Federal Archives Posts FAQ on E-Records

Courts are naturally concerned with the myriad of issues on archiving electronic records.  The USA federal government National Archives have posed a new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page regarding the use of the PDF/A-1 standard with their systems.  There have also posted other useful information including:

Electronic Records Management Overview
Records Management Handbook
Records Management Toolkit
Records Management Policy and Guidance
Electronic Records Guidance 

And of course information they have pages on their groundbreaking Electronic Records Archives project.

OK: Making a search of online court records an official part of a background check for child care workers

The use of state court case management systems to run do-it-yourself background checks is common. There are a myriad of problems on relying solely on this of course, but the practice is not unheard of. Oklahoma, however, has taken it a step further and mandated these searches using the Oklahoma State Courts Network (OSCN).

Under HB 2643 of 2008, any person making an application to establish or operate a child care facility and their employees must first be run against OSCN, in addition to a national "criminal history records search."

SB 674 of 2011 clarifies the requirements and procedures for obtaining the OSCN and national criminal history records checks for individuals who own, work, live in, or have unsupervised access to children in child care facilities.

The 2011 bill appears likely to pass, having been approved by the Senate on March 10 and the House Human Services Committee on April 12.

Canadian Centre for Court Technology Announces New Director

Via press release, March 31, 2011:  The Board of Directors of the Canadian Centre for Court Technology - Centre canadien de technologie judiciaire (CCCT-CCTJ) today announced the appointment of Patrick Cormier as Chief Executive Officer.


The Co-Chairs of the Board, Ray Bodnarek, Deputy Attorney General of Alberta and Justice Frances Kiteley, Ontario Superior Court of Justice indicated that the members of the Board are delighted that Patrick had agreed to take on the responsibilities of CEO.

The Mandate for the CCCT is:

• to provide leadership, and act as a catalyst to bring together stakeholders in order to create an atmosphere favourable to technological innovation and excellence in our court systems so as to enhance access to justice;
• to support the preparation and promotion of guidelines and best practices needed to achieve interoperability among the various justice information systems;
• to provide the tools and activities needed to exchange information and share knowledge about successful and unsuccessful experiments in fields of justice technology, pertinent to the Canadian context;
• to play an active role in identifying and promoting best practices in relation to court technology and technology-related policies.

Patrick Cormier is a social media, technology and information management expert and president of Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc. His firm provides advice to government Departments and Agencies on how to best advance their information management and web 2.0 agenda. Prior to founding Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc., Mr. Cormier was a military lawyer from the Office of the Judge-Advocate General of the Canadian Forces. He regularly provides social media legal issues sessions to judges across the country under the auspices of the National Judicial Institute.  Patrick is familiar  with the CCCT-CCTJ as a result of his work as Intelleader for the Court Websites Intellaction Working Group which is tasked with preparing vendor-neutral guidelines to promote the modernization of Canadian court web sites.

A bilingual Quebec Bar Member, Patrick graduated from McGill University (common law and civil law programs) and from Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean in 1992 (B.Sc.).

Initially Patrick will serve on a part-time basis while he continues to operate his firm, Government 2.0 Think Tank Inc.

With the resounding success of the inaugural Forum on Court Technology in September 2010, the Board is looking to Patrick to  further establish CCCT-CCTJ’s presence as the leader in court technology in Canada.

More information on the Canadian Centre for Court Technology - Centre canadien de technologie judiciaire can be found at http://ccct-cctj.ca/

Texas bill would require courts, judicial agencies post "high-value data sets" online

Cross-posted to Gavel to Gavel.

Novelist and attorney George Higgins once quipped that "Data is what distinguishes the dilettante from the artist." Whether true or not, the press for data, especially from courts, is an ongoing saga.

Into this comes Texas' SB 701 of 2011. The bill, as approved on a 31-0 vote of the the Texas Senate last week, would require "state agencies" (which for these purposes include any "board, commission, office, department, or other agency in the...judicial...branch of state government") to post high-value data sets online. Said "high-value data" must:

1. be raw data;
2. in an open standard format that allows the public to search, extract, organize, and analyze the information;
3. accessible from the the agency's Internet website home page under a uniform resource locator suffix "data"; and
4. be not more than two mouse clicks from the agency's Internet website home page

So, what is a "high-value data set"? According to the bill, it includes any information that meets any of the following criteria:

1. can be used to increase state agency accountability and responsiveness
2. improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations
3. further the core mission of the agency
4. create economic opportunity
5. respond to need and demand as identified through public consultation

Explicitly excluded is any information that is confidential or protected from disclosure under state or federal law. But things get even more interesting in the other exceptions. Data need be posted if and only if the "state agency":

1. determines that, using existing resources, the agency can post the data set on the Internet website at no additional cost to the state; or
   
2. enters into a contract advantageous to the state under which the contractor posts the data set on the Internet website at no additional cost to the state; or
3. receives a gift or grant specifically for the purpose of posting one or more of the agency's high-value data sets on the Internet website.

The bill is currently pending in the House but not yet assigned to a committee.

Dirty Consultant Tricks

InfoWorld recently published an excellent article titled - 7 dirty consultant tricks (and how to avoid them).  Unfortunately I have seen every one of these done to courts (from afar) during my more than 20 years here at the NCSC.

Conversely, a comment on the article linked to this posting on "8 Client Types That Are Nothing But a Pain in the A**" that contains some interesting observations from the consultant's viewpoint.

My experience is that if the project is poorly defined and/or they want the consultant to be the project leader are ingredients in the "recipe for disaster".  As an FYI, we try to introduce good project management techniques in our Institute for Court Management class , Managing Technology Projects and Technology Resources that is available "in-person" and online.

Please read and learn.  It will help you and your organization to avoid pain in the future.