The State Records Office of WA has completed development of a new web-based application that enables government agency staff, and records consultants working with agencies, to draft and submit Retention and Disposal Schedules to the State Records Office securely online. This application is called the Online Retention and Disposal Application (ORDA).
The State Records Office is currently in the process of deploying the system for government agency use. When deployed, it will be a mandatory requirement that agencies use ORDA to draft/submit their Retention and Disposal Schedule. ORDA also provides import capability that allows disposal authorities developed using desktop or 3rd party software to be uploaded.
The State Records Office has prepared a How it Works document that provides an overview of how ORDA operates.
When deployed, access to the system and to user guides will be available via this webpage.
State Records Office Business Objective of ORDA
The State Records Office’s business objective for ORDA is to integrate all processes associated with the preparation and submission of Retention and Disposal Schedules, as well as their ongoing management (e.g. tracking, reporting, etc.) at the State Records Office. The development of this system marks a shift away from submission of Retention and Disposal Schedules and other Disposal Authorities to the State Records Office in hardcopy.
The reasons ORDA has been developed
- to streamline processes associated with the drafting and submission of Retention and Disposal Schedules to the State Records Office;
- to allow the review/feedback of Retention and Disposal Schedules between clients and the State Records Office to happen via the web application, while still allowing discussion through meetings, on-site appraisal, etc.;
- to integrate records appraisal criteria and restricted access (to archives) criteria into the application for client ease-of-use and to also ensure such decisions are benchmarked against over-arching frameworks;
- to allow the information across a range of Retention and Disposal Schedules to be used globally by the State Records Office for reporting, analytical and other business purposes;
- to provide a dedicated system that is fit-for-purpose and that allows central control of registration, workflow, version control and other internal management purposes.
As ORDA provides a central database of government records retention and disposal decisions, the application provides capability to search for existing precedents once the system becomes populated with disposal authorities. This is intended to support the consistency of decision-making when individual Retention and Disposal Schedules are being drafted.
Australasian Collaboration
The State Records Office developed ORDA in collaboration with and input from the Australasian Digital Records Initiative (ADRI). ADRI is comprised of representatives from all ten National, State and Territory public record institutions in Australia and New Zealand.
As part of this initiative, the State Records Office would like to acknowledge the ground-breaking work conducted by State Records NSW in developing an XML Schema for Disposal Authorities. This Schema provided an important input for the development of ORDA.
For any further enquiries about ORDA, please contact sro@sro.wa.gov.au.