On Friday, 10 September 2010, the National Coordination Office for the
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD)
Program issued a call for public comment on the draft 2010 Strategic
Plan for NITRD. The draft developed by the NITRD agencies responds to a
recommendation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology (PCAST) and is part of the NITRD Program’s ongoing
strategic planning process.

Archivists and records managers may be interested to note that the plan
specifically mentions the need for continued research into records, data
and information management and preservation issues. It is an entirely
unprecedented development for these issues to be included in the
President's strategic plan for NITRD.  See for example:

“Nor do we yet have a rationalized, robust information infrastructure
for the long-term preservation, curation, federation, sustainability,
accessibility, and survivability of vital Federal electronic records and
data collections, such as those overseen by NARA.” (pg. 17)

The plan also specifically highlights some of the collaborative
advanced research that NARA’s Center for Advanced Systems and
Technologies (NCAST) is engaged in. See for example:

“Information standards: Data interoperability and integration of
distributed data; generalizable ontologies; data format description
language (DFDL) for electronic records and data; data structure research
for complex digital objects;” (pg. 17)

“Information management: Intelligent rule-based data management;
increasing access to and cost-effective integration and maintenance of
complex collections of heterogeneous data; innovative architectures for
data-intensive and power-aware computing; scalable technologies;
integration of policies (differential sensitivity, security, user
authentication) with data; integrated data repositories and computing
grids; testbeds; sustainability and validation of complex models; and
grid-enabled visualization for petascale collections” (pg. 18)

“A primary function of cyber infrastructure is to provide for the
safe, secure creation, transmission, storage, and retrieval of all kinds
of digital information - including sensitive data belonging to
individuals, private-sector organizations, and government. Ideally, both
the creator and any recipients or viewers of nonpublic digital
information should be authorized and should be able to access it
securely; identify its origin and history, or provenance; authenticate
its integrity (no one has tampered with the content); and maintain its
confidentiality as required.” (pg. 22)

The draft 2010 Strategic Plan for NITRD and instructions on how to
provide comments can be found at this URL:
http://www.nitrd.gov/DraftStrategicPlan/NITRDstratplan_Public_Comment.pdf

Comments are due no later than 5 p.m. EDT on 11 October 2010.


Mark Conrad
NARA Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies
NHA 
The National Archives and Records Administration
Erma Ora Byrd Conference and Learning Center
Building 494 Second Floor
610 State Route 956
Rocket Center, WV  26726

Phone: 304-726-7820
Fax: 304-726-7802
Email: [log in to unmask] 

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]