DS CWA 16021:2009

Business requirements specification - Transfer of digital records

Scope

The scope of this specification is to define a transfer process and a Submission Information Package that may be used by all records systems in all organizations when transferring records between records systems. The systems may be located in the same organization or in different organizations. The specification is primarily intended for use when transferring records from a producer to an archive, but may be used for other types of transfer.
To prevent confusion, the following terms will be used in this specification:
- A transfer as a whole is the business activity involved in transferring custody from one system to another. This may involve the transfer of physical custody or legal custody. Transfer includes tasks ranging from the extremely high level (e.g. agreement at the ministerial level as to access provisions), to the extremely low level (e.g. physical relocation of the records). This specification only covers some of the tasks involved in carrying out a transfer of digital records.
- A transfer agreement is negotiated between the staff of the respective organizations as part of the transfer, and would typically cover: whether the transfer would occur at all; what records are to be transferred (including their types); when they are to be transferred (and how often); access arrangements; and minimum metadata standards. Once negotiated, the agreement may remain in existence for a long time and cover many instances of actually transferring records. For example, a transfer agreement may specify that records are to be transferred annually. The negotiation and subsequent maintenance of the transfer agreement, as a whole, is not part of this specification.
- A transfer session is the activities involved in administering and performing an actual transfer of records within a transfer agreement. (...)