Research Domains

Infrastructure

This domain considers issues relating to system architecture and related infrastructure as they affect records held in online environments. Examples of areas to be investigated include such topics as: types of cloud and their reliability; types of contractual agreements (service level agreements or SLAs) and their negotiation, coverage, flexibility, etc.; costs, up front and hidden.

Security

The security domain considers records issues relating to online data security, including: security methods (encryption, sharding, obfuscation, geographic location); data breaches; cybercrime; risks associated with shared servers; information assurance; governance; audits and auditability; forensic readiness; risk assessment; and backup.

Control

The control domain differs from the security domain in its focus on the management of digital material in online environments. It addresses such issues as: authenticity, reliability, and accuracy of data; integrity metadata; chain of custody; retention and disposition; transfer and acquisition; intellectual control, and access controls.

Access

The access domain researches open access/open data; the right to know/duty to remember/right to be forgotten; privacy; accountability; and transparency.

Legal

The legal domain considers issues such as: the application of legal privilege (including the issue of extra-territoriality); legal hold; chain of evidence; authentication of evidence offered at trial; certification; and soft laws (in particular UN standard-setting instruments) - mapping, scope, potential impact, and constraints.

Research Cross-Domains

The cross-domains cover topics and issues of relevance across all five research domains.

Terminology

This cross-domain is concerned with the ongoing production of a multilingual glossary; a multilingual dictionary with sources; ontologies as needed; and essays explaining the use of terms and concepts within the project.

Resources

This cross-domain is concerned with the ongoing production of annotated bibliographies, identifying relevant published articles, books, etc., case law, policies, statutes, standards, blogs and similar grey literature.

Education

This cross-domain is concerned with the development of different models of curricula for transmitting the new knowledge produced by the project.

Policy

The policy cross-domain considers policy-related issues emerging from the five research domains; for instance, it would cover policy issues pertaining to the development and implementation of the 'nfrastructure' or 'security' standards, or as the facilitator for the implementation of laws. In general, it addresses recordkeeping issues associated with the development and implementation of policies having an impact on the management of records in an online environment; policies can be broad, such as a national policy on information management, or very specific, such as a policy on adopting certain standards within an organization.

Social/Societal Issues

This cross domain is concerned with the analysis of social change consequent to the use of the Internet, including but not limited to use/misuse of social media of all types, trustworthiness of news, data leaks (intentional or accidental/force majeure) consequences, development issues (power balance in a global perspective), organizational culture issues, and individual behaviour issues.