Australian Society of Archivists
Electronic Records Special Interest Group

Managing Websites Seminar: Gearing up for the e-commerce era

The 'Managing Websites' seminars were run by the Australian Society of Archivists's Electronic Records Special Interest Group in both Sydney and Melbourne in November and December 1999. The aim of the seminars was to bring together various experts to present on and discuss recordkeeping and other issues associated with management of Web sites. Issues which were tackled during the seminars included:

• the benefits associated with publishing on the Web
• how the nature of an organisation's presence on the World Wide Web will influence requirements for recordkeeping
• tools which can be used to manage published web sources
• the importance of international standards for the creation of metadata about the contents of web pages
• how risk management has a role to play in keeping records of web sites
• how to use different technologies to generate and manage records of web pages
• how Government is using the web to interact with the public and with business
• issues to consider in designing web sites, and
• the legal and regulatory framework for the development of electronic commerce

The speakers at the seminars were, at Sydney, 27 November 1999: Gavan McCarthy, Brendan Hills, Barbara Reed and Kristine Corcoran (Chairs: Anne Picot and Cassandra Findlay) and at Melbourne 7 December 1999: Gavan McCarthy, Brendan Hills, Livia Iacovino, Sue Heistein (Chair: Cassandra Findlay). Reports on some of the speakers' presentations are included below.

Finally, the Electronic Records SIG Committee would like to extends their sincere thanks to the speakers, the Public Records Office of Victoria, the ASA Treasurer Bruce Smith, ASA NSW Treasurer Tony Leviston and State Records NSW for their support and assistance in the running of these seminars.

Cassandra Findlay
Convenor, Electronic Records Special Interest Group