Ref: UN-CS-RAI-USAA-DB01-2005-00006

United Nations Participating Ogranisations

Development of a Strategic Plan for a

Digital Archives Programme, DAP

Digital Assessment Survey

Part 1: Information Technology *

* Information Technology Representatives, E-mail Administrators, Technology Coordinators, Information Architects, Application Owners

Digital Assessment Survey

This Questionnaire is to be completed by Information Technology and Communications professionals within each UNPO.

Part 1 - Information Technology

1. General Information

2. Technology and Information Systems

2.1 Technology Infrastructure

2.2 Technology Applications

2.3 Storage and Media

2.4 Data Integrity

2.5 Security and Access

2.6 Electronic Mail and Messaging Systems

3. Additional comments

PART I: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY QUESTIONNAIRE

This survey is designed to collect information concerning the status and development of electronic records programmes and related areas from IT Departments/Units. Where a response is not received, we will assume that no efforts are being initiated in that area.

Support Documentation:

Annex 1 – Organisational Units

Annex 2 - Generic Functions/Subfunction Matrix

Annex 3 - Record Series (to be used in RM questionaire Part II)

Annex 4 – List of IT systems, applications and software

Annex 5 – List of Policies and Procedures

1.0 General Information

UN Participating Organisations: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Organisation/Work Unit Name: Bureau of Management (BOM)/Office of Information Systems and Technology (OIST)

Location: New York

Name and Title of Person Completing Survey: S Bhasker, Chief, Office of CIO Phone #: 212 906 6884

E-mail Address: s.bhasker@undp.org___________

Contact Person (if different from above: Phone #:

Contact Person’s (E-mail Address): ___________________________________

Reference Number (for WGARM/DAP use only)

Identify your role (check all appropriate boxes) within the IT environment:

_X__ Information Technology Representatives: Information Technology representatives form each of the UNPOs and/or other major subgroups within the UNPOs.

___ E-mail Administrators: Those individuals responsible for the development and implementation of the e-mail policies and procedures.

_X_ Technology Coordinators: Individuals within the UNPOs that are responsible for coordinating technology initiatives, usage, and standards across multiple business processes, groups, and/or technology applications.

___ Information Architects: Individuals within each of the UNPOs that are responsible for the functional composition of the business processes and their relationship to the high level function and information assets of the organization.

___ Application Owners: Personnel owning or responsible for the major Records, Document, and Transactional systems and applications within each of the UNPOs and/or other major subgroups within the UNPOs.

1.1 Departmental Background And Related Documentation

1.1.1 From Annex 1, Identify which organisational unit(s) are covered by this survey. If the organisational unit(s) you represent are not listed in Annex 1, please provide a separate list and attach to this questionnaire.

Annotated Annex Yes _ __ No ___CORPORATE-ALL UNDP Units

Additional List Yes___ No ___

1.1.2 From Annex 2, identify which functions and subfunctions are covered by this survey. If the functions and sub-functions you represent are not listed in Annex 2, please provide a separate list and attach to this questionnaire.

Annotated Annex Yes ___ No ___CORPORATE-ALL FUNCTIONS/ Sub-FUNCTIONS

Additional List Yes___ No ___

1.1.3 From Annex 4, validate list of IT systems, applications and software (see 2.2.1). If the systems, applications and software are not listed in Annex 4, please provide a separate list and attach to this questionnaire.

Annotated Annex Yes ___ No _X_

Additional List Yes___ No ___

1.1.4 From Annex 5 validate list of Policies and Procedures (see 2.1.1). If the Policies and Procedures are not listed in Annex 5, please provide a separate list and attach to this questionnaire.

Annotated Annex Yes ___ No ___

Additional List Yes___ No ___

q ICT Standards and Guidelines – 7 March 2003 [Update 2005]

q ICT Strategy – July 2004 [2004-05]

q Records Management [Policy] – September 2003 [being updated December 2004]

q Policy on Prescriptive Content Management – March 2003

q Policy on Electronic Documents Management – 7 May 2003

q E-Documentation – UNDP Metadata Standards – 6 June 2003

q Document Scanning Guidelines – November 2003

q E-Documentation and Atlas – April 2004

q E-Mail Policy [being updated 2005]

2.0 Technology and Information Systems

2.1 Technology Infrastructure

2.1.1 Does your organisation maintain any Information Technology Standards, Policies, Procedures or Practices? Validate Annex 5 and indicate below and attach any relevant documents that are not listed in the annex. Please note if it is an undocumented practice and indicate if it is within the specific organisational unit or across multiple organisational units.

Systems, Application data bases and Software:

	Document	Description	Reference	Date of issuance
Policy	UNDP ICT Strategy UNDP Electronic Communications Policy	Updated Biennial Strategy Email and Internet		July 2004 Update in 1Q2005
Procedures	Atlas Development and Change Management Procedures	SDLC based development and change management for Atlas (PeopleSoft based system)		2004/5
Standards	UNDP ICT Standards	ICT Standards		March 2003 (Update 2005)
Security	UNDP ICT Security Policy	ICT Security for Infrastructure and Applications		TBD in 2005
Scheduling
Disposition
Training

Electronic Records (structured or unstructured): Please see response from Business Side

	Document	Description	Reference	Date of issuance
Policy
Procedures
Standards
Security
Scheduling
Disposition
Training

Email (if separate from above): Referenced in above materials

	Document	Description	Reference	Date of issuance
Policy
Procedures
Standards
Security
Scheduling
Disposition
Training

2.1.2 Which of the following database technology applications is your organisation using or considering? Please check all that apply.

Applications Programmed in a Commercial Database	Currently Using	Considering Use	Used in the Past	Have Defined Need	Current Project
Microsoft SQL	X
Oracle	X
Sybase	X
dbase, Foxbase, etc.			X
Microsoft Access	X
Other (Please specify):

Additional Details:

2.1.3 Which of the following application development tools is your organisation using or considering? Please check all that apply.

Custom Developed Applications	Currently Using	Considering Use	Used in the Past	Have Defined Need	Current Project
Java	X
HTML	X
.NET		X
Visual Basic	X
Pascal
C++	X
Other (Please specify): ColdFusion	X

Additional Details:

2.2 Technology Applications

2.2.1 Does your organisation maintain an inventory or list of automated applications (i.e., word processing, office automation, custom applications, document repositories, databases, spreadsheets, etc.) used or supported within your organisation? Validate Annex 4 and indicate below and attach any relevant documents that are not listed in the annex.

Response/Details:

UNDP maintains applications inventory (HQ-based or HQ-promulgated). Please see revision to Annex 4 (attached)

2.2.2 Which of the following technologies and software applications is your Department/Group currently using or considering? Please identify all that apply and also provide appropriate details below. Please enter the appropriate system names from question 2.2.1 above.

Technology Application	Use Currently	Considering Use	Used in the Past	Have Defined Need	Current Project
Records Management	X
Document Management Systems		X
Content Management	X
Artificial Intelligence, Searching, Indexing	X
Data Mining	X
Taxonomy, Intelligent Classification (e.g., Verity)	X
COLD Storage
Optical Character Recognition
Collaboration Systems (e.g., Lotus Notes, etc.)	X
Digital Imaging (Kofax, etc.)
Enterprise Resource & Planning (e.g., SAP, PeopleSoft)	X
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Workflow, Business Process Automation	X
Electronic Mail (Email)	X
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Intranet/Internal Web Postings	X
Internet	X
Other ( Describe): _____________

2.3 Storage and Media

2.3.1 Describe what media/storage devices are used by your Department/Group to retain records and documents in electronic format. Please identify all that apply and also provide appropriate details.

Storage Technology	Use Currently	Considering Use	Used in the Past
Computer Tapes	X
Storage Area Network	X
EMC Centera
CD-ROM/DVD	X
Worm Disks
Magneto Optical Disks
Other

Additional Details:

2.3.2 Does your organisation have agreements for off-site data hosting? If so, are these reflected in your standards, policies, and procedures? Do these agreeements cover storage and information security issues? Please provide appropriate detail.

q Yes.

q No.

q Don’t Know

Additional Details:

PeopleSoft ERP system is hosted off-site. Reflected in Procedures. Agreements cover storage and information security issues with Storage policies/procedures on hot and cold backups, and Disaster Recovery, and Security policies/procedures on infrastructure security.

Also support for the Knowledge Management Project is being provided by out-hosted agreements in place.

2.3.3 Does your organisation have a Digital Archives? If so, when did you organisation begin its digital archive? Please briefly describe the associated record types and identify the file format (eg., .doc, .pdf, .xml, etc.). Use separate sheet as necessary.

q Created in the 1960’s.

q Created in the 1970’s.

q Created between 1980 and 1985.

q Created between 1985 and 1995.

q Created after 1995.

q Do not have a digital archive.

Additional Details:

N/A

2.3.4 Does your organisation have one or more defined document archival file format standards. Please explain and identify the file format (eg., .tiff, .pdf, .xml, etc.). Use separate sheet as necessary.

Additional Details:

N/A

2.3.5 Does your organisation have one or more defined data archival standards. Please identify if listed in question 2.1.1 above. Use separate sheet as necessary.

Additional Details:

N/A

2.3.6 Do you use any retention and/or destruction methods for electronic records? Please explain.

Response:

This is based on the Financials and Audit requirements and rules. It is typically 7 years.

2.4 Data Integrity and Access

2.4.1 Has your Organisation ever converted data from one hardware environment to a new hardware environment?

q Yes

q No

q Do Not Know

Additional Detail on the most recent (3-4 years):

2.4.1.1 If yes, Please describe the project, your level of success and the hardware and data you used, provide appropriate details below or on a separate sheet:

	Project Name/Description
Very Successful
Average
Not Successful

Additional Detail:

2.4.2 Has your Organisation ever converted data from one software environment to a new software environment?

q Yes

q No

q Do Not Know

Additional Detail:

Yes. From IMIS (our Legacy System) to PeopleSoft ERP

2.4.2.1 If yes, Please describe the project, your level of success and the software and data you used, provide appropriate details below or on a separate sheet:

	Project Name/Description
Very Successful	X
Average
Not Successful

Additional Detail:

The data conversion project was very successful with first testing the scripts for data conversion developed from cross-walks of the systems (with the business side involvement and leadership), then converting data in segments before go-live based on the go-live plan.

2.4.2.2 Was there a loss of data associated with one or more of the projects identified above, if so explain:

	Project Name/Description
More than Expected
Less than expected	X
No Data Loss

Additional Detail:

There was minimal data loss/error that was caught in the data validation process.

2.4.3 How often does your agency perform regular backups and in what medium and location are the backups stored?

2.4.3.1 Frequency: Please check all that apply.

Back-up/Recovery	Daily	Weekly	Monthly	Never
Mainframes
Minicomputers	X
LAN Servers	X
Personal Computers				X
Laptops				X

Additional Detail:

Policy exists on backup and protection of personal computers/laptops—however is the responsibility of the user to implement.

2.4.3.2 Storage Medium: Please check all that apply.

Back-up/Recovery	Disk	Magnetic Tape	Optical Disk
Mainframes
Minicomputers		X
LAN Servers		X
Personal Computers
Laptops

Additional Detail:

2.4.3.3 Location: Please check all that apply.

Back-up/Recovery	On-Site	Off-Site
Mainframes
Minicomputers		X
LAN Servers		X
Personal Computers
Laptops

Additional Detail:

With Iron Mountain

2.4.4 Does your organisation utilize any digital signature technologies? If so, does the organisation have standards, policies, and procedures for digital signatures?

Response:

This technology is being piloted and tested. Policies and procedures to follow.

2.4.5 Please describe the verification and authentication process for digital records within your organisation.

Response:

N/A

2.4.6 Does your organisation have any specific Policy, Procedure or standards governing remote access of UNPO systems, applications or data? Identify and reference as appropriate.

Response:

Procedure exists but is highly limited in use—primarily web-based—for email.

2.4.7 Does your organisation have any plans to increase remote access of UNPO systems, applications or data to traveling staff, external partners or governments, NGOs or related groups?

Response:

Yes

2.4.8 How does your organisation address concerns of systems and data security with the increasing need for remote access by users?

Response:

By looking at various authentication techniques to ensure access, especially to critical and sensitive information.

2.5 Electronic Mail and Messaging Systems

2.5.1 Do you have an email policy, how do you capture and maintain emails as business records?

Response:

This policy is being redrafted and would supplement the Email Policy promulgated by the Secretary General (UN)

2.5.2 What system is used for e-mail and how do you manage your e-mail?

Response:

SunOne Messaging system using a centralized server at HQ with connection to Country Office Servers

2.5.3 Do you use any retention and/or destruction methods for e-mail records? If so, please explain.

Response:

Data from email server is backed up every night and sent to storage (Iron Mountain). So far there is no destruction policy in effect

3. Additional Comments:

Thank You for Your Participation in this Survey

For clarification or further information, please contact the

UNPO DAP Coordinator or

Dhurjati Mueller, 303-7978, dmueller@unicef.org