For Immediate Release

Medford, Massachusetts (October 23, 2001) The Global Electronic Records Association, is pleased to announce it has received a Federal grant for $200,000. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) awarded this grant to GERA to help it create a set of "Quality Electronic Records Practices." NHPRC is the research funding arm of the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The grant is being given as matching funds in a government-industry problem-solving partnership to solve immediate global problems with electronic records management and digital archiving systems. The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA), a collaboration of over 36 industrial companies focused on emerging market development, is providing global industry's financial support.

The full scope of the "The Quality Electronic Records Practices" Program will establish the "knowledge base" of standard electronic records lifecycle specifications and models, procedures, and guidelines to provide a sound foundation for "defensible" electronic records. State and federal government agencies, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions are collaborating to develop standards, reference materials, and training to effectively manage, preserve, protect, and certify their electronic programs, records, systems, and records professionals. In addition to standard reference models, specifications, and guides, GERA will provide training and certification to people concerned with electronic records, most notably, records managers, archivists, attorneys, information technologists, quality assurance and regulatory professionals and inspectors across many industries (including environmental, nuclear, food and drug, securities, construction, and many other industries).

Phase 1 of The "Quality Electronic Records Practices (QERPs)" Program is creating:

• The "Electronic Records Lifecycle Standard" (ERLS) to establish reliable and trustworthy framework for electronic records program and systems requirements so that electronic records can be created, managed, preserved, accessed, and defended for as long as needed by any government, academic, or industrial business. It is especially important because it identifies and defines at a detailed level what organizational policies, processes, procedures, technologies, and other components are required to create, manage, and preserve electronic records and defend their authenticity from cradle to grave in a court of law or regulatory proceeding.
• The Litigation Guide For Electronic Records (LitiGER) containing standard minimum requirements for organizations to reliably defend or attack electronic records as evidence in legal or regulatory proceedings in civil, criminal, regulatory, intellectual property or other legal settings. The LitiGER Guide includes but goes far beyond the rules, recommendations, and guidance of the recent Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) law "21 CFR Part 11 on Electronic Records and Electronic Signatures" which applies to all FDA regulated industries. 21 CFR Part 11 Rule is particularly difficult to comply with and is insufficient to meet the needs of unrelated industries. By design, the LitiGER will go far beyond FDA regulated industry to create a general purpose standard applying across all industries. The LitiGER will drawn upon some of the findings of the first QERP, called the Legal Acceptability Guide to Electronic Records (LAGER), created, funded, and available now from CENSA.
• The Validation Guide for Electronic Records Systems for validating systems compliant with standard reference models and industry good practices, laws, and regulations. This will include validation requirements of many regulated industries, and thus will help industries simultaneously regulated to be able to comply more easily. The best available practices and standards available today are being referenced as key sources for this newer comprehensive standard reference material.

Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Acting Director of GERA, who full-time directs the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA) sees GERA's role as helping to bring stability, long-term reliability, and high-level expertise to electronic information management and records specialists. "These new standards being developed jointly by extensive government and industry collaboration will provide detailed assistance to thousands of organizations struggling to understand and implement complex electronic records programs for eBusiness, eR&D, eRegulations, and eGovernment.

Dr. Lysakowski also noted that these standard reference materials are being developed as forward-looking but drawing heavily on the best standards that exist today. "We are drawing heavily on state-of-the-art research from the 14-country InterPARES Project and other work funded by the USA (NHPRC) and Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the International Standards Organization, the Society for Quality Assurance and others."

"These standards detail the complex programatic and technological requirements in our age of constant white-water change. The recent September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA provide key examples of how better electronic records programs and advance access to interoperable authenticated electronic records from key sources will make our data sources more reliable and trustworthy, allowing us to be more proactive and perhaps avert future disasters."

See http://www.erecordscentral.org for more information on the other benefits and standard coming from this government-industry R&D program.

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