Digital Records Transformation Initiative - April 2020

In response to the COVID-19 situation, the Initiative is adjusting its way of working in line with Department of Finance and whole of Australian government directions. Our team, like yours, may be dispersed and working from home. We appreciate your understanding for any delays you may experience as a result of these changes.

While currently we cannot meet face-to-face, we encourage you to communicate with us by email and phone. We have also created a GovTEAMS community to engage with you and will be using as much of its functionality as possible. This includes the capability for meetings and larger forums which we look forward to taking advantage of in the coming months.

For those of you without GovTEAMS access, you may be invited as guest users to these online meetings as well as some upcoming user research sessions.

If you have questions relating to ongoing engagement, please contact us at digitalrecordstransformation@finance.gov.au.

As many of you are aware, there are two projects that fall under the Initiative with one being the Sourcing Strategy Framework project and other one being the Australian Government Records Interoperability Framework (AGRIF) project. The articles below provide an update on each of these.

Finance is working to modernise records management in government so that the valuable information created by agencies is easier to manage and re-use. Vendors are beginning to offer intuitive and user-friendly solutions, and this work aims to allow agencies to consider these solutions to better meet their information management needs.

Overall, the Initiative seeks to:

• improve Australian Government agency recordkeeping practices to make better use of Australian Government information and data assets
• make effective use of available smart technology that is beginning to be incorporated into records management practices
• improve productivity using automation
• increase compliance with regulations for the management of Australian Government records
• improve the competitiveness of Australian small and medium sized technology providers which are beginning to adapt new technology into their products.

To date, the Initiative has facilitated 33 user-focussed workshops with 30 Australian Government agencies and consulted with over 70 agencies on the framework. The workshops have revealed common issues experienced by end users of information tools, including findability, discoverability, reliability and usability. 

For example, end users in the workshops report common issues relating to their ability to effectively engage with external and internal stakeholders, due to an inability to find reliable records.  

The Initiative has brought a greater user-focus to the procurement of records management solutions, highlighting user issues with current business processes, and providing the incentive for vendors to modernise their products.

The Initiative is working with seven agencies that have signalled their commitment to work with innovative technologies to solve their records management problems. We expect these to progress to market in the next few months, and to be advertised as Open Tenders on AusTender.

If you are an Australian Government agency looking to invest in, upgrade or renew your records management capability, please talk to us about your plans and how we can assist. We are also pleased to discuss the strategy with vendors. Please contact us at digitalrecordstransformation@finance.gov.au.

The Australian Government Records Interoperability Framework (AGRIF) is a research and demonstration project which aims to bring linked data technologies to government. The use of a linked data approach facilitates the management of information across disparate systems and between business areas reducing the impact of information siloes on the business of the Australian Government.

AGRIF uses open standards which have been adopted by the technology sector. Using linked data also supports the use of process-improving automation since it creates machine-actionable views of information that will meet a wider set of discovery needs than traditional approaches. The Australian National University (ANU) College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) is collaborating with Finance to deliver this project and has developed innovative tools and methods to support the work.

Three participating agencies have provided four ‘use cases’ and their related records for use as proofs of concept. A use case is a brief description of how and why a system will be used in a particular core business scenario. These use cases will demonstrate the practical application of linked data approaches for Government and provide tools and pathways for implementation.

If you have a possible use case or you’re interested in AGRIF and the progress so far, the techniques being used or knowledge graphs more generally – then please contact us at digitalrecordstransformation@finance.gov.au

As entities undertake Business Continuity reviews, it is a good time to note changes to teams and organisational structures. So that we send communications to the right contacts in your records and information management teams, please send their details to us at digitalrecordstransformation@finance.gov.au

As a team within the Department of Finance, our web content has recently been reformatted as part of a whole-of-department website refresh. If you have saved any links to our pages, you may find that they are no longer active. If you discover that any of the tools or documents previously available aren’t there, please let us know and we will work to restore them.

You will also find it easier to search for us now. From the Department of Finance home page, simply click on the Government tile and then select Digital Records Transformation Initiative.