Introduction : 

In the digital era, organisations face rapid growth of electronic records, stronger regulatory expectations, and increasing preservation challenges. Modern records management must integrate policy, people, processes and systems to manage physical and digital records across their lifecycle — from creation and capture through secure storage, access, preservation and final disposition.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course participants will be able to:

• Explain advanced concepts and principles of records and archives management. 
• Relate records management to organisational governance, compliance and risk management. 
• Design enterprise policies, classification schemes and retention schedules aligned with international best practice. 
• Specify requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems (ERMS) and evaluate vendor solutions.
• Apply metadata standards (e.g., Dublin Core, PREMIS, ISO 23081) to support discovery, preservation and authenticity. 
• Develop digitisation strategies that preserve authenticity, integrity and accessibility.
• Prepare sustainable digital preservation plans (OAIS-based) including format migration and media obsolescence strategies. 
• Identify and mitigate security, privacy and disaster recovery risks affecting records.

Training Methodology

A blended, highly interactive approach combining: short expert-led lectures, practical hands-on workshops (classification design, metadata creation, ERMS feature mapping), system selection exercises, scenario simulations, group problem-solving, peer review, and individual feedback. Pre- and post-course self-assessments and a final project (action plan) complete the programme.

Target Participants

Records officers, archivists, information managers, IT project leads, compliance and legal officers, library/archive staff, and managers responsible for digital transformation or information governance across public and private sectors.

Organisational & Personal Impact

Participants will be equipped to: align records practices with strategy; reduce legal/compliance risk; specify and implement ERMS; reduce operational cost and risk from poor document control; and establish long-term preservation capabilities

Course Outline

Day 1 — Foundations of Advanced Records & Archives Management

• Evolution and principles of records management; definitions and core concepts. 
• Records lifecycle: creation, capture, classification, use, maintenance, disposition.
• Legal & regulatory frameworks overview (reference to ISO 15489 principles and relevant privacy/data laws). 
• Developing organisational records policies and governance structures.
• Workshop: conducting a physical records inventory and risk triage.

Day 2 — Classification, Appraisal & Retention Schedules

• Designing classification schemes and controlled vocabularies.
• Principles of appraisal and creating retention schedules linked to business needs.
• Metadata fundamentals for records management and the role of ISO 23081. 
• Practical exercise: build a retention schedule and classification prototype.

Day 3 — ERMS Requirements & Procurement

• ERMS functional requirements and system architecture (ingest, storage, access, audit trails).
• Mapping business requirements to ERMS features; vendor evaluation criteria and RFP essentials.
• Case exercise: scoring and shortlisting ERMS solutions.

Day 4 — Metadata & Interoperability

• Metadata standards and roles: Dublin Core (descriptive), PREMIS (preservation), ISO 23081 (records metadata). 
• Creating metadata schemas, controlled terms and automated metadata capture.
• Hands-on: design a metadata profile for a mixed (hybrid) records environment.

Day 5 — Digitisation Strategy & Quality Control

• Scanning standards, OCR strategy, image quality control, and born-digital capture best practices.
• Ensuring authenticity and chain of custody during digitisation.
• Exercise: draft a digitisation workflow and QC checklist.

Day 6 — Electronic Document & Content Management (EDCM) Integration

• The relationship between EDCM, ERMS, and enterprise systems (CRM, ERP, email archiving).
• Access control models, record versioning, e-signatures and workflow automation.
• Workshop: develop integration and access control model for a sample organisation.

Day 7 — Digital Preservation & OAIS Framework

• OAIS reference model: ingest, archival storage, data management, access/dissemination and preservation planning. 
• Preservation strategies: replication, emulation, migration and format sustainability.
• Hands-on: create a basic OAIS-aligned preservation plan for a designated collection.

Day 8 — Information Security, Privacy & Business Continuity

• Records in the context of information security (confidentiality, integrity, availability) and privacy compliance.
• Disaster recovery, backup strategies and continuity planning for records services.
• Risk assessment exercise and mitigation planning.

Day 9 — Emerging Technologies & Change Management

• Practical implications of AI, blockchain, and cloud services on records and archival practices.
• Change management, staff training, and building a records culture.
• Group activity: prepare a technology impact brief and adoption roadmap.

Day 10 — Capstone: Implementation Roadmap & Final Presentations

• Final group presentations: participant teams present a tailored implementation plan (ERMS selection, classification & retention, digitisation & preservation roadmap).
• Individual action plans, executive summary templates, and assessment & feedback.
• Course close: certification of completion and next-steps checklist.