Victorian Electronic Records Strategy

VERS Week

In the May 2002 budget, the Victorian Government committed $8.2 million over two years to the further development of the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS). The funding committed to VERS has been dedicated to two purposes: building an electronic records repository at the Victorian Archives, and establishing a Centre of Excellence to support the Victorian Government in moving towards VERS.

The VERS Centre of Excellence commenced operation on 15 July 2002. As part of its initiation phase, a week of VERS-themed events, including the official launch of the Centre, was held. VERS Week was a great success, with 5 events being produced seamlessly. Dr Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director of the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA), travelled from Boston to deliver keynote addresses at all 5 events and spoke strongly of CENSA's support for VERS. Presentations were also delivered by John Rimmer, Director of the National Office for the Information Economy; The Hon Bruce Mildenhall, Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier; and Professor Sue McKemmish, Head of School, Information Management & Systems, Monash University.

The events were:

VERS for Vendors briefing
Records Management Network meeting
Australian Society of Archivists (Victorian Branch) Annual General Meeting
VERS Centre of Excellence & Toolkit launch
International Perspectives on Electronic Recordkeeping seminar

The VERS Week events attracted widespread interest and participation from across government and industry. The launch also received positive media coverage in Australia's 5 largest daily newspapers: "The Age", "The Australian", "The Australian Financial Review", "The Herald-Sun" and "The Sydney Morning Herald".

You can check out all of Rich's presentations and the speech notes for other presentations below, along with the media coverage and a selection of photographs chronicling the week.

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Media coverage of VERS Week

A world best in record keeping (Australian Financial Review, 15/10/02)

For the record, VERS leads world (The Age Next, 15/10/02)

For the record, VERS leads world (The Sydney Morning Herald Next, 15/10/02)

Archival interest (The Australian IT, 15/10/02)

Flying off the shelf (The Herald-Sun, 12/10/02)

Photographs of VERS Week

John Rimmer, Director, National Office of the Information Economy, at the VERS launch

Nicholas Leask (left), VERS Centre of Excellence Implementation & Strategy Project Manager, with Dr Rich Lysakowski (right), Executive Director, Colloborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA), at the launch

Professor Sue McKemmish, Head of School, Information Systems, Monash University, speaking at the International Perspectives workshop

The VERS Centre of Excellence team with Ross Gibbs, Director & Keeper of Public Records (far left), Dr Lysakowski (fourth from left), and Bruce Mildenhall MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier (fifth from right)

VERS Week presentations

Dr Rich Lysakowski

Archiving the Future: We've Got to Start Now (VERS for Vendors, 8/10/2002 and Records Management Network, 9/10/2002) (NB: 2.34MB)

CENSA, GERA & InterPARES work areas: Cross-over and differences (Australian Society of Archivists Annual General Meeting, 9/10/2002) (NB: 1.5MB)

VERS as a world-leading solution (VERS Centre of Excellence launch, 10/10/2002)

GERA - Quality Electronic Records Practices and Models (International Perspectives workshop, 10/10/2002) (NB: 1.5MB)

Download a Zip archive of all four presentations (NB: 5.4MB in size)

VERS for Vendors presentations

Compliance Certification Program

VERS Standard: Specifications 1 & 3

VERS Standard: Specification 2