February 28, 2019
February 27, 2019
Archives Express: NARA releases Blockchain white paper. My take: It raises a number of questions and misses some important ones like the 51% hack and smart contract issues. I think a lot more work needs to be done before IM professionals jump on the blockchain bandwagon.
H/T: Kurt Thies
H/T: Kurt Thies
February 26, 2019
February 22, 2019
ARMA Awards Nominations Open
Posting this because I never see the announcements about this until right at, and sometimes after, the deadline. ARMA's awards nominations are open for a number of awards, with the following deadlines:
May 15: Company of Fellows; Distinguished Service Award; and Christine Zanotti Award for Excellence in Non-Serial Publications
June 30: ARMA Award of Excellence for an Organization Award (presented by the Department of Redundancy Department); Chapter Luminary Award; Member of the Year; Regions Luminary Award; and Standing Ovation Award.
A brief overview of each award can be found at https://www.arma.org/page/Awards. Links to criteria and nominating forms for each award can be found at https://arma.secure-platform.com/a/.
May 15: Company of Fellows; Distinguished Service Award; and Christine Zanotti Award for Excellence in Non-Serial Publications
June 30: ARMA Award of Excellence for an Organization Award (presented by the Department of Redundancy Department); Chapter Luminary Award; Member of the Year; Regions Luminary Award; and Standing Ovation Award.
A brief overview of each award can be found at https://www.arma.org/page/Awards. Links to criteria and nominating forms for each award can be found at https://arma.secure-platform.com/a/.
Mike Orcutt, MIT Technology Review: Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked The spooky thing to me is not the 51% attacks, but rather the smart contract issues.
Frequently Asked Questions about CIP 2019
We just received a couple of questions about the CIP 2019 update, and thought it might be helpful to answer them here. Eventually I suspect this will turn into an FAQ, so if you have questions about CIP 2019, please send them to me and I'll answer them here!
Does this version replace the previous version? Yes, when the 2019 update goes live, the old exam will be retired. Some of the questions will be the same, many of the questions will be tweaked, and there will be many new questions to reflect the new topics added to the exam.
That said, current CIPs will not need to retest to maintain their status. CIPs who have been keeping up with their CEUs and renewal fees will continue to remain active CIPs in good standing. The renewal and reinstatement processes will change somewhat - I wrote about that here: http://informata.blogspot.com/2019/01/cip-2019-quick-update-on-renewals-and.html
Will the exam be different? Yes...and no. Metadata is still metadata, business processes are still business processes. The reason for updating CIP, or any certification, is to reflect changes in the industry and how things are done. To that end, we'll be reducing or removing coverage of topics we don't feel are relevant, and adding and widening coverage of topics that have emerged to take their place in the toolkit of the information professional.
The bottom line is that the coverage of the exam will be mostly the same - right now my best guess is around 70%. Once we finalize the exam blueprint we'll share that here and in other sites and services, and we'll also put together a mapping that shows what's been dropped, what's been changed, and what's been added.
We will still be using Kryterion as our exam delivery partner. The exam itself may become slightly longer to reflect the broadening of industry processes and developments we think CIPs should know, but it will still be a single exam.
Are there more/different courses that should be considered to prepare? Again, yes and no. All of the current AIIM courses will continue to align to the updated CIP; many of them go into much greater depth than the relevant section of the CIP, so they remain of value on their own as well as for preparing for the exam.
However, the CIP Study Guide and CIP Prep course will also be updated to reflect the changes on the exam, so candidates will continue to have that option to prepare for the exam as well. And we're planning for some big changes in how we deliver that prep course that we think everyone will appreciate!
Again, if you have any other questions, please send them to me at jwilkins@aiim.org and I will answer them and post the answers here as well.
Does this version replace the previous version? Yes, when the 2019 update goes live, the old exam will be retired. Some of the questions will be the same, many of the questions will be tweaked, and there will be many new questions to reflect the new topics added to the exam.
That said, current CIPs will not need to retest to maintain their status. CIPs who have been keeping up with their CEUs and renewal fees will continue to remain active CIPs in good standing. The renewal and reinstatement processes will change somewhat - I wrote about that here: http://informata.blogspot.com/2019/01/cip-2019-quick-update-on-renewals-and.html
Will the exam be different? Yes...and no. Metadata is still metadata, business processes are still business processes. The reason for updating CIP, or any certification, is to reflect changes in the industry and how things are done. To that end, we'll be reducing or removing coverage of topics we don't feel are relevant, and adding and widening coverage of topics that have emerged to take their place in the toolkit of the information professional.
The bottom line is that the coverage of the exam will be mostly the same - right now my best guess is around 70%. Once we finalize the exam blueprint we'll share that here and in other sites and services, and we'll also put together a mapping that shows what's been dropped, what's been changed, and what's been added.
We will still be using Kryterion as our exam delivery partner. The exam itself may become slightly longer to reflect the broadening of industry processes and developments we think CIPs should know, but it will still be a single exam.
Are there more/different courses that should be considered to prepare? Again, yes and no. All of the current AIIM courses will continue to align to the updated CIP; many of them go into much greater depth than the relevant section of the CIP, so they remain of value on their own as well as for preparing for the exam.
However, the CIP Study Guide and CIP Prep course will also be updated to reflect the changes on the exam, so candidates will continue to have that option to prepare for the exam as well. And we're planning for some big changes in how we deliver that prep course that we think everyone will appreciate!
Again, if you have any other questions, please send them to me at jwilkins@aiim.org and I will answer them and post the answers here as well.
Joe Shepley, in CMSWire: What if You Just Ignored the GDPR?
Interesting and realistic take on the real cost of compliance vs. the abstract cost of non-compliance. As I teach in our training courses, ultimately every compliance decision is a risk management, and therefore business, decision. As Joe notes, it makes zero sense financially to spend millions of dollars to avoid the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
That's not to say that compliance might not be important for other reasons - public sentiment, trust and reputation, etc. And our Modern Records Management class makes the argument that you do things to improve the business of the business and get better compliance as an additional benefit. But every organization needs to look at GDPR, and CaCPA, and any new regulation/compliance requirement through the filter of what's the best choice for the business.
Interesting and realistic take on the real cost of compliance vs. the abstract cost of non-compliance. As I teach in our training courses, ultimately every compliance decision is a risk management, and therefore business, decision. As Joe notes, it makes zero sense financially to spend millions of dollars to avoid the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
That's not to say that compliance might not be important for other reasons - public sentiment, trust and reputation, etc. And our Modern Records Management class makes the argument that you do things to improve the business of the business and get better compliance as an additional benefit. But every organization needs to look at GDPR, and CaCPA, and any new regulation/compliance requirement through the filter of what's the best choice for the business.
February 5, 2019
Jedidiah Bracy, for IAPP: CNIL publishes blockchain guidance for GDPR compliance. Links to the report and an article about it are available within this post.
February 4, 2019
CIP 2019 update: The job task analysis and exam blueprint
The first major phase in the development or updating of a certification exam is the job task analysis (JTA). As the name suggests, this is an in-depth analysis of the tasks expected for a particular role. The results of the JTA are then translated into the things a candidate needs to know to perform those tasks - the exam blueprint - which then forms the basis for the actual exam questions.
The role definition is important, because the purpose of any exam is to determine whether a particular candidate is minimally or sufficiently competent to function in that role. This is a specific term of art in the certification industry that we'll talk about at some length on our call.
In a nutshell, we have defined the minimally competent CIP as one that:
The JTA, and how important you think a given task is, should therefore be thought of in terms of that C- student, not the rock star.
Tomorrow, February 5, we will be sending out a JTA survey to all CIPs and all AIIM professional members. That survey is based on the existing CIP, which gives respondents an opportunity to tell us how they feel about it, and adds some new tasks and activities to reflect changes in the industry since the last CIP update in 2016.
We ask you on the survey to rate each task on a scale of 1, not at all important, to 5, essential. Tasks that are 1s are probably not within the scope of most CIPs' roles; tasks that are 5s are within the scope of just about every CIP's role.
If you get the survey, we'd very much like you to take the 15-20 minutes required to complete it. We are particularly interested in your identifying:
If you have any questions about the survey or the update process - or you're a CIP and want to participate as a subject matter expert yourself - please contact me directly at jwilkins@aiim.org.
The role definition is important, because the purpose of any exam is to determine whether a particular candidate is minimally or sufficiently competent to function in that role. This is a specific term of art in the certification industry that we'll talk about at some length on our call.
In a nutshell, we have defined the minimally competent CIP as one that:
- Has 5+ years of practical, hands-on work experience in information management processes and disciplines (updated to reflect 5+ years)
- Does not have to have a relevant college degree
- Has not attended any formal training courses
- Is prepared to faciliate, translate, and liaison between different information management processes, the business, IT, etc. Jack of all trades is a good description; internal consultant or "generalist" is probably another.
- Is more focused on business outcomes than specific technologies or in-depth specialized processes
The JTA, and how important you think a given task is, should therefore be thought of in terms of that C- student, not the rock star.
Tomorrow, February 5, we will be sending out a JTA survey to all CIPs and all AIIM professional members. That survey is based on the existing CIP, which gives respondents an opportunity to tell us how they feel about it, and adds some new tasks and activities to reflect changes in the industry since the last CIP update in 2016.
We ask you on the survey to rate each task on a scale of 1, not at all important, to 5, essential. Tasks that are 1s are probably not within the scope of most CIPs' roles; tasks that are 5s are within the scope of just about every CIP's role.
If you get the survey, we'd very much like you to take the 15-20 minutes required to complete it. We are particularly interested in your identifying:
- Which tasks are outdated, niched, or of such little importance that they should be removed altogether? For example, in the original CIP we made the decision that microfilm was niched enough that it wasn't directly relevant to the day-to-day life of the CIP.
- Which tasks need to be added to ensure that a CIP stays current? For example, there's been a lot of work done recently around process automation, in particular in the areas of robotic process automation and decision management. If those should be added, what are the tasks we expect a CIP to need to do?
If you have any questions about the survey or the update process - or you're a CIP and want to participate as a subject matter expert yourself - please contact me directly at jwilkins@aiim.org.
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