plan in place to address emergencies that come up later this week or next week, but there may be a little bit of a delay as we get things worked out in the next few days. And beyond that, for better or worse, that is kind of where we stand right now. I don't know if anybody have any immediate questions, but if they do, I'd be happy to try to answer them. Thank you, Chris. We have a couple questions come in. First one, can we submit new records transfer requests to the FRCs in ARCIS with the new building closures? That's an easy answer, and that is a yes. We continue to have our T&D staff telework. We are more than happy to receive, review, and process 135s that come in through ARCIS. The only caveat is that while center in phase zero, people will have to wait on the physical shipment of the records, and that shipment will need to be coordinated with the receiving center once we reopen. Other questions? Thank you for that. The next question is, are the FRCs processing approvals for records disposal at this time? It's the same answer, yes. That's another type of activity that we can have folks work on remotely. We are doing that as we speak here. Any type of electronic work related to disposition continues in the background. We are having a fairly substantial backlog of physical disposal backup in various facilities as we finalize the approvals. But we hope to resume those as rapidly as possible once we reopen. And my profound hope is that with vaccines in distribution and maybe an end to this on the horizon, we'll start getting caught up with physical destruction early next year, maybe March, April, May. Any other questions? Thank you, Chris. We have none at this time. As a reminder, if you have a question that comes up later, please send it in either the chat or by email, and we'll answer it at the end of the program. Now, please welcome Don Rosen, Director of Records Management Oversight and Reporting, and Tom Kovall, Systems Analysis Team Supervisor. All right. Thank you, Lawrence. I'm sorry. Thank you, Aryan. So, good morning, everyone. What I want to do this morning is provide updates on what we're doing with Records Management Oversight and Reporting. I want to give some updates, and I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Tom Kovall, who's going to do some of the exciting work that's going on with our new Systems Team, and some of the highlights there. So, our next slide, please. So, reporting updates, I just want to share that we are planning to do reporting again. So, as we announced in an AC memo, we're going to be running it from January 19th through March 19th. So, we are in the process of getting our templates and our questionnaires finalized, and our goal is to have them out ahead of time. I'm working towards that. The things that we're going to be sharing is the SAO report again. The SAO's reach agency to submit a report that kind of describes the strategic plans. We plan to have a focus on M1921. I'd like to ask some questions about COVID-19 and plans for transition. We also could be running the ERM and email maturity models once again. We do not plan to make any changes to these templates, either the same. And once again, we will be running the Records Management Self-Assessment. Some of the things there we're going to be adding is we're going to have some questions about COVID, web records, and storage. We also removed some unscored questions that were covered in the maturity model. We got some feedback that there's some duplication there, and we made those changes as well. So, we look forward to launching reporting in January and running it through March, and we look forward to getting your feedback and getting your submissions. That's where we stand with reporting. Next slide, please. So, in addition to reporting, we're also some other items I wanted to share that we're doing in the Oversight Program. We recently released a semi-end report on Records Management Oversight Activities. This was a new initiative for us. We kind of wanted to share the work we were doing twice a year. So, we released our first one, kind of laid out the inspections, the assessments that we did. Kind of had to share the findings and the recommendations. So, I encourage you to take a look at that. We'll run another one, likely in early next year, to cover the last six months. Annie Oswaha, we are still moving forward with doing Records Management Inspections and Assessments. We're doing them virtually, of course, but we are moving forward with those, and those are going well. And as we complete them, we will post them to our web pages, and we'll share those out. Because one of the things we like to do with all of our inspections and assessments is that we find that the findings recommendations that benefit the one agency that we're inspecting, or the multiple agencies that are inspecting, that they benefit everyone. So, those links in there are publicly available for everyone to see. So, that's where we are with some of our ongoing oversight and reporting work. And with that, I'll turn it over to Tom, who's going to talk about the work we're doing within our systems team. So, Tom? Thank you, Don. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in this morning as well. Our systems analysis team is the newest part of the agency's oversight and reporting program. We've built the team around internationally recognized standards and on top of robust baseline procedures and documentation. We've also just completed our first audit engagement at the National Archives. Now that the systems team is established, we're excited to be able to expand outside the National Archives, improve our understanding of other agencies and best practices they've deployed, challenges they're confronting, and how they're managing electronic records throughout their life cycles. For the remainder of this fiscal year, FY21, the systems team will visit three agencies and focus on email and calendar records, the same topic we engaged in here at NARA. And while we're analyzing the information NARA collects through annual reporting to identify those three agencies, we're also looking for volunteers. If your agency is interested in participating or learning more about what's involved, I'm happy to answer any questions today or via phone, email, or a meetup later when it's safe. We're currently planning our engagement strategy and topics for next year, but we'll likely look to broaden beyond email and calendar records into specific systems or several different types of electronic records. Next slide, please. You may have participated in one of the oversight and reporting programs inspections in the past. The systems team is not in any way replacing those inspections, and they're going to continue. But while inspections tend to focus on records, programs, policies, and governance across an agency or department, the systems team will focus on our particular information systems, records, and data, and the people and policies that affect specific system and records. So what types of things is the system team going to look at during an engagement? These items here span the gamut our areas we're interested in, but we will adjust our plans and scope based on the early documentation provided by agencies so that we do allocate our resources to assess areas with a higher perceived risk. I won't read all the points here, but we are trying to cover the entire records lifecycle. And I'll give you a moment to look through these, and please, let me know if I can go a little bit further and elaborate or explain any. We really do intend for these to be positive experiences, and we want to learn more about the best practices at your agencies and how you're solving challenges, too. For example, if an agency is doing any custom engineering to a system, meaning that it's not just a COTS or GOT system or a software as a service, are you following particular standards? Are you accredited to a certain level? And what does that mean for the records involved or the alignment of IT services and records compliance and performance? Next slide, please. So these are the areas I was just talking about. And then next slide, please. Thank you. Having covered the areas that the system team is interested in assessing, what is it that we're assessing again? These are all core to what we do as records managers, but I recognize that GAO's Green Book and Circular A-123 contain a broader set of requirements and instructions for management. I'm sorry. They involve those instructions and requirements for designing, implementing and operating effective organizations. Certainly records management is part of that. And lastly, as the system team goes about its work, here's a list of the folks that we're working with. I really want to emphasize the cross-functional nature of what we're doing and that we're crossing traditional boundaries or silos and working a great deal between federal staff and vendors and your prime and subcontractors who may handle the day-to-day administration and operations of system. We want that interaction and that collaboration to be empowering for records managers at every level, but especially so when we can help establish stronger relationships at your agencies. Does anyone have any questions about the systems team or the oversight and reporting program? Yes, Tom. We've got several questions that have come in. First, how do you determine what to review? Do you have a template or a guide? We do. This year we've identified email and calendar records to be of particular importance. They're continually sought after in FOIAs and they keep coming up. So that's how we selected that. In the future, we're going to look at areas where agencies indicate they may want to come in and look at a particular system. We are not certifying systems by any means, but if we can provide assistance, we'd certainly be happy to do so if our bandwidth allows. And also, we want to look at permanent records and we want to look at records that are of importance to the public and different community stakeholders. Thank you. Could you please elaborate on which types of documentation inspectors may be requesting? I'd be happy to do so. A lot of what we're going to be asking for so that we can understand what's known as your control environment. A lot of it is going to be technical documentation that comes from your information systems group. So, you know, I hope that that is not intimidating in any way. It's not meant to be. We want to see the way that the system was procured or acquired, how it was architected, and how the data flows through the entire processing and transmission of that information and how it's stored. So, a lot of it is going to be IT information. Some of it is also going to be policy information. How does this plug into your records program and your agency's governance at large? I would add that some of that information will be familiar. Some of it will be similar to those who have been involved in the records management inspection or assessment. Some of the typical documentation to ask policies and procedures. But this takes a little bit deeper level and more technical discussion than you might have been part of in past oversight engagements that you've worked with us on. So, in that same vein, what exactly is NARA looking for at controls for email records? I thought Capstone addresses that. Capstone certainly is one large part of email and calendar records. That's right. We are going to be looking certainly in email and calendar assessment. We will be looking at 6.1. We will be looking at that schedule and how it's implemented. A lot of this is maybe lifting the hood. And that's how we're kind of describing the system audits and inspections. Okay, you've said this is what you're doing. Let's go in and look together. Let's see how these policy goals are being implemented, how they're being deployed. And what plans do you have for these emails and calendars now? And what plans do you have for them in the future? Are there any migrations that have taken place? How are you planning for disaster recovery or coop situation? You know, we do request, like I said, documentation up front so that we can kind of focus on those areas that are special or novel, both good and bad, so that we can help address those risks, but so that also we can identify those good things that you're doing. And that's how we allocate our time and that's how we really try to make the best use of everyone's time. Again, in that same vein, what baseline or standards will NARA use for ERMS and email management? Is NARA looking towards NIST? We've looked at some of the NIST 853 controls around security and privacy. Yes, but NARA is chiefly guided by its own regulations and the Federal Records Act. That was the second slide earlier. You could see we did have some items in there that perhaps are a little bit unfamiliar or that we don't look at every day, right? GAO's Green Book and Circular A123. Those have to do with management's responsibility for instituting control to achieving mission objectives. And one of those mission objectives is records management. So we will be looking chiefly at those controls and at the regulations and 36 CFR subchapter B and the Federal Records Act. Okay, so another one is the baseline requirement for an ERM system coming from the DOD 5015.2 standard and the NARA universal ERM requirements. So are those the baseline? Do RMAs still require certification from JITIC to be deployed on DOD systems? Well, NARA has its own standards and so like I mentioned just a moment ago, we will be inspecting to NARA standards and those are applied to all Federal agencies. Secondly, resource permitting, we will inspect to the agency's own requirements. Whether those come through the acquisition requirements identification stage or whether those come from some other guidance. So if DOD has guidance or if another agency has guidance, that would be one of the secondary things that we would evaluate how you're meeting those requirements and instituting control to comply. We look at this for us, I think, to jump in. Obviously this is a new kind of new territory for us looking at taking the D5 lifting the hood. But obviously we will certainly look at the ERM requirements and obviously the NARA regulations as we go forward and start conducting these and sort of see what we get when we start lifting the hood. Thanks, Don. And I want to go back to a question about the annual reporting. Will the questions for the annual reports be provided ahead of January 19th? Yeah, so that is our goal. We do try to do that and send out those templates in advance. We're still in the process of finalizing and getting our final approvals with that. But it is our goal as if we can get them out ahead of time, which we normally do is the maturity model and the ARMSA questionnaire. We will try to do that, so that is our goal. But we're still sort of been working through that review process. And Tom, we have one that just came in by email. How does an agency volunteer for the Systems Analysis Project? Please reach out to me. I would be elated to speak with you, answering questions you have before you do volunteer and get to know the particular system that you'd be interested in coming in to look at a little bit better. My email is thomasomas.coval. K-O-V is in victor-a-l at narra.gov. So that would be probably the best way of reaching out. And then, you know, we have a phone call or we can continue to talk over email. So thank you, Tom and Don. We received a lot of questions about your presentation. At this point, we'll hold any others that come in until the end. And let's move forward. Now please welcome Kevin Dvorsey, Senior Electronic Records Policy Analyst with the Policy and Standards Team, who will be presenting on our draft regulations with digitization standards for permanent records. Thank you, Arion. I'm very happy to be here with a colleague of mine, Michael Horsley. And we're both parts of the Electronic Records Policy and Standards Team, and we're happy to be here to provide an update on the forthcoming regulation on digitization for permanent records. So if we could go to the next slide, please. All right, so this is just an overview of what we're going to be discussing with you today. I'm going to give a little bit of background on this regulation and where it's come from. Just remind everybody about the existing regulation that we did for digitizing temporary records. Dive in in some depth to this draft regulation that we are currently working on and then give it status and describe some of the supporting documentation, supporting products that we're working on alongside this. The next slide, please. All right, so there's background. If everybody goes back to 2014, there was a revision to the Federal Records Act and there was a line in that revision to the effect that the Archivist of the United States would promulgate regulations for the digitization of analog records with an eye to the eventual disposal of the original. And so, you know, at NARA, we took this to heart and it manifested itself in our 2018 strategic plan along with other criteria hoping to help agencies move towards that eventual all-electronic record keeping. And then this was again formalized in OMB memo M1921 where we laid out specific targets for agencies to digitize their records drawing that line where we're going to cease accepting transfers of paper records and other forms of analog records after 2022. And, you know, so now we had this draft regulation in 2020. It's gone through numerous rounds of review by agencies and we received close to 300 comments on it, which has been great. And Mike and I will explain some of the changes that we've made based on the comments that we did receive from agencies. So we've definitely taken what we've heard to heart and are working very hard to ensure that this regulation is practical and can be achieved by agencies that then still meets the needs of NARA and researchers in the future in terms of producing electronic records that can stand in from the originals and take their place through the course of time. So next slide, please. So this is just a reminder really that we did first come out with a regulation explaining how laying out the requirements for digitizing temporary records and if you've looked at it, it's a pretty high-level document and it gives agencies a lot of leeway in how they go about this. Basically saying make sure that when you digitize, the resulting files can be used for the same purposes of the originals. Make sure that you validate it, check with your general counsel to ensure that they agree with what you're doing. And this was published as a final rule and we also published an FAQ that goes along with it and there's the URL for that that answers some of the general questions about temporary records. So next slide, please. All right, so here's you to the different sections that we've included in the regulation for permanent records and there's quite a bit here. And one of the complexities that we face is that while digitization and we've been doing it for decades, the active scanning paper or using camera equipment to capture images of records, but the trick has been to incorporate this as a record management requirement and fit it in with all of the other requirements that we have in the CFR. And so here we've laid things out and included all these different sections and Mike and I are going to walk through a few of these that you can see and it's like we lay out the scope where this is applied, provide some definitions for terms that may not be familiar, include some general records management requirement, discuss the steps in preparing records for digitization, project management, file format, et cetera, leading up to validation and the technical standards themselves. So if we could go to the next slide. So one of those sections, and this is something we wrestled with, I mentioned we've all been digitizing for decades now. So the technical parameters, how you should actually scan a record, we have pretty good experience with that. But part of the trick was how do we ensure that agencies, when they're doing this, do things correctly since Laura's not going to be there looking over everybody's shoulders. How do we stress these things out as a requirement? And so a big part of that, using archival language, is making sure that agencies have intellectual and physical control of their records so that when they begin digitization, they understand the nature of the records that they're working with and acquire the correct equipment. Let's go for this subpart. We broadened it out, and so it basically covers all forms of paper records. And that includes all sizes and shapes, printed photographs, and we've included mixed media records since it's somewhat common to find other materials besides paper or photographs in a box. And so that scope basically is everything that can be scanned using reflective techniques where you bounce light off something and then generate the image on that. It does not include materials used transmissive techniques where you shine light through it or other things. So it doesn't extend the photographic negatives, motion picture, microfilm, or audio-video record things that might be on magnetic tape. Next slide, please. And here's where I left. So the establishment of intellectual and physical control and making sure that you understand the nature of the records is very important so that you get the right equipment. And so we included instructions for preparing and indexing records, surveying them so that you understand if you have a high degree of onion skin or three-part carbons or something that you can account for that and make sure that your equipment is capable of dealing with it appropriately without damaging the original record. So identifying the age dimension just so you're not caught out after you've signed a contract with somebody. And also looking towards the fact that these records are going to be developed to take the place of the original records where supporting agencies in scanning in color or gray scale but not black and white. So that's kind of the key feature. And if we go to the next slide, we also included part of the requirements around project management and documentation, and that is to help agencies ensure that they have documented the decisions that they make as they put together a program and that they've met all of the requirements that we're laying out. And so that includes developing a defined project plan, making sure you work through a quality management plan and document how you're doing things and the decisions that you've made. So there will be any questions in the future for request for information or a court case. You have this material on hand that explains the decisions that you made when it comes to setting up your digitization program. And the important aspect of this is that documentation is to be retained by the agency at least until they transfer the electronic records to NARA and they've been accepted. That documentation is not coming to NARA. It is strictly for the agencies used. And John and Tomstein could in the future do inspections and request to see this documentation. Next slide, please. So as a part of it, we do lay out the technical aspects of digitization. It might be going to dive into some of the specific parameters. One of them is what are the formats that are appropriate for use. And NARA does have our transfer guidance 2015-04. And so we've brought forward the file format and then also acceptable compression types. And as you can see on the screen, it's basically the standard still image file format that's just JPEG-2000, PNG, and then PDF-A. And then there are a few types of lawless compression that are approved as well. The agencies can select the format that's appropriate for them, scan uncompressed or use lawless compression, and that's fine as well. And so now I'm going to turn it over to Mike and he's going to dive in to some of the technical aspects of the scanning. Next slide, please. Thank you, Kevin. Hopefully this will be very interesting. Hopefully not too boring, but I'm willing to take a lot of questions here or offline. The digitization requirements for permanent paper and photographic print records are based off of our experience working with NARA's original specifications, but also they comply to ISO International Standards Organization requirements and something called FADGI, which is the Federal Agency Digital Guideline Initiative, which I'll talk about a little bit later. We have two specifications for permanent paper and photographic records. One is mass digitization, and the other is for records that require that are either too fragile or have a high degree of information or color in it that need to be digitized accurately. The mass digitization spec is for the large-scale scanning of source records that are using scanners capable of high volume throughput. Mass digitization approaches are appropriate for paper records of uniform size and type that can be digitized without being damaged by the equipment and in which there's no information required or higher specifications to ensure accurate capture, such as fine detail or precise color accuracy. This specification in particular was developed in response to many agency comments that were received working with certain legacy scanning operations and in equipment types, and also we were interacted with FADGI imaging scientists to develop the specification. The records that are suitable for mass digitization are paper records with well-defined print type, such as typeset, laser print, etc., generally what we think of as modern paper, and with moderate to high contrast between the ink of the text and the paper background. The mass digitization specifications are appropriate when the original records, such as do not have visible content in the dark areas that is commonly found in rare textual records or photographic prints and illustrations. The specifications are not appropriate for records that include fine detail or require a high degree of color accuracy or have other unique characteristics that cannot be captured using the specifications in the table that's in the regulation or that they can't safely undergo high-volume digitization because they are fragile or would be damaged or have other physical conditions that do not lend themselves to high-volume or mass digitization. Again, you must digitize in an RGB color mode when the original source paper records have color present. You must digitize non-photographic print paper records in gray scale if there is no color present. And as Kevin mentioned earlier, black and white or bitonal scans are not acceptable. Refer back to the illustration in one of Kevin's slides where there was three pictures of the same item and it had color information in it and it was scanned in color and then there was another one in gray scale and then another one that was in bitonal with a certain loss of information that was present in the original record. So the second set of digitizing requirements are for photographic prints and paper records not suitable for mass digitization. The photographic print specifications also apply to manuscripts and illustrations, graphics, as well as documents where poor legibility or diffuse characters such as carbon copies, thermofax, etc. Photographic prints including monochrome and black and white originals must be captured in color. One stress the difference between when we say monochrome and black and white. In the photographic context, black and white is the equivalent of gray scale. And monochrome is that all photographic materials, even to the human eye they look black and white, they really do have subtle color elements to it. So that's why we are adopting some of the FADGI standards that include their parameters. Paper records may be digitizing gray scale if there is no color present, but if there is color present you must digitize them in the RGB color mode. The equipment that is selected must be appropriate for the media type capable of meeting the project requirements and the imaging parameters. The FADGI guidelines provide examples of recommended digitization equipment for different media types. Equipment designed for low quality and high speed capture may not meet the preservation or image quality requirements for all records. Image quality analysis should be implemented using a device level reference target to verify conformance to the imaging parameters. In-house or vendor equipment should be tested using a FADGI DICE, I'll explain this in a minute, or similar process prior to acquisition. This is a procedure that you can employ prior to acquisition of equipment to make sure it meets our requirements. The during digitization equipment should be during digitization equipment should be tested regularly to ensure that they are operating optimally at the beginning of each workday or the start of each batch or when problems are detected. The FADGI DICE compliant device level reference target contains a gray scale, a color chart and accurate dimensional scale and should be used to test the equipment. Next slide, please. Next slide. Thank you. So, a little bit about FADGI. They are based off of some of the early work that NARA did in 2004 and then evolved into a more precise imaging science-oriented regime. The Federal Agency Digital Guideline Initiative, otherwise known as FADGI, is a collaborative effort by federal agencies to articulate technical guidelines that form the basis for many of the digitization technical parameters of these regulations. The digital image conformance evaluation DICE, otherwise known as DICE, target, which is pictured here, is the measurement monitoring component of FADGI conformance program. DICE consists of ISO compliant reference targets and analysis software for testing and monitoring digitization programs to ensure they meet FADGI technical parameters. These are developed because equipment specifications such as scanner PPI settings or camera sensor megapixels are only theoretical resolution claims and they do not ensure a digital image quality. The test targets have been developed to record image performance data that is analyzed by software to create an overall equipment performance score. The score indicates the level of conformance and can be used to calibrate equipment, validate performance elements and verify that the metrics such as resolution and color are within tolerances. The test targets are used as part of a statistical process control to measure the response of an image system and to validate that digital projects meet the specifications. Briefly, I want to describe what you see here in the test target. There are reference points in the four corners and in the middle are what we think of as resolution. People often ask what DPI should I be scanning at and the science has moved past that. We are now not really interested in what DPI is. We are interested in how the imaging system, all the components from the lens to the sensor to the image processing, the electronic processing that creates an output and these are all can be measured by standardized testing methods. In the middle of this test target you can see an array of color patches. Those equate the standard color references which they are used to evaluate against a lookup table. The white patches to gray patches to black patches measure the degree of tone response from light to dark. So you can be over-exposed or under-exposed. Also it can detect color shifts so if something looks too pink or too red, etc. Next slide please. I'm going to hand it off back to Kevin. Thank you, Mike. I mentioned that part of the trick is beyond the imaging parts that Mike has been talking about. We are trying to ensure that we support agencies in addressing all of the records that they set out to digitize. Since it is common to open a box and sitting on a shelf and discover that it's not uniformly all paper, there are other media types in there. We've included this section on how to address mixed media and that's in the hopes of avoiding situations where you're surprised or don't have the right equipment or things are set aside to actually have records. So it lays out the steps to walk through. If you find a thumb drive or a hard drive or a DVD or a CD in determining if that record material or is it just something that's in there by accident and if it is record material what is the nature of it? Is it related back to the paper record or is it convenient scans that were taken long ago of the same paper records? And so following this decision tree in determining if they are scans of the paper can they meet these regulations? Are you done? Could you just transfer those? Or do you need to re-digitize? And so this is all just trying to ensure that all records are accounted for. And so it's tying this all together with this management regulation. So next slide. And of course we can't talk about digitization without talking about metadata. And so we do have extensive breaking it down into the different forms of metadata and we include requirements for administrative metadata so that the images can be managed appropriately through time and through metadata relating to the original records making sure it's carried forward to the electronic copies that are created so that they are discoverable by researchers in the future. And then rights and restrictions are carried forward so that they are again managed appropriately. Technical metadata so that in the future as formats become obsolete we're able to make good decisions and understand how records were created and decide when to move to new formats. We've included this requirement that agencies once they're done creating the electronic version they've done modifying metadata generate a checksum and that will assist agencies in identifying any corruption that may occur on a storage medium or any unauthorized changes that have occurred with a digital image. And those come along when the records are transferred to NARA and they help us validate the provenance of the records and give us some assurance that we put them out that nothing has been altered on this record. And then there is additional technical metadata describing the equipment that was used again that helps NARA preserve these records moving into the future. And so the next slide I'm going to hand it back to Mike and he's going to walk through the quality management quality assurance and quality control aspects which is really interesting and based on Fadji. Thank you Kevin. I just want to just go back to one point you're making about the technical metadata. Often that is actually metadata that's already encoded within the files. We've got questions from several agencies about do they have to make sure that these elements are hand entered and things like that. So generally no we want to present what the parameters are and some of the data elements that you should be aware of but generally technical metadata is already encoded. I want to talk a little bit about the quality management and assurance and control because these concepts are often confused together and I've become a miniature expert at it but I'm certainly sure there's other people out there who know a lot more about it than I do. Much of these standards and specifications come from the photographic processing world and they're just translated into a digital workflow but one could say that the regulation as a whole is a total quality management approach to creating suitable digital surrogates. The combination of clearly defined records management and image quality specifications have been designed to identify the critical elements of a digitization program and most importantly to detect problems as early in the process as possible and provide a common objective language for all stakeholders in the project's life cycle. Quality management is the overall management function and underlying activities that determine quality policies objectives and responsibilities and implement them through planning, control, assurance and improvement methods within the quality system. Quality assurance is a proactive quality management activity focused on preventing defects by ensuring that a particular product or service achieves required quality levels. A QA program is heavily dependent on quality control or QC data to search for patterns and trends. QA activities also include controlled experiments, design reviews and system tests. Quality assurance programs can improve quality through creating plans and policies or creating and conducting training. Quality control or QC are the activities that examine products through observation or testing and determine if the products meet the specifications. The purpose of quality control is to detect defects otherwise known as deviations from the predetermined requirements in products or processes. The FADGI DICE program represents an objective measurement of attributes sufficient to monitor image quality. However, records management or archival issues cannot be easily quantified or sampled. Reliance upon statistical random sampling alone cannot catch all the types of errors in a digitization process. We present a combination of automated and human visual checks that are built in the quality management program. Since the source records will be destroyed, it is critical that 100% of the original records are captured and the digital surrogate surrogate is validated. The quality control inspection program relies upon using tools such as the DICE target and analysis software to measure image quality and device performance. These objective image quality tests are used to measure the equipment and the file attributes. Implementation of the FADGI DICE program increases accuracy and decreases costly rework. It provides a common technical language so that agencies, vendors, and manufacturers can communicate about some of the same concerns. The regulations include descriptions of both automated and manual quality inspection steps to ensure that the file, image, and metadata quality have been met, including detailed lists of attributes and statistical sampling methods. A final inspection should be performed to verify that 100% of the criteria have been met. When these steps have been satisfied, the project can move to the separate validation process. Next slide, please. The quality control plans should identify and correct errors due to malfunctioning or improperly configured equipment. Improper software application settings or incorrect metadata capture or human error. Quality control inspections should be regularly performed to verify the files comply with all the imaging parameters and metadata criteria found in the specifications. To determine that digitization devices are capable of meeting imaging parameters, you must conduct an image quality analysis process and use device level reference targets. At various phases of the digitization project, agencies must perform a quality control inspection of a random sample of either 10 images or 10% of each batch of digital images, whichever is larger, for the following characteristics. File quality. You must verify that the files can be open and viewed that they are well formed according to the specified file format and if used, the specified file compression. For image quality, follow the steps described in the digitization requirements to ensure that digital files meet image quality parameters. Technicians should perform image quality inspection on a color-profiled graphics workstation and conduct visual inspection of images while at a 1 to 1 pixel ratio are 100% magnification. And may also verify digital file specifications. The technicians could also verify some specifications through automated process. However, visual review should be performed to assure accuracy and consistency of images and verify that the files have correct dimensions, correct orientation, meaning if are they portrait vertical, are they landscape horizontal, or if they've been accidentally horizontally or vertically flipped. It's very difficult at the current state for automated software programs to identify these issues that are most commonly seen by visual inspection. Also, no image skew and no cropping of information. Also, you must conduct manual quality control test checks to evaluate subjective factors such as image appearance, completeness, and legibility. The metadata quality, you must ensure that files are named according to the project specifications that the correct administrative, descriptive, and technical metadata are captured in the record keeping system and the correct metadata elements are embedded in file headers. You must conduct manual quality control checks to evaluate the accuracy of metadata and you may also verify metadata using automatic techniques. Quality and control for inspection for incompleteness is one of the more significant parts of this regulation because we're asking to visually compare the source records with their digitized versions to verify that 100% of the source materials have been captured and accounted for and that the digitized records are in the same order as the original. You must verify that all records have been accounted for by referring to the box list, folder list, or other inventories and you must identify and document any missing pages or images. Verify that all sources of the record information have been digitized by examining the records for related envelopes, notes, or other forms of media. Also, during this quality control, this is during your production production process so that if you identify a problem, you can easily and quickly address it while you still it's more cost effective than waiting to the end and then finding out something was done wrong and you have all this costly rework to do. So the final quality inspection, if more than 1% of the examined records fail to meet any of the criteria in this part, determine the source and scope of the error and correct and re-digitize the affected records and conduct additional inspections of 10% random samples until you achieve a 100% success rate. If less than 1% of the examined records fail to meet any of the criteria, determine the source and the scope of the errors, correct and re-digitize the affected records. Next slide, please. Finally, after the digitization production occurs is the critical step of validation. Agencies must validate that the digitized versions meet the standards and the regulations. The validation inspection should be conducted by separate staff independent from the digitization quality control described in the quality control inspection section. Agencies must validate that all records identified in the project scope have either been digitized or originally identified in the project documentation as missing or incomplete. The inspection should validate that all required metadata is accurate, complete, correctly labeled, and that all image technical attributes have been met. Also, the validation process should verify that mixed media files are digitized appropriately for the material type or if mixed media components are retained in the original format, they are associated with the digital components per the specified metadata requirements. Project documentation has been created according to the requirements and agencies must retain the project documentation until the National Archives confirms receipt of the records and gives notice that it is accepted legal custody of the records. Agencies must transfer the administrative technical and descriptive metadata captured during the project and after validating you may just, well, actually I'm sorry about that, I'm not sure these are old notes. Agencies whose records, whose digitized records do not meet the requirements in this part do not have authority to destroy the original source and must contact the records management policy and standards team. If I've got any of that last part wrong, I'm sure one of my colleagues will correct me on that. Thank you. Back to you, Kevin. Okay. So can we get to the next slide please? So after all of that, our status we have the draft published as a proposed rule on the Federal Register and it's open for comments until February 1st, 2021. It's important to keep in mind we understand these regulations are in the CFR and they're not necessarily user-friendly it doesn't read like an instruction manual and so we are producing additional products to support it and explain some of the complicated less intuitive parts of it. Until we have success criteria that we're working on simultaneously we're also going to release blog posts. And in the future, once this is published we'll turn our attention to other media types and developing regulations for the digitization of those. We've been approaching this with the 80-20 rule in mind trying to address what presumably is by far the largest volume of material that would need to be digitized which is paper. And then we'll work and focus on the other media types that are out there after that. And I believe that's it. Next slide. If there are any questions. Thank you Michael and Kevin. We do have a spate of questions that have come in obviously. I guess you just made some of these points. When will we when will you publish regulations for digitizing microfilm? When does NARA expect to have it and related when does NARA expect to have a draft digitization standard for aerial film for review and comment? So other formats do we have timelines for those? Well, as I said we're going to return our attention to those pretty quickly. And I think Mike for a lot of the film base we do have Fadji guidance to refer to. So hopefully the timeline will begin working on it next year and hopefully we'll be able to generate those a little more quickly than this one. Yeah, the Fadji guide our standard specifications will be based off Fadji specifications. However, Fadji provides an option of one to four quality levels. So generally we've been picking the Fadji 3 star quality level for different media types. So I can't don't quote me on that as a requirement but if you follow Fadji 3 star generally you're not going to be too far off of what the eventual regulations going to be like. Fadji itself has some types of characterizations and descriptions of digitization process that aren't necessarily completely consistent with NARA's regulatory oversight. So that's why we can't just point you directly over there. But I encourage everybody to look at those specifications because those are the ones that are out there that are based on international standards organizations specifications. Thank you. Another one came in, why do the regulations ask us to embed some metadata but capture other elements of metadata in a record keeping system? Okay. As we walk through this there are lots of different types of metadata and some of it the technical metadata relating to the image and how it's captured it needs to be in that image file but there's no need to bog down a record keeping system with all of that information. But there is some information administrative metadata that needs to appear in both places. It needs to be embedded in the file and be kept in a record keeping system so that they can be managed through time and when that point comes when they are transferred to NARA and they're taken out of the agency's custody and systems we can understand them and manage them appropriately. So there's that combination depending on the type of metadata determines whether it should be embedded whether it should be kept in a record keeping system or both. So thank you. What about document conversion from older digital formats to NARA approved digital formats? And a related question was this revision does not include a grandfather clause for record scanned meeting the previous CFR standard or approved by NARA. Could you please discuss why these records were not addressed? Yeah. So I'm going to answer that one. I'm Lisa Harris-Lampus I'm the director of records management policy and outreach and I was ready to answer that question because that is one of the main questions we've received on this draft regulation. So the first answer I'm going to give is as you go look at the standards the draft digitization standards online as they were issued in the regulation the regulation contains a preamble so it's not part of the regulation itself but the preamble provides context and in the preamble is where we've answered that question and I'm going to give you the answer here so you can go look it up and find it on your own but you can also just stay here and get the answer. So these standards are the standards that we've developed or were proposing to say this is what the National Archives needs for us to be able to take the electronic scans and not the paper. So there is an accompanying general records schedule which is going to come out when these regulations are finalized. So the answer to the first question is we're saying if you want to use the GRS as your authority to dispose of the original source documents and send in our the transfer you have to comply with these standards but obviously you couldn't comply with standards when you were scanning projects 10 years ago or even six months ago because we didn't have these standards available. So what are the options for agencies? Well one option may be to, so these are the options, one I'll do the hardest one first. One option may be and I'm going to say it there may be times when you're just going to decide I'm going to re-scan these records because that is actually easier or more efficient and that is one option, re-scanning. Another and then we'll comply and I'll know that these are records that can be preserved by NARA over time for decades if not centuries. The second option might be to do a separate record schedule that says I have been scanning this series of permanent records for 10 years, 15 years this is the version and if we write a separate schedule what we're anticipating is a way to document what quality standards were used at the time what technical standards were used at the time to say ok these records NARA is going to get the scans and this has been scanned from 2010 to 2022 and this is what those scans are like and we're going to use a scheduling process to get you that disposition authority to send the scans to NARA and dispose of the paper. Option number three is to get those paper records to the National Archives and then the scans are just your reference copy NARA will take the paper as we know that is part of the that is impacted by COVID right now getting records to paper records to the record center so it's also possible that you will need to use an exception to the M1922 target that says NARA is only going to take the electronic versions after 2022 but it might fit in that there's an exception process to say well I'm still going to send you paper and some accompanying digitization scans I want to send you both because that's what we need to do to ensure we've got a reliable authentic set of records that are being transferred to NARA so there's a couple of different paths an exception path a rescan path a separate scheduling path and we are going to try to work with agencies to answer this really difficult question which is how can we be sure we're getting records that are only scans of permanent records that we can maintain over time because if we only have the scan we will never know if there's a gap in the records because there was a gap in the records or there was a gap in the records because of the scan so these are the large questions we're trying to answer and we're using all of our experience that we've had with document conversions over time we've looked at the microfilm world we've looked at how accessionings are happening accession has happened today and this is where we've come up with these standards if you think that there is other options please let us know that's again I can't stress enough these are our draft regulations and we cannot wait to get and have the discussion with commenters about how this will work and I'm going to leave that question there because I'm sure Arian there's some follow up sure there certainly is one of them has come in is if we have boxes of permanent records meeting scanning is the guidance to wait to do that until the permanent record scanning regulation is finalized my recommendation would be to wait because they are draft you can see where we're going but we might make improvements that will help you do scanning in the future however I'm so glad and thank you Kevin and Mike for your in depth presentation and for those of you who may feel overwhelmed with all of this information I can say I asked them to do that I wanted them to give you the full thinking and understanding of all of these different sections so we recognize that there might be things that we can do to make the process better and the process easier so that's my recommendation why I would say you may want to wait also because it's not we're at the phase now where we have a 60 day comment period and the clock is ticking and we hope to have these regulations finalized this year so it shouldn't be a long wait however if you can't wait please contact us so that we can discuss any questions that you have and again you can always reach us through rm.communications or rm standards we have our contact information in the draft regulation so thank you for that question I hope that helps thank you Lisa and I think this one is sort of maybe maybe Michael or Kevin want to tackle this one will NARA provide a sample or template project to see QM plan for agencies to use that is a good question in our success criteria we kind of lay out we haven't at this point included a template but we do kind of walk through different scenarios and that's something you know that's a great suggestion and we can go back and look at that and see if that was something we want to tackle in terms of putting it it's difficult there's 250 different agencies different scales of projects from hundreds of records to millions of records and so coming up with a one size with the whole template can be tricky but we can look at that and as Kevin said the regulations themselves have a certain format to it that isn't very explanatory in certain areas so we are well prepared to go into much greater depth on any of the difficult topics we've already prepared some type of checklists and decision making matrix type of approach to how you evaluate your process our thinking is we're going to give you the standards in these regulations and then we hope to have best practices documents that we generate or the community generates that we can share as resources because every digitization project seems to be slightly different from I'm doing 10,000 boxes to I'm doing 10 and what is the appropriate quality check what's the proper tools to buy how do I write a contract to cover this so we're hoping to be engaged with the federal records community and the digitization community for a long time as we work towards this ultimate goal of transforming our records from paper to electronic and from analog to electronic so thank you also Fadji has a lot of helpful guidance and practical experience and some other supplemental information so if you go to digitizationguidelines.gov it's hosted by the Library of Congress but there's a lot of material there that you can research. Thank you Lisa, Kevin, Michael I think that's been a great discussion I do also want to acknowledge we see the really robust discussion on YouTube about contractor and contractor requirements I don't think there's a doesn't seem to be a real question there so we appreciate the community having a robust conversation if you do have a question please hold it and we'll answer it we'll move on with the program and we'll pick it back up in the general section Thank you So now I'll welcome Lawrence Brewer, Chief Records Officer for the US government who will be presenting an update on federal records management and transition activities Thanks Aryan and hello everyone, happy holidays hope everyone is getting ready for some time off and I wanted to take this opportunity because it will be the last time in 2020 we'll be able to talk about records management during transition because yes, we are in the middle of the transition If we could go to next slide I wanted to give you a sense of what we've been working on and I know you all in your agencies I'm sure have been doing the same as officials come in and leave your agencies we know that there's a role for records management one of the things that we've been focusing on is trying to get guidance out to all of you and we have done so in a variety of ways one, as noted on here we've been using records express to put up a series of short posts about specific topics related to transition and so you probably have seen the ones that we've posted about email about entrance and exit checklists and some of the general resources from NARA and from GSA and from the agency transition directors council and the GSA website but we did post one this week to share the information about records of the president elect transition team so I encourage you to take a look at those posts and get the latest information on those topics but this information also was pushed out to all agency heads via the executive secretary distribution via a memo from the archivist of the United States where we covered the four main topics that I'll talk about in my next slide and some of the things that I know you are working on in your agencies so we encourage you to use the resources we'll talk about some of those resources in another slide but I also wanted to let you know as we move forward to the next slide if we could do that we'll talk about the four areas we're focusing on but I also wanted to specifically highlight some of the briefings that we have been doing over the last several weeks so one of the things in talking to the archivist of the United States in addition to reaching out to all of you in the records management community and making sure that you're making the connections and have the guidance you need to share the message about records management we have been talking to a lot of other communities that we believe should be aware of the importance of records management during transition so I have done briefings to the CIO council to the general councils exchange talking to agency GCs sent a message to the agency web managers to talk to them about specifically the management of websites as we go through the transition and as the websites change to make sure that there's proper management of web records and just yesterday I briefed the CIC council the community of inspector general which is actually a very good conversation with the IGs like us understand the importance of integrity and efficiency especially with managing government information and they understand our role and the role that all of you play with oversight and doing evaluations and making sure that our agency employees are following the requirements that relate to records management so we're trying to reach out to as many communities as we can and try and build some support that will hopefully help you within your agencies but I encourage you within your own agencies reach out to your IG reach out to your general council reach out to your CIO staff and see if we can't build some partnerships around protecting records during the turn that's going to happen as we go through this transition so in terms of topics the four areas you see on the slide that we've been focusing on and it's no surprise I'm sure to you that the first topic that we are focusing on is email and trying to to make it very clear how important it is that especially for officials coming into the government that they know not to use personal or private email accounts or messaging accounts to conduct agency business or anything we all know and we just need to keep repeating it and making sure that we don't expose our agencies to any unauthorized disposition cases because records are being maintained outside of federal record keeping control we're also because of the transition and the turn focusing on entrance and exit briefings we point to in our resources some checklists that agencies can use and have been really encouraged to hear that a lot of agencies are embedding these into existing processes with human capital so that when people come in they are briefed they understand what their responsibilities are in the records management and then as they depart this administration or federal service they know not to remove records they have been cleared by records management staff and their copies and without any sensitive information which has been cleared for removal we're also spending some time talking about social media and web records they're becoming increasingly important as we all know and we want to make sure that as officials come in and they use social media accounts that they are using official government social media accounts that they are engaging on behalf of the agency and for those that are leaving federal service it's very clear that they are signing off that they are no longer using those accounts and there is a clearly demarced line where it's clear that they are no longer engaging on behalf of their agency so that's a really important thing to keep in mind is something that we discussed with the agency web managers to really emphasize that point of making sure that we are using the social media accounts properly and managing the information and the records that we're creating as a result of using those platforms and then lastly web records some of them we're all aware of but especially during transition there's always a lot of changes to websites reorganizations within agencies changes to leadership a lot of information that gets refreshed or created as a result of the transition and we want to make sure that agency records programs are identifying capturing and managing the information from the previous administration and then identifying and capturing the new websites that are being created for the incoming administration so we want to make sure that this important platform which for many of us is the primary way that we're interacting with the public and our stakeholders that there is very robust documentation and that the information that's up on our websites is scheduled and dispositioned like all of the records that we maintain within our agencies are the key areas that we're focusing on hopefully things are going well within your agencies around transition it's a challenging time as we know there's a lot of comings and goings and a lot of high level officials that will require this information and we will need to work with senior agency officials for records management to make sure that those connections are being made at the highest levels of the agency to make sure that the records of our government are identified, protected and preserved so I think that is it is there a next slide we can flip it yes so questions and I think from this we'll also move into Q&A I believe is that correct Arion? Yes we have a couple questions related to your topic and then we'll move to the general Q&A shortly the first question is where can we find a copy of the archivist letter that you mentioned good question it is up on our website and it's also I believe on records express we could probably drop it in the chat but yes we want to make sure that everybody gets a copy of it and that was one of the concerns you know getting something to all agency heads there's no ready made distribution list to do that so we did make sure that we sent copies of the memo via AC memos to all agency records officers and to all agency senior agency officials for records management and it also went to all general counsel so we tried to cover as many bases as we could and for anybody who missed it we have it up on our website Thank you Lawrence another question is what does the Electoral College vote on Monday mean for federal records management that's a good question obviously the Office of the Federal Register has a role with the Electoral College and they are keeping a lot of the correspondence the ascertainments that are coming in from the states and they will of course be managed in accordance with schedules that exist for the Office of the Federal Register I don't think there's any broader concerns certainly not aware of any concerns or issues related to those processes but it has been it has been challenging and we are as we always do with the National Archives we have to prepare for the transition on the Presidential Records Act side of the law and there have been some delays but we feel like we'll be in good shape and and the records will eventually be coming to the National Archives Thank you sort of a question that popped up during the discussion during your discussion is NARA planning to issue or develop a GRS covering social media records so we would not create a schedule that just covers the platform so the schedules are functional they relate to series maybe social media records that are embedded within a number of different series now there is there are general record schedules that relate to like administrative functions and series that support web management and the same could apply to social media records but yeah that would be something to look at and I would send a message to the GRS teams mailbox GRS underscore team at NARA.gov and I'm sure they can give you a much more precise and in-depth answer on the history of that issue and where we're going with it. Thank you Lawrence I think at this time okay let's pivot to the general Q&A session with we'll bring back the presenters from across today's program as a reminder please type your questions into the YouTube chat or feel free to email them to rm.communications at NARA.gov and we'll queue them up for people to answer I want to start at the beginning so Chris is Chris Picney you and your team are you here yes sir thank you we do have a couple questions that have come in since your presentation I'll just read them previously we were able to build FOIA and our contractors for FRC services such as requests including shipping and handling shipping and handling research scanning etc with the new inclusive billing we are not able to recover costs is there any possibility that billing will go uninclusive or have any other agencies discussed a way to recover costs for the service I feel that not being able to bill for very large FOIA requests will lead to more fairly large FOIA requests that's a good one it's also the first time that's come to my attention my initial response would be we may be kind of dealing with a case of unintended consequences I don't necessarily see a change to the billing structure in the near future that would accommodate FOIA in the manner that we used to I guess what I can offer initially would be I certainly understand the thrust of the question and agree that that could lead to larger FOIAs if it's more difficult for agencies to calculate the costs I will take that as an action item and I will reach out to Gordon Everett once he's back in the office and his AFC team and see if they are hearing similar questions from other agencies and try to determine how other agencies are handling that so I don't have an immediate fix for it but I can certainly understand what the submitter is asking and will try to come up with something that could potentially help them address the cost cost calculation thank you that's very helpful so another question that came in is regarding the Washington National Records Centers what should agencies do if they are in the middle of a move that they need to store records? that's a lot easier when I like that question I would suggest that we are very familiar with expiring leases and we understand the pressure that can put on offices if somebody needs to get material into the WNRC I would encourage them to reach out direct to Shannon Harris who's the division director at that site we need to know some particulars before I can commit to anything because safety remains the first priority for our staff and our facilities but we are certainly willing to engage and try to see if there's something that we could do to accommodate and make sure that people aren't buried by boxes so please reach out to Shannon Harris and then we'll coordinate internally thank you now we have a couple questions for Don and Tom from their presentation about agency services agency inspections and oversight what is the electronic maturity model is it available online? thanks sorry I should have brought it a little more so the maturity model we actually have two maturity models the email maturity model and electronic records so we've been running the email one since 2016 that was a way for us to measure how you're doing incremental progress so it's a risk-based model based on success criteria that we've put out and there are multiple domains your disposition, systems policy and access and then you rate where you think you are on a zero to four score we do have them online on the results from last year or up on our web page and the email ones go back to where we are also available and if you're new to doing the maturity model if you have any questions feel free to reach out to us on our team we're there with anybody to help you during the reporting period as you go through them thank you Don another question are you asking Covid specific questions are there points associated with these questions? we're interested in Covid and records management we have some questions in the RBC about that they would be unscore questions and I think we also might have a question in our SCR report just about the challenges around those issues but none of those questions would be scored thank you I'm just scrolling through I don't see any more for your portion of the presentation looking ahead here's one for maybe Kevin and Michael what about document conversion from older digital formats to NARA approved digital formats we cannot transcode from one format to another can we not transcode from one format to another to meet the requirement I'll tackle that the formats that we've listed come from our transfer guidance and we do have language in the transfer guidance itself playing if you have permanent records and they're in some format other than what you see here contact NARA because it is possible in that conversion to do damage metadata alter the records in some way just to reach out and we'll talk through and see what your situation is and then give you some advice on the next steps thank you another question please clarify this for me since I am a museum curator not an archivist I thought it was against the law to dispose of permanent records and what does this apply to certainly not historic records there's some confusion there on our processes so this is Lisa and I'll go ahead and start and I'm sure my colleagues will join so it's against the law to destroy permanent records true and with the general record schedule what we are saying is that when you follow these digitization standards the scans become the historical record keeping copy and the original paper is no longer the record keeping copy that is now a temporary record and it will be disposed of or destroyed in accordance with the GRS record schedule so that is part of the transformation when we are talking about going to digital government and transforming a lot of programs are figuring out how do I do work that used to be paper based electronically digital from day one so there never will be a paper copy and we know that a lot of agencies are dealing with the I have been in paper I'm now electronic but what do I do with the section of paper I had in the past how do I get that to the National Archives if it comes to a record center before 2022 National Archives will take that paper copy however if it doesn't come in by 2022 at this time we are asking agencies to provide us the digital digitized version unless they have an exception or some other schedule that allows for that paper transfer so I know it's scary to hear that for the first time if this is a new to the space but that is our goal and I would invite my colleagues to help me answer that more fully if there is another angle that I missed Lisa I would just add that there is the question comes from someone from the museum community we certainly acknowledge that there will be cases where the paper even though it's being scanned will also be something that we want to take into the National Archives because of the intrinsic value of the paper format so especially if you are in a museum you may have copies of treaties or other hand signed documents older documents where we would not want agencies to throw away those permanent records we will want to have a conversation with an agency about the potential intrinsic value of those records in the paper format and then be able to determine whether or not we want just the paper or the paper in the digitized versions but we want to make sure that the interest of the National Archives in the right formats do make it to the National Archives would it be fair Lawrence do you think just to finish this to characterize this as a bit of a flip in the past we wanted the paper and we take the electronic versions if they were available if they helped now we're flipping that we're saying we want the electronic versions but you're right there is an exception process with intrinsic value as one of the factors that could say we need to discuss if we're going to be taking the paper correct so thank you both I'll remind folks and if you have a question please leave them in the chat or email them to rm.communications at narra.gov we have at least one more that has come in and this is a general question what is the status of the OPM revising the position classification standards for archival and records management occupational series to incorporate electronic records management responsibilities and functions the updated position classification standards for the archivist archived technician and records and information management job series to include electronic records tasks assignments and responsibilities is due by December 31st 2020 right unfortunately our answer to that one right now is that I don't have a current status update from OPM on where they are so I I don't know I can't share it how I can't answer the questions I don't know the answer but I can say that we will we have been we will continue to follow up with OPM and when we get updates we will we will share them with the community likely through a blog post or other other tools so thank you for asking and keep asking and I hope we'll have that answer soon but I don't think it's going to happen in the next two weeks I can tell you that so it's going to get pushed as an activity back to two calendar year 21 and then Lisa one of them sort of did you want to clarify anything about the DoD 5015 dot tube question that was asked earlier oh thank you so much and yes I know this has been I would just like to say you know we're always looking to make bridge better I'm so excited we were able to have this meeting today even though it's a snow day in DC so ordinarily we would be canceling and I wanted to say that I'm just happy to see there's been so much chat on on YouTube and I thank Ari and the other production teams for managing that and responding on the chat or responding to the emails it's been great which reminded me that there was a question that came in about DoD 5015 dot 2 and NARA's endorsement and it also talked about the universal ERM requirements and I just wanted to go ahead and take this opportunity at this time to share again that NARA endorsed the DoD 5015 dot 2 and I believe it's been over 12 years ago now and that endorsement stays in place at this time and NARA has also created the universal electronic records electronic records management requirements which we think are a progression so the 5015 dot 2 standards were seed of the art at the time and it's a very user it's intentionally user driven so users are clicking and filing and managing files we recognize that electronic records management there's many other tools and other approaches so the endorsement for 5015 dot 2 stands and there's a recognition that NARA has put out universal ERM requirements which is the generic that's what the universal means it's the basic of what we see needs to happen when you're managing electronic records and so that is our more current and more evolved guidance and I hope that helps if that person wants to ask some following questions be happy to take them now or offline I'll keep my eyes open for that will NARA be providing guidance on how agencies are supposed to meet the 2022 deadline if NARA's guidance heard Lisa's statement about waiting to scan until the regulation is final well I would say it's a difference between waiting to scan to send the permanent records to NARA because until we receive them there's a time for records can get transferred when they're ready to be transferred we want them transferred at their transfer date as close as possible but if we're talking about it's 2022 and I'm going to need a little extra time to take my paper and make it digital I think that's to be expected if the question is are we going to provide guidance I feel like there's a hidden question in there about is NARA going to provide extensions on guidance to give us more time especially since these draft standards just came out on December 1st and at this time we are not extending the December 31st 2022 deadline so that is firm at this time and again I look for help especially from Lawrence if I need to amplify that message oh you're on mute thank you I remember to hit the mute button I was just saying no that's absolutely true and obviously the targets that are in M1921 are ones that we should be working towards now but ones that we are monitoring along with OMB so we will see as we get into the next year how things go but to answer your question I think it's really something that I think if you are going through a digitization initiative and you need to do that for your own business you shouldn't wait you should do it because you need to but it would be helpful to have a conversation with Kevin and Michael about the standards that we are aligning to and the good thing is that now we have a proposed rule out there so everyone can see full transparency what the standards are at this point and there are certainly enough there that I think will help you make a decision or termination on what to do but clearly if you need to digitize because we are working at home and you need electronic records to be able to share around to people and to collaborate on we certainly wouldn't want to stand in the way of that if you have a business need you need to go forward we just suggest that you have a conversation with us about some of the standards so that you are on the right path or pointed in the right direction Rex Thank you Lawrence I'm just going to loop back again the question I was answering before the question I thought I was answering was should I start a digitization project right now based on these draft regs and that's what I was like if you can wait a few more months so they are final in case there is some change that's what I would recommend but if it's not a question of starting because you have an option you can definitely use the draft regs I think they provide the overview I don't expect sections of the regs to change I just expect the language inside those sections to change if that helps Thank you, I think here's one that's I think pretty straightforward just to clarify just to be clear NARA will take the paper from the WNRC if records are in paper in WNRC by December 2022 Yes WNRC or any of the Federal Records Centers so that is one of our goals is if you know you have paper and you do not plan to digitize it and it's going to be transferred to NARA after 2022 you can send them to the Federal Records Center and store them as paper and transfer them as paper in that case providing digitized access copies in the future when they become part of the National Archives that will be NARA's responsibility because we'll own that paper and we'll need to make it available Do you have any recommendations or are aware of any contractors that agencies are looking to that will be able to meet the digitization requirements to scan permanent records At this point let me answer by saying through our Fermi initiative which you have hopefully our bridge attendees have heard us talk about many times before we will be working with the General Service Administration with their category management team to help agencies find digitization contractors on their schedules that will be compliant with NARA regulations that's one part so we are aware that there's a contract a procurement and a certification piece and we produce the standards but we're hoping to partner with GSA to help agencies actually get those tools we don't have that in place now but it's something that will be coming and Arian as our Fermi lead I'll double check with you did I get that right No I think that covers the basic starting point I would say is pay attention to our Fermi I've linked our Fermi page earlier in the chat so people can go to there and from there we can go to GSA and that's sort of the starting point I'd say for that conversation Thank you for putting on the answer hat not just the question hat The question hat's a little more challenging so here's another one is there a current link on the NARA website for accessing the latest list of GITIC certified RMA products accessing the GITIC site by a Google is not working that's part of the DoD 5015 conversation I'm going to have to check I don't know that and I'm so sorry put a pause on that I'll get back to you I think the answer to that is I don't think we currently have one because we were linking to the same GITIC site that's part of the confusion around GITIC and DoD 5015.2 at the moment Will NARA be developing any training requirements to include record management RMF or cyber security So I guess I'll take that one you know as far as training goes I mean when you're talking about cyber security and risk management gets into other laws and authorities that are outside of the scope of what we typically cover with agencies under 36 CFR and our statutes that relate specifically to records management we do encourage agencies to make connections within their own agencies as part of good governance to connect with those communities that work in cyber security that work under FISMA that work in the other RM and ERM risk management enterprise risk management but our authorities are more narrow in scope and we we tend to focus on training that reinforces and elaborates on the requirements in our statutes and regulations so we're more than happy to support agencies in helping make those connections but I would not expect that we're going to have any specific training on statutes or regs or laws that are outside of our area of expertise Thank you Lawrence I'll open this one up to anyone who wants it sort of a jump ball Given what NARA's FRCP team knows, is there enough space for FRCs to accommodate hard copy records incoming from federal agencies before December 31st 2022 once the COVID-19 situation has been addressed? I can do my best to feel that based on everything we know right now I believe we'll have sufficient space some agencies are starting to give us estimates as to what the free 2023 volume may look like based on what we know we believe we have sufficient shelves available around the country and have certainly not got to the point where we would be in any danger of turning anyone away Another one has come in Chris you can handle this one Due to the COVID pandemic our box is only being accepted to WNRC on an emergency basis currently Yes and that would go for any of our face zero locations I think I said earlier if there was an exacerbating situation an office is closing you're literally buried in boxes please reach out to the local director you would normally ship to depending on the volumes involved we may or may not be able to do something to help out we'll certainly do anything we can but as I said before safety remains the top priority Thank you Another one has just come in NARA issued a white paper on artificial intelligence including a section describing a use case for digitization metadata that the Smithsonian recently did and a brief discussion on AI's applications for records management Will NARA run any test for machine learning, artificial intelligence records management and if so will we be looking to vendors for vendors to assist NARA in making it happen so that the time frames would be we'd be looking at Yeah, I'll start Well, thank you for sharing with the bridge community here that we have a white paper on cognitive technologies it was a white paper we did to research Internet of Things, machine learning, robotic process, automation and AI to make sure that we as the policy team had a resource to think about what these technologies mean for records management so I'll start right there the paper is that's what the intention of the paper was for NARA is pretty big and I know we have an office of innovation and I know there are some parts of NARA that are exploring how to use cognitive technologies to improve archival management we have not used cognitive technologies yet in the office of the chief records officer so we're not using it for scheduling appraisal or policy creation at this time but we are aware of the space we're monitoring that space and we we're open we're looking to see how it happens it's the same sort of answer with blockchain we're watching, we're aware and we're looking to see if there's a need to issue new policy or an opportunity to learn more and I think that's where we are I'm going one last pass through our question queue we seem to have gotten many today I think we've covered them all I'd like to add one more comment just at the end if I can on digitization because I know we had a lot of discussion about and I've said the words destroy original source records I'm going to point out that you can read the entire draft regulation and you will not see that come up until the very last part it's really not a regulation that's written with the destruction question in mind it's written with the digitization question so again the destruction will be related to the GRS and to what schedule authorities relate to which versions of record keeping copy which versions a temporary copy that they're all record keeping copies which version is going to be temporary which is going to be permanent and I'd just like to point out that that is not specifically addressed in the regulation the regulation talks about what you need to do to be able to use those disposition authorities that you have and that was I just want to make sure I hit that because I definitely got some feedback from my own R staff that that it's important to make that that to share that point now because I hope that will help as you're looking at the rights and providing feedback so thank you for thank you to my colleague for mentioning that I may have addressed it wrong and thank you Aryan for giving me that chance to say it. You're welcome Lisa no no problem okay thank you since there are no more questions we'd like to take we'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for viewing and actively participating in today's bridge meeting we also would like to remind you that our next bridge meeting will be Tuesday February 16th 2021 if you have any questions about bridge please email rm.communications at narra.gov or visit our bridge page at the at the url displayed on the screen thank you everyone and have a great day and a happy holiday season happy holidays