Province of British Columbia

Enterprise Content Management Strategy

Defining the Government Content Ecosystem

Version 2.0

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Foreword
Driven by the need to control the content chaos that pervades local drives, file shares, email systems and document stores, organizations large and small are looking to impose order through Content Management. There are two types of content structured and unstructured. Unstructured content includes: email, PowerPoint presentations, images, videos, audio recordings, documents, records and other files. This document focuses on unstructured content. Up to 80% of an organizations information typically takes the form of unstructured content. Managing this volume of unstructured content is challenging but necessary to comply with regulatory requirements and having the potential for significant productivity gains. For example: There are substantial risks and liabilities related to not being able to produce relevant documents, or retaining documents that are no longer required, e.g. Carrier Lumber Judgment against the province for $75 million. White-collar workers will spend anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of their time this year managing documents, up from 20 percent of their time in 1997. So using a count of 30,000 employees with an average $50,000 salary, a low end 30% time commitment would mean that the province could be nominally investing $450 million annual to manage content. There have been numerous Content Management (CM) efforts within the BC government but they have been siloed, solving specific business needs but never allowing content to be found and reused in other business areas. Companies need to share content to help employees reuse instead of reinventing the wheel, and to help them find information and knowledge locked inside different Content Management systems across an enterprise. We must always leave the content free to flow wherever workers need it. Improved accessibility to business information is a must as labour costs for filing a document, discovering a misfiled document, and reproducing a lost document have been estimated to be $20, $120, and $220 respectively. 1 Even tradition ECM has not been successful within government because of the scope and complexity. The one size fails all approach does not work for government because of the increasing diversity of business requirements across the different business areas. Significant advances in interoperability have enhanced ECM by enabling information exchange, improving the scope and effectiveness of search, and eliminating the need for a one size fails all strategy. Embracing and building on these advancements is a key factor in this strategy enabling the ability of government to approach CM as a Content Ecosystem.

Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM)

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Executive Summary
The effective management of content is a very challenging endeavor. According to projections from Gartner, white-collar workers will spend anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of their time this year managing documents, up from 20 percent of their time in 1997. The increase can be attributed to a variety of factors including exponentially rising storage volumes, more complex information handling requirements, rapid change-over of staff and storage models (shared drives) that were developed over 30 years ago. Dealing with the complexities of finding relevant and reliable information that match information needs is essential. Matching reduces content management (CM) gaps i.e. enables the finding of information to make informed decisions. CM gaps represent enterprise liabilities with potentially profound impacts. Enterprise CM (ECM) Most organizations have undertaken some form of focused CM initiative. These initiatives have struggled in the past to garner broader corporate uptake due to their overly narrow focus, siloed service (e.g.: limited search), complexity, limited executive/enterprise commitment, inability to demonstrate value, and other factors. Out of convenience, users are turning to Exchange email to store terabytes of content, while the antiquated shared drive storage model developed in the late 70s runs out of gas when faced with supporting transformed business models. Websites present masses of documents that may or may not be secured in an offices corporate file system. Organizations are looking to ECM to bring greater focus on these chronic, growing headaches and manage the content chaos.
91% of enterprises that have implemented a well thought out ECM strategy have seen it as "extremely important" or important for the long term success of their business. Experts estimate that up to 80% of an organizations information typically takes the form of unstructured content.

Growing frustrations with managing and finding information along with the overwhelming demands of information requests is raising the need for an ECM strategy. There are new requirements for e-discovery, e-disclosure, open data, and storage. Significant advances in interoperability have improved information exchange, the scope and effectiveness of search, and have eliminated the need for a one size fails all strategy.

The Provincial Strategy The BC Provincial ECM strategy has been developed collaboratively with significant participation from each of the provincial government sectors. It provides a conceptual architecture (Content Ecosystem), to address the development of standards, guidelines, best practices and services to address the CM imperative. The strategy has been broken into several key areas (see figure 1) to help understand the complexity of the challenge and clearly group business needs and relevant technology responses. Some key responses include: Classification:
Figure 1 Key Areas 1. Classification 2. Access 3. Discovery and Sharing 4. Control 5. Protection 6. Storage 7. Authentication

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Establish consistent and reliable classification practices through metadata and automation. o Evolve the ECM-Content Metadata Standard and Content Metadata Model with the help of the Business Workforce Transformation group. Access: o Establish CM Interoperability standards and services. Discovery and sharing: o Work with the Business Workforce Transformation group and Shared Services BC (SSBC) to establish a Federated Search capability. o Establish Natural Language Processes and Analytical search capabilities. Control: o Establish rules engines that control content based on the metadata classification. Protect: o Develop a Rights Management strategy including guidelines, and principles that will guide Ministries on how to assess the risks for using and not using Information Rights Management. Storage: o Develop best practices and/or policy to reduce dependency on email systems (Exchange) as a CM system. o Work with SSBC to develop plan to reduce dependency on File Shares. o Develop a Tiered Storage strategy.

Enterprise Content Management directly addresses governments strategic goals for Business Innovation and supports the Service Plan objectives of Information Sharing for Better Outcomes, Service Transformation and, indirectly, Value for Money. Enterprise Content Management, as part of the IM/IT Enablers strategy, enables greater accountability, information sharing and transparency. It is an important component in Open Data / Open Information and enables Ministries to work together more effectively by increasing the ability to find, share and reuse information.

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Background
Purpose of Document
The purpose of this document is to articulate an Enterprise Content Management Strategy for the Province of BC. Through the understanding of business challenges, technology enablers and current IM/IT initiatives this document will enable flexible and efficient enterprise-wide implementations of program specific Content Management (CM) systems. There is a go forward section containing recommendations fundamental to managing the lifecycle of the content Government holds, on behalf of the citizens of BC. This document supports the corporate objectives of Information Sharing for Better Outcomes, Service Transformation and, indirectly, Value for Money.

Document Overview
Section Executive Summary Background Introduction Approach Business Drivers ECM Challenges Strategy Description Overview Consists of the reviewers, the intended audience and the purpose of this strategy. Consists of the scope and the evolution of Content Management. The approach taken to create this strategy Main business drivers of this strategy 7 key areas related to Enterprise Content Management Challenges The Strategy section is the Go Forward Plan listing the areas that must be addressed to support the Content Ecosystem. The strategy section identifies recommendations to address the business challenges that are not being addressed today. Conclusion The process used in developing this strategy Identifies the governments daily business challenges. IM/IT Responds to the business challenges by identifying fundamental solutions that will enable the resolution. Gives a detailed description of the recommendations/deliverables of this strategy.

Conclusion Appendix Focus Group Approach Business Requirements Technology Enablers Detailed Deliverables

Audience
The target audience for this document is Ministry CIOs, architects, Ministry business planners, Shared Services BC and other external entities.

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Table of Contents
FOREWORD .................................................................................................................................................III EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................IV BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................VI PURPOSE OF DOCUMENT ............................................................................................................................ VI DOCUMENT OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................... VI AUDIENCE .................................................................................................................................................. VI INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................... 1 SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 STRATEGY DOCUMENT CREATION APPROACH ................................................................................... 3 BUSINESS DRIVERS ................................................................................................................................... 4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................... 5 7 Key Areas from a Business Perspective ............................................................................................ 5 7 Key Areas from a Technology Perspective ........................................................................................ 5 ECM CHALLENGES .................................................................................................................................... 7 BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE .............................................................................................................................. 7 Business Challenges ............................................................................................................................. 8 ECM GOVERNANCE .................................................................................................................................... 8 TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................................................ 8 Technology Challenges ......................................................................................................................... 9 IM/IT INITIATIVES......................................................................................................................................... 9 INDUSTRY ADVANCEMENTS ........................................................................................................................ 11 Interoperability ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Social Media ........................................................................................................................................ 12 eDiscovery........................................................................................................................................... 13 Preservation ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Open Data ........................................................................................................................................... 13 STRATEGY ................................................................................................................................................. 15 Goals: .................................................................................................................................................. 15 Conceptual Architecture ...................................................................................................................... 15 Long Term Vision ................................................................................................................................ 16 Go Forward Plan ................................................................................................................................. 17 Key Actions Supporting the Strategy: ................................................................................................. 17 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 18 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................ 20 TERMS AND DEFINITIONS ........................................................................................................................... 20 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................. 25 THE CONTENT REFERENCE MODEL ............................................................................................................ 25

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Definitions ............................................................................................................................................ 25 THE FOCUS GROUP APPROACH ................................................................................................................. 25 Initiation ............................................................................................................................................... 25 Framework .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Focus group ........................................................................................................................................ 26 Process ............................................................................................................................................... 26 IN THE END THE HARD WORK AND TIME PAID OFF AS CONSENSUS WAS ACHIEVED AND ALL OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS WERE SUPPORTED. ..................................................................................................... 27

Table of Figures
Figure 1 Key Areas ................................................................................................................. iv Figure 2 Business Perspective ................................................................................................ 7 Figure 3 Business Challenges ................................................................................................. 8 Figure 4 Technology Challenges ............................................................................................. 9 Figure 5 IM/IT Initiatives .........................................................................................................10 Figure 6 Conceptual Architecture ...........................................................................................15

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Introduction
The first version of the BC Provincial Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Strategy was published in January 2011. The direction and long term vision of ECM continue to align with both government direction and industry trends. The government 2.0 IMIT Enablers Strategy published after the ECM Strategy version 1.0 identified content management as a technology enabler. ECM is a corporate strategy containing a set of solutions to create the Content Ecosystem, and is an integral component of Information Management. Industry continues to advance in this area: Version 2.0 of Content Management Interoperability Specification (CMIS) is being developed and products continue to align with this specification. The social media revolution is forcing organizations to expand content management architectures. Open Data/Open Information is necessitating organizations to extend content management capabilities for public consumption. Mobility, users want to work with the new technologies.

This strategy is not about consolidating platforms or content technologies nor is it dictating products, it is about identifying areas that need to be standardized or set as a common set of practices to create interoperability and legislation compliancy. Technologies and platforms will change over time but this common set of practices around classification and preservation, for example, will persist. There are 3 information management challenges before government: 1. Take control of the content. This is imperative as content continues to grow exponentially. Governments biggest asset is information and 80% of that information is content in the form of emails, video, audio, files and documents. 2. Manage and protect content by ensuring compliancy to legislation and government policies. 3. Reuse or leverage content. Whether it is in the form of gathering business intelligence or the ability to retain knowledge. Lets face it with the workforce changes happening it is going to be imperative that we are able to retain the knowledge and leverage it in the future. A sometimes forgotten key point is that ECM forms the underlying foundation supporting many of business applications; Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Employee Management and Case Management. These enterprise applications are transactional based but manage significant content, content management is something that needs to be done consistently on all of government content. This strategy sets that consistency and continues to evolve with each new version.

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Scope
The scope of this document focuses on Document & Content Management; content in the form of files, whether they are text, media and images or other formats, whether they are multiply stored on a desktop, an email system or file share. Government lives in a world of content chaos. This strategy identifies ways through architecture, standards, guidelines, best practices and process models to manage this chaos and help ensure content is being classified, managed, protected and stored consistently across government. This strategy identifies ways to create a Content Ecosystem creating accessible content across all of government.

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Strategy Document Creation Approach

This strategy was developed through the ECM focus group which each of the sectors across government, and a representative from Shared Services BC, OCIO Security Branch, Information Access Operations (records management), and Business Workforce Transformation. This group met every 3 weeks over a 7 month period for a presentation followed by a 2 hour discussion. The presentations contained background materials around industry standards and vendors view of the future, they were a means to get the discussion started. For full details refer to the section in the appendix The Focus Group Approach. A number of vendors were consulted, with a focus on capabilities and not on solutions. It was important to focus on the content itself and not on the technology used to manage it, determine ways to create content once and then reuse it in multiple channels of communication and knowledge transfer.

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Business Drivers
The following business issues guided the development of the ECM strategy. Management and security issues: 1. The need to establish improved management practice over the current deluge of data (which is often replicated many times) in order to reduce risk 2. The need to manage the number of diverse CM systems and limit the number of solutions. 3. The need to achieve cost savings through improved information management. This includes more cost effective storage, more controlled information retention and disposal, and the ability to reduce the costs associated with effectively finding the right information. Improved leveraging and exploitation information issues: 4. The need to improve content findability 5. The need to reuse content and use it in decision-making purposes. 6. The need to update our dated tools and practices, the paper approach is no longer working. E.g. revolutionize government services the same way the ATM card did to banking. 7. The need for improved public service through citizen engagement & open data There have been a number of siloed approaches to Content Management over the years; some have been very successful within their program areas while others have been less so. What has been lacking is the complete enterprise wide view, the big picture if you will, of how all of the pieces or siloed approaches and individual components fit together to achieve a Content Ecosystem. One solution or product will not meet the needs of every business area. But alternately there must be control over the number of solutions chosen within government and a common base line or practice adopted to ensure that each of these solutions or products can work within the Enterprise Content Management environment. Interoperability, consistency, automation and reuse are the main goals of this strategy, creating an environment where products chosen to meet specific business needs work as seamlessly as possible to create a Content Ecosystem. The alternative is to continue to isolate the information needed to provide better services to citizens. Resources will be used to manage the content chaos rather than deriving value from properly managed, findable and accessible content. An ECM strategy is needed to leverage the investment in current information content and more importantly to avoid wasting scarce resources on accumulating content without a means of accessing and using it effectively.

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Conceptual Framework
This document is based on an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Conceptual Framework, which describes 7 key areas from a business and technology perspective that must be understood and addressed. These areas were identified as critical to the success of a Content Ecosystem.

7 Key Areas from a Business Perspective

Understanding the conceptual framework from a business perspective will identify how a wellimplemented ECM initiative facilitates the following methods and benefits: 1. Classify the content business areas own or provide custodianship over; 2. Access - improve accessibility to business information to support the needs of the business and its target groups; 3. Discover and share - the content reducing rework and encouraging reuse; 4. Control the content by establishing the business needs that support Information Management within a content collection; 5. Protection - of the content both internally and externally through advanced information security; 6. Storage - Control the rising cost of storage through smart use of layered storage devices and; 7. Authorization - Ensure only authorized users access the content through the use of IDIM. Government program areas vary dramatically with respect to their CM needs. The ECM strategy will provide the necessary structure for all organizations to establish a CM baseline to enable interoperability between the different products, products chosen to meet specific business needs.

7 Key Areas from a Technology Perspective

Understanding the conceptual framework from a technology response point of view will enable program areas across Government to standardize the way in which they: 1. Classify - Ensure classification of the content so that the right security and management constraints can be applied; 2. Accessibility - Ensure a decision-maker access to information quickly and efficiently through the Web and Application layer; 3. Discover and Share - Enable federated search and information sharing via the interoperability layer; 4. Control - Ensure the control of information based on the classification of the information and the CM capability components; 5. Protection - Ensure the information is protected with the help of Information Rights Management where merited based on the classification of the information; 6. Storage - Ensure tiered storage of information is addressed to enable archiving, capacity and availability considerations, and performance considerations; and 7. Authorization - Ensure that only the authorized people can gain access to the information with the help of IDIM. To ensure a consistent technology understanding, the ECM strategy maintains or references the latest implementation regarding Government corporate standards around:

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Trusted Identity - Identity Management (IDIM) initiative; Improving Business Processes Business Automation initiative Virtual Teams Communication and Collaboration Insightfull Information Business Intelligence (BI) integration and interoperability (CMIS and general interoperability infrastructure) usage patterns; CM components like electronic document and records management (i.e. the government Enterprise Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) TRIM (Total Records and Information Management)),

These and other technology considerations are essential to provisioning the effective capture, management, storage, preservation, and delivery of any content and ensures the consistent implementation of interoperability patterns across the B.C. public sector program areas. The ECM strategy fosters greater: developer productivity, cross-system data standards, cross-tool architectures, cross-team design and development synergies,

All of this will assure the integrity and lineage of the data as it travels across multiple organizations and technology platforms.

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ECM Challenges
Business Perspective
There are two key challenges from a business perspective when dealing with content within government today 1. searching, finding and then accessing content, and 2. ensuring compliance to legislation and policies around authorization, protection and management so, for example, information breaches do not happen 2, nor unauthorized disposition of information. Referring to Figure 2: Employees have information that they want a target group to see. That target group could be as broad as the public or as narrow as a handful of people due to the confidentiality of the information. There is a need to identify the target groups that are permitted to access the information. Access Policies (enforced by automated or manual rules) need to be in place for the management of the information. It is necessary to classify the content so that it can be retrieved and managed accordingly.
Figure 2 Business Perspective

From a business user productivity perspective these details just add to the daily workload. A system capable of automatically aligning policies and workflow would significantly reduce work pressures. The ECM strategy is based on establishing a federated and interoperability space, reducing the content classification burden from the end user. Ensuring the end user has the tools needed to interact with the content to perform their business tasks. Areas of overlap and challenges include:
2

Establishing communications between the CM systems, Developing consistent access processes so that content can be shared and discovered across multiple CM systems, and Ensuring legislation and policies are complied with across government

Ann Cavoukian , the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, called on governments to radically change the way they police the sharing of personal information.

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This strategy helps business explore these concerns and position them to overcome a lot of the challenges faced today through standards, architecture, guidelines, best practices and shared services.

Business Challenges
Referring back to the conceptual framework seven key aspects have been identified that must be addressed from a business point of view and are shown in Figure 1. These aspects are all interrelated, for example classification includes security requirements that dictate access, authorization, protection and storage requirements. What this diagram is showing is these are the areas that common baselines must be realized to enable a Content Ecosystem. Refer to the Appendix Business Requirement section to review the service benefits/expectations and conceptual requirements for each area.
Classify: What is the nature of my content and how do I describe it?

Access: How do I consistently get access to all of my content?

Discovery and Sharing: How do I find, move and exchange content?

Control: How do I need to control my content within the system?

Authorization: How do I ensure that only the authorized people can gain access to my content?

Protection: How do I protect content both inside and outside the organization?

Storage: How do I control the rising cost of content storage and still getting the access I need?

Figure 3 Business Challenges

ECM Governance
It is recognized that in order for a strategy of this magnitude to be realized there must be a strong governance model guiding stakeholders to the required enterprise approach. ECM governance contains universal baseline capabilities for all. In addition to the baseline capabilities there are also specific and unique requirements. What becomes baseline (and hence affects the entire government) and what remains unique (but manageable), requires governance. Specific roles and responsibilities related to unstructured content must be clearly articulated and represented across government. Not only is this strategy going to address the business challenges identified above it is going to address the components needed to support and build the underlying and ongoing foundation.

Technology Perspective
The BC Government has been a leader in establishing corporate standards and shared services. Despite this there are still many frustrations when it comes to managing/finding content and the vast number of systems and repositories that exist today. Technology helps enable government to respond to the business challenges. Standardization of the seven key

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technology aspects ensures an ecosystem will be obtainable. With common technology practices coordination among data management disciplines become achievable. Improved data quality, integrity, consistency, scalability, and architecture will be benefits realized. Use technology to automate content classification and minimize the manual interaction. This will reduce the inconsistence and human error and enable government to automatically act upon this classification to protect and manage the content. This strategy addresses these challenges through architectural standards, guidelines, best practices, product standards, awareness sessions and shared services.

Technology Challenges
Referring back to the conceptual framework seven key aspects have been identified that must be addressed from a technology point of view and are shown in Figure 4. The seven aspects can be addressed through the use of specific technologies. The application of these technologies must be coordinated and collaborative. Individual Ministries can implement different technologies as long as these technologies are in accordance with government direction and can be reconciled within the ecosystem. Refer to the Appendix Technology Requirement section to get the detailed requirements for each area.

Classify - Metadata & Taxonomy Development: Ensure content is classified so that the right security and management constraints can be applied.

Access - Interface Standards: Standardize the interface to the content for both the applications and user.

Discovery and Sharing Interoperability Standards: Establish criteria for CM system inter-connection. Control - Content Lifecycle Definition: Establish core criteria for managing content.

Authorization: Ensure that only the authorized people are gaining access

Protection - Rights Management: Ensure the appropriate safeguards are embedded or attached to the content.

Storage - Tiered Storage: Address availability, performance, capacity and archiving in a cost effective manner.

Figure 4 Technology Challenges

IM/IT Initiatives
Currently, there are a number of strategic IM/IT Content Management initiatives, projects and services at varying maturity levels. The table bellow highlights these, the lead and the ECM challenges they address or partially address:

Open Data: Data Management Roles and Responsibilities Standard .

Area

Lead
Workforce Planning and Leadership Data Architecture Advisory Council (DAAC)

Role

Citizen engagement, information sharing for better outcomes. Data roles and responsibilities

Content Classification Discovery and Sharing

ECM challenges partially addressed

Content Classification Content Ownership and accountability Content accessibility

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Information Security Classification Policy OCIO Security Branch Security classification for content.

ECM Strategy
Content security classification Content accessibility Content protection IAO is working with OCIO Security on linking security classifications to ARCS/ORCS and EDRMS TRIM. Content classification from records management perspective Content Ownership and accountability. Content lifecycle management Content accessibility Content protection Authorized disposition IAO is working with OCIO Security on linking security classifications to ARCS/ORCS and EDRMS TRIM. Develops mandatory government records retention and disposition schedules: e.g., Administrative Records Classification System (ARCS); Operational Records Classification System (ORCS). Provides central business management and support for EDRMS/TRIM IAO is working with OCIO Security on linking security classifications to ARCS/ORCS and EDRMS TRIM. Develops and manages the Web Standards, including metadata and taxonomy, for the BC Government web content.

Enterprise Document and Records Management System (EDRMS), TRIM (Total Recorded Information Management)

Information Access Operations , SSBC

Document and records classification as it relates to retention scheduling and disposition Corporate document repository, accessed and managed via standard metadata

Information Access Operations, Shared Services BC

Enterprise Document and Records Management System ARCS/ORCS

Provides central FOI and records management services to all ministries, in fulfilling statutory and policy requirements for the management of records within the provincial governments custody and/or control

Business Workforce Transformation

Shared Services BC (SSBC)

BC electronic Identity (BCeID) PSA designated as the Authoritative Source for employee data

Manages the infrastructure for shared and hosted CM systems, the Corporate Search Engine and the Corporate Web Analytics service. Provides a full suite of design and web development services. Corporate service for an electronic identity Authoritative source for employee data

Accessing information Protecting information Metadata for employee data

OCIO Architecture and Standards Branch

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Strategy Identity Information Management (IDIM) Information Access Layer (IAL) Business Process Management User Provisioning

The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) has developed a strategy for better information sharing that will enable more information decision making and generate better outcomes for citizens and businesses. The Information Access Layer (IAL) provides a critical layer enabling information sharing between citizencentered service providers across the public sector and their private sector partners for a wide variety of provincial information services. The Business Process Management provides a critical link to bringing some consistency around how processes are automated and integrated

This strategy is about making sure the right people have access to the right information at the right time for the right reasons, while ensuring and enhancing the privacy of citizens accessing information protecting information automating processes

Ministry of Housing and Social Development and Ministry of Children and Family

Integrated Case Management (ICM) Project

Figure 5 IM/IT Initiatives

A few of the above initiatives have been elaborated on below to show how the ECM Strategy ties into them:

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The Identity Information Management (IDIM) strategy and standards are being led by the Architecture and Standards Branch within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) while the project is being led by Shared Service BC (SSBC). The full potential of the ECM strategy hinges on the IDIM initiative. It is through the use of identity credentials and authoritative parties that the access control is based on. Open Data led by Workforce Planning and Leadership is in the process of creating an environment to support the provinces open data. This group has created an Open Data Catalogue and a web presence to interact with the public (DataBC). It is recognized that the engagement with the public through this type of means is an asset that government wants to encourage. The ECM Strategy supports this initiative: o through classification of unstructured content, identifying early on that content is public will help with the open data initiative o metadata is essential to the open data catalogue and is providing consistency across government o interoperability and the means to get access to repositories that house open data and open information Integrated Case Management (ICM) led jointly by Housing and Social Development and the Ministry of Children and Families. This project is a significant project currently being developed within government. It is breaking down the silo between two of the social ministries allowing government to better serve the citizens of B.C. The goal is to integrate CASE work and share information between the two sectors, using a single environment. The importance of the ECM Strategy is the fact that so much of a case is unstructured content, documents and reference material needed to effectively work a case. Content Management is a foundational piece for this Enterprise Business Application, the ECM Strategy creates that foundation and supports this initiative: o through content classification o improved search and discovery o consistent access control, ensuring that only people allowed to search and view the information have access to it o interoperability addressing the means to get access to the repositories that store the information o interface consistency allowing the application to be available to the case material through a consistent means. Integrated Corrections Operations Network (ICON II) led by Public Safety & Solicitor General is building the foundation for Justice ECM in collaboration with the OCIO. The solution will leverage corporate IDM services to provide secure confidential access to sensitive legal material, protect the rights of accused persons, and the integrity of criminal prosecutions. The Project is building the solution to align and support the corporate ECM strategy and metadata standard.

Industry Advancements
The direction presented in this version is still very much aligned with version 1; however there have been industry advancements in this area that need to be linked to this version:

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Interoperability
International standards and developing products are evolving to be more interoperable, recognizing the need to standardize on common interfaces to enable systems to share content. Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) is a specification for allowing users to share and access data across multiple content management (ECM) systems. CMIS provides a data model and web services for defining ECM capabilities, such as query, at the repository level. This allows developers to create custom applications for CMIS-compliant content management systems without having to understand each specific system. Prior to CMIS, companies had to build or purchase custom application connectors, migrate content from one system to another, or use existing (but limited) content sharing standards, such as Java Content Repository. This strategy recognizes the need to support this advancement and through the architecture and standards is defining this.

Mobility
The Post PC era gives birth to the "new user," who interacts with information from a variety of sources, and across a multitude of devices. Integrating user-friendly interface with the traditional content management repositories delivers the new mobile and external collaboration capabilities required for businesses to make better, faster decisions. These joint solutions strike the right balance in giving users easy-to-use tools for accessing information regardless of device, with the control IT expects for capturing, managing, processing and preserving content. This strategy recognizes the power behind enabling the new user to interact like this while in the work environment. This interaction will also have to take under consideration that the user may be disconnected from the enterprise environment when in remote locations. By providing an ecosystem that enables and supports mobility government is creating this cultural shift and will only benefit from it.

Social Media
The Social Media (SoMe) Revolution is upon government. It is not a fad it is here to stay. It is experiencing significant internal uptake and generating increasing amounts of unmanaged content. It is important to see how it fits into the ECM Strategy. To aid in the understanding of how SoMe and Content Management (CM) are related we can divide CM into two conceptual categories, traditional Systems of Record (i.e., Document Management and Records Management systems) and the new generation of Systems of Engagement (i.e., Yammer and Facebook). In Systems of Record, content is authored as discrete files and is easily searchable, users generally need to be trained, access is regulated and constrained, and there is a strong focus on enterprise-wide security and policies. Social software falls into the Systems of Engagement category, where content is developed collaboratively and can be of any type (audio, video, images, etc.), and the systems follow Web 2.0 principles so little training is needed, accessibility is wide open, and security is limited to individual user privacy.

Both of these types of systems add value and are important to government, in order to leverage both, they must co-exist in a cohesive manner. While a System of Record promotes efficiency, a System of Engagement creates effectiveness. The resulting social enterprise architecture is that in which the System of Engagement operates on top of and in touch with the System of Record.

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ECM Strategy

eDiscovery
eDiscovery is the iterative process of identifying, collecting, preserving, preparing, reviewing, and potentially producing electronically stored information (ESI) to support litigation, investigations, and regulatory proceedings. eDiscovery is the process that allows litigators to search through, review and comment on documents relevant to their litigation. Within government, the demand for eDiscovery is growing as litigation requires increasing volumes of electronic evidence. This strategy provides the foundation for categorizing, labeling and searching information, which does assist in the execution of eDiscovery. This strategy by separating the middle management layer enables management services to be exposed and leveraged by all presentation layer applications. Exposing a legal hold service would aid the eDiscovery process.

Preservation
Preservation ensures the reliability and trustworthiness of electronic documents throughout the documents life cycle. Content needs to be readable, viewable or auditable for the duration of its life otherwise it holds no value. Preservation ensures: the type of content is always consumable, the integrity of the content has been maintained in that it has not been compromised or corrupted

Preservation supports eDiscovery, open data, and archiving, it crosses all of governments lines of business and effects every electronic activity. A low priority in government today and the lack of a preservation strategy poses a huge gap.

Open Data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use, combine and republish as they wish, without restrictions imposed by copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. While not identical, open data has a similar ethos to those of other Open movements such as open source, open content, and open access. Several national governments around the world have committed to making a large part of the data they collect available to the public, including the province of B.C.: Data.gov U.S. government open-data website launched in May 2009 Data.gov.uk U.K. government open-data website launched in September 2009 Data.gov.au Australian government open-data website launched in March 2011 Data.gc.ca Canadian government open-data website launched in March 2011

B.C. governments website: Data.gov.bc.ca This strategy supports the open data movement through the classification of content, identifying during the early stages of a documents life cycle what is public data. Establishing interoperability making it easy for users to locate open data and by addressing the need to improve search and discovery within government. Open data sets are just a form of

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unstructured content, the practices addressed in this strategy only aid in the success of this movement.

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Strategy
Goals:
The goals of this version of the strategy are to: Further detail out the Conceptual Architecture by creating a Functional Architecture Establish a plan outlining how to move the Functional Design forward Create a Business Case for the ECM Functional Architecture Strategy Create the next release of the ECM-Content Metadata Standard and Content Metadata Model. Develop a Governance Framework

Conceptual Architecture
Content Classification External Organizations

Increasing Levels of Precision and Control Access

Authentication

Discovery and Sharing Contr

Contr l

Control

Control

Control

Protect

Protect

Storage

Storage

Figure 6 Conceptual Architecture

It is understood that not all content needs to be managed to the same degree and that one solution will not be the best fit for all business needs. There are a range of content types that make it impossible to select one solution however it is also recognized that too many solutions will also have the same detrimental effect. In order to create a manageable and interoperable Content Ecosystem, standards must be created in the seven areas defined above and a common understanding of the integration points must be established. To start this understanding the ECM Functional Architecture document has been created.

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Long Term Vision

This strategy transforms the government environment to a place where information is always easy to find and readily accessible. All of government information whether it is a contract, a strategy, a piece of evidence, a profile of an employee, a learning video or a recorded live meeting would be automatically classified, tagged, and be searchable consistently across government and accessible when authorized. The information would be managed and protected according to legislation and policies through the use of CM systems and automated rules. CM systems that contain the necessary capabilities to achieve the business requirements and automated rules that can be leveraged across government. A federated search allows multiple information sources to be searched from one location. For example, content tagged as public would be available to citizens at a one stop location enabling Open Data and Open Information.. The location of the information would be transparent to the citizen because of the interoperability technologies used to classify, protect and authorize access to the content. Natural Language Processors and text analytics will be used to increase the probability of finding relevant and reliable information. Applying access control to the content based on roles of the user and not on the individual user itself would allow employees greater access to the information they need. Employees would not have to register with or switch to each system they need to access, saving valuable time. The content itself would contain the information relating to who can access it and what capabilities they would have with respect to read, write, delete, send and copy. Access could be given or restricted based on the department they work for, the position they are working in, the professional license they hold or any combination. With this type of access (ensuring there arent any other constraints related to custody and legislative) content could reside anywhere even in the cloud because only the users with the right credentials could get access. The content in a sense would protect itself with Information Rights Management managing the content outside of the organization. This ensures the information is protected even if it falls into the wrong hands. Only the person with the proper credential will be able to open and access the information. Content would be located in a managed CM system rather than in an unmanaged file share. The capabilities that a CM system offer outweighs what a file share can do in terms of lifecycle management, audit and traceability, and access and authentication protection. Less use of file share and more use of a CM system would ensure less risk for information breaches or unauthorized disposal of information. Using a CM system rather than a file share would imply fewer requirements for VPN and DTS because direct browser access is possible. Content will be sent via email through links rather than as attachments which would lead to the reduction of email storage costs. Increased safety would be an added benefit because even if a link is miss-sent, the non-intended recipient could not open that link because of the authentication and access protection within the CM system. Just as electronic banking changed the way the financial world works this strategy will guide the government to change the way we work with government information.

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Go Forward Plan
The go forward plan of this version of the strategy continues to be to set the common base line with respect to content and the content management practices throughout Government. The continued approach of adoption, to support business needs, is at the forefront of this strategy.

Key Actions Supporting the Strategy:

Action Description Date Started
(or ongoing/completed)

Develop an ECM Content Metadata Standard to identify what metadata elements are required during different stages within a contents lifecycle. Develop a Content Metadata Model to identify metadata elements and their definitions. Conduct awareness sessions education business owners of the benefits and value behind classification through metadata Functional ECM Architecture document review, validate and awareness Develop an ECM Functional Architecture a business oriented document explaining the vision in terms of functions. Vendor Demos and Proof of Concepts Develop a Governance Framework Develop a business Case Identify a sponsor to develop and submit a T&T process plan Develop the next version of the ECM-Content Metadata Standard Develop the next version of the ECM Strategy Develop rules

Completed Completed On going November 2011 December 2011 March 2012 March 2012 March 2012 September 2012 October 2012 December 2012 December 2012

This strategy will continue to evolve over time. New versions will be produced as needed to identify the advancements and direction of the B.C. Government Content Ecosystem. This strategy is focused on maximizing employee productivity and enhancing their engagement with each other. Ensuring continuity across the broader public sector to move us towards a federated Content Management Environment aligning us closer to the Governments strategic goals which are to ensure the right information gets to the right person at the right time, to improve information sharing and to reduce costs.

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Conclusion
Employees require greater access to, and control over, content. The practices used today are those of the past and have not evolved to take advantages of the capabilities and advancements available today. These practices cannot cope with the exploding volumes and complexities of the content that exists today. Nor are they supportive of an information sharing and collaboration workplace that is needed. Through the use of the focus group to create this strategy we have already started the ball rolling, awareness is happening and the excitement and benefits are being realized. Ministries and vendors alike are excited and waiting for this movement towards a Content Ecosystem. The siloed CM approach is not working for government as most of the silos cannot meet all of the current content lifecycles need. Growing frustrations with organizing and finding information along with the overwhelming demands of information requests need to be addressed. If government continues to create disparate approaches, effectively isolating information needed to provide better services to citizens through the burgeoning growth of unmanaged content, the problem is only going to get worse. Resources used to manage the content chaos will continue to put the government at risk due to human error and inconsistency. Information will continue to be difficult to find and share. Government will fail to leverage the investment in current information content and more importantly will continue to waste scarce resources on accumulating content without a means of accessing and using it effectively. This strategy addresses the 7 key areas: Classify: Practices and services that apply consistent and reliable content metadata to all unstructured content must be established. This includes the application of metadata that addresses OCIO security, and records management classification, as well as common discovery metadata elements. The business owner is encouraged to build upon this minimum set and define finer grained requirements to meet their specific business needs. This combination enables government to programmatically act upon classification across the organization. It supports both corporate and specific business processes and administrative needs. It will improve productivity because improved discovery will aid in the ability to find and reuse content. Access: Establishing interface standards that will be applied to all information sources, enabling government to obtain a consistent look and feel when interacting with the different information sources. Application owners need these standards to provide more costeffective development and deployment of information systems; improved operations; better quality decision making as a result of more timely, accurate, and complete information. Discovery and Sharing: A Federated Search will improve content findability and lead to improved content and information sharing. Just as web portals have transformed the way in which consumers access Internet content, shopping areas and services, Federated Search services promise to do the same for government, by providing a single entry-point to the wealth of information, resources and expertise.

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ECM Strategy

Automated metadata classification will reduce human error and inconsistency which in turn reduces liability risks. It is recognized that automation will not meet all classification requirements but it will meet the essential ones. Leveraging the automated metadata classification will provide baseline control over content. Those baselines can accommodate different rules and considerations required for open and secure content and recognize the distinction between corporate/administrative type content and operational content. Protect: There are times when added security measures must be taken and with the help of guidelines and principles education of business risks when applying and not applying added Information Rights Management protection will be realized. Storage: Business needs are more complex these days and storage flexibility has to be addressed. Business areas need to be given more flexibility in terms of the duration the content is needed, the type of content as well as the kind of access that is required. This strategy will enable the BC Government to assist program areas align their content management practices with those of other program areas, align their developers technical aspects with a common architecture. Security, audit, traceability and compliance are seen as added benefits, but the prime driver is the need to maximize employee productivity and enhance their engagement with each other. Ensuring continuity across the broader public sector will move government towards a federated Content Management Environment aligning closer to the Governments strategic goals which are to ensure the right information gets to the right person at the right time, to improve information sharing and to reduce costs. This ECM strategy will provide the foundations for building the BC Government Content Ecosystem.

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References
http://www.information-management.com/issues/20030201/6287-1.html Information Management The Problem with Unstructured Data http://aiim.typepad.com/aiim_blog/2009/06/8-things-you-need-to-know-about-contentclassification-and-ecm.html Digital Landfill 8 Things You Need to Know about Content Classification and ECM http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/news/1320746/Enterprise-contentmanagement-brings-order-to-chaotic-unstructured-content Search Data management Enterprise content management brings order to chaotic unstructured content

Terms and Definitions

Analytical Structured content that supports queries and analysis and is implemented using structured databases, these are purposefully de-normalized and optimized for query ease and performance. Analytical content will contain aggregated or derived information.

Authored

Creation of unstructured content in a wide variety of formats, such as multimedia, application system programs or text documents with embedded graphics. The term authoring is broad in scope. At one extreme, taking a photo with a digital camera may be authoring. At the other, authoring may involve a complex workflow for the production of a formal report. E-mail or other messages exchanged are considered to be authored content. These are implemented by specialized authoring systems whose underlying repositories may be of any of a variety of constructs to store data objects such as file systems, and relational databases. A member of a target group. Represent service consumers (part of target group), clients have expectations for services; Versioning control Allow multiple people to edit the content The recipient of a payload resulting from a request made to an information service. Consumers operate under agreed levels of service with information service providers. Consumers may also be bound by one or more constrains (such as a license) applied by the owner over the source information asset. Source: Services orientation: Winning Strategies and Best Practices; US Government FEAP DRM 2.0

Client Clients Collaboration Consumer

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Office of the CIO Content Content Management Any type of data or information that can be stored as a file. Application of management techniques to collect and control content, communicate it within and outside the organization, and process it to enable managers to make quicker and better decisions. This includes the governments standard records management practices. Customer Relationship Management An information asset has a custodian who is responsible to the owner and who applies controls to the information asset. The custodian is the recognized individual responsible for implementing and maintaining information assets according to the rules set by the owner to ensure proper quality, security, integrity, correctness, consistency, privacy, confidentiality, retention and accessibility. See Information

ECM Strategy

CRM Custodian

Refer to the Roles and Responsibility Guideline

Data

Refer to the OCIO Information Security Policy

Discovery Disposition

Is the process of searching, finding and then retrieving the information. The action taken when information/records becomes inactive under an approved records schedule (i.e., destruction or transfer to the custody of the government archives) Enterprise Resource Planning means all recorded information, regardless of physical format, that is received, created, deposited or held by or in any ministry, agency, board, commission, Crown corporation, institution, committee or council reporting or responsible to the Government of British Columbia. Government records include machine-readable records, data stored in information systems, film, audio and audiovisual tapes, etc. Government records include cabinet ministers' records that are created and/or accumulated and used by a Minister (or a Minster's office) in developing, implementing and/or administering programs of government. Government records do not include legislative records (records created and/or accumulated and used by an individual or an office in the administration of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia or by a Member of the Legislative Assembly). The retention and final disposition of most government records is governed by the Document Disposal Act Represents a single accountable role that ensures client expectations are being met, and is ultimately responsible for the success of the program initiative/change;

Records Management definition

ERP Government Information

Refer to the OCIO Information Security Policy

Governor

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Office of the CIO Information the data in context. The meaning given to data or the interpretation of data, based on its context, for purposes of decision making. (See: Government Information).

ECM Strategy Refer to the OCIO Information Security Policy

Information Management

Application of management techniques to collect and control information, communicate it within and outside the organization, and process it to enable managers to make quicker and better decisions. This includes the governments standard records management practices. An Information asset is accessed through an information service. An information service represents an endpoint that provides a defined interface for access to information assets in the particular business context. Is used to describe information that enables: Discovery of content Understanding the provenance and quality of the content Analysis of the content Control of the content

Information Service

Metadata

Needs

A need is a target group condition or circumstance that a program must address by reason of its mandate (purpose). Needs are not requirements, a need is a condition or circumstance requiring relief. An information asset has an owner who holds accountability. The owner is the recognized individual who is identified as having the authority and accountability under legislation, regulation or policy for the collection of information assets. It is the owner who defines the information asset requirements of an agency, including ongoing management requirements. An owner will often delegate the operational responsibility for information assets to a custodian. Refer to the Roles and Responsibility Guideline

Owner

Program

Program Outcome Published

An enterprise may include one or more programs. A program represents a mandate from the governors to achieve goals and outcomes (based on a strategy) that address the identified needs of a target group within a jurisdiction. Programs are delivered through a collection of services that contribute to the program goals and comply with the program strategy. A desired future state of a target group based on their need; Unstructured content assembled from its component pieces, into a desired format and disseminated to a target audience and implemented using technologies that optimize discovery,

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Office of the CIO search and retrieval. Traditionally, published content manifests as physical printed media catalogued by libraries using physical or electronic catalogues. However, more and more published content is being held electronically in repositories that include the file systems underlying websites, relational databases underlying content management systems and XML registries. Retention How long the information needs to be retained by the business area in active or semi-active storage. A prescribed timetable that governs the life cycle of information/record from creation, through active use within an office, retention in off-site storage during its semi-active period, to final disposition when it becomes inactive. The tangible value of a service, which is discreet, measurable and deemed valuable by the client independent of other services. Represents the provision of specific outputs that satisfy the needs of clients (target group) and contribute to the achievement of program goals. Information assets typically described via entity-relationship or class models, such as logical data models and XML documents. Structured data is organized in well-defined semantic chunks called entities, nodes or objects. Source: US Government FEAP DRM 2.0 Supplier The provider of an information service through which consumers are able to access information assets. Suppliers implement the information service, but may not necessarily be the data manager, custodian or owner. However, a supplier would operate within the rules applicable to the information assets they utilize for an information service. Source: Service orientation: Winning Strategies and Best Practices; US Government FEAP DRM 2.0 Target Group A population of individuals (organization, family etc.) identifiable via known characteristics (i.e. age, location etc.); Structured content that supports business processes and workflows and is implemented using structured databases, these are highly normalized and optimized for transactional performance. An information asset that is free-form format, such as multimedia files, images, sound files, or unstructured text. Unstructured data does not necessarily follow any format or

ECM Strategy

Records Management definition Records Management definition

Scheduling

Service Outputs Services

Structured Content

Transactional

Unstructured Content

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Office of the CIO hierarchal sequence, nor does it follow any relational rules. However, unstructured content may contain some structured content. For the sake of simplicity, this concept of semistructured is considered to be within the scope of unstructured data for the purpose of the Information Architecture. Source: US Government FEAP DRM 2.0 Workflow Order in which people must action the content. A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps.

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Appendix
The Content Reference Model

DATA

Put into context

INFORMATION

Store as a file

CONTENT

Definitions
1. Data is facts, that when put into context, becomes information. 2. Information is data that has been put into context. 3. Content is data or information that has been stored as a file.

The Focus Group Approach

Initiation
ICON II project was underway and was told to conform to the OCIO Strategy around Content Management. Rather than just building a strategy for a specific project/Ministry it was decided to create a broad government wide solution.

Framework
A framework was developed with a thought from a government wide perspective what is important to align across all Content Management systems. It was determined that although the product was important it was more important to have the interoperability. This framework identifies 7 key aspects: Content Classification, Access, Discovery and Sharing, Content Control, Protection, Storage and Authorization. It is these aspects that must be brought to a common baseline across government.

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Focus group
A focus group was brought together to discuss the key aspects of the framework and to see if it held strong to all of the business requirements. The focus group was created through the ASRB (Architecture Standards Review Board), the concept was presented and members were asked to put forward a representative from their sector to participate. Some ASRB members were the representative and others put forward a person that was closer to the subject.

Process
There was a kickoff meeting to set the terms of reference, and to get an agreement on the goals of this group. A timetable of six sessions was presented, one for each of the six main areas leaving the authentication to the IDIM team. Prior to the meeting vendors were interviewed to get an idea of the industry direction, experts within government were interviewed and a presentation was created. The presentation was vendor and product agnostic; the presentation gave a description of the key aspect and then identified key capabilities and facts about the different options available. The group then took the next 2 hours to identify business needs, challenges and concerns. They looked at the facts put forward and recommended where they would like to see government go. Following the meeting the chapter reflecting that key criteria was written and the group took their time reviewing the contents passing the information on to others within their sector for comments. Once the document was completed with the group met a number of times to walk through the sections to make sure everyone was in agreement.

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Observations / Conclusions
There was great representation across the board. Members actively participated in the discussions and all brought forward business requirements, concerns, ideas and recommendations from their areas. It was very important to understand different areas challenges and relate them across different sectors. In the end the hard work and time paid off as consensus was achieved and all of the recommendations were supported.

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