Write responses to these 2 discussions. No references needed.
Discussion 1
Information is considered the most valuable asset of any organization. The appropriate and effective preservation of the information is essential for an organization. This helps in ensuring the security and privacy of the information. This is why data archiving is considered an essential aspect of an organization. This paper identifies the various considerations that have to be made in developing a long-term archival plan for commercial banks.
There is a rapid technological advancement that has resulted in the ability to produce and store enormous and essential data within the organizations. Generally, the digital system is also becoming quite complicated, as well as highly integrated. In this regard, therefore, the process of digital preservation considers the stabilization of the long-term viability and access to the digital material while at the same time upholding adequate and proper distribution of the incentives, particularly among the critical decision-makers. Generally, the finance industry utilizes various systems to digitize and preserve records. The finance industry incorporates commercial banks, insurance firms, stock exchanges, and non-bank financial institutions. As a result of the production of various records daily, the industry has uncovered why data digitally is essential. This is because preservation of the digital data helps the industry to obtain a competitive advantage while at the same time helping the industry to be at par with the external business environment forces.
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Considerations
Some of the consideration to be made in developing a long-term archival plan for commercial banks include the following:
Feasibility
This is a crucial aspect to consider. It is considered a crucial consideration factor as far as the development of the long-term archival plan for commercial banks is considered. Feasibility implies that the commercial bank ought to own the application software and hardware, which might include the computers having the passwords accessed only by the authorized individuals; this will help reduce and prevent potential attacks. Therefore, the archival plan has to be sustainable, which implies that it must be appropriate enough to limitlessly into the forthcoming facades. This further implies that an alternate route and backup should be put in place to aid in a situation where its functionality fails; the backup plan could consist of the cloud.
Practicality and appropriateness of the archival plan
This is another essential consideration that the commercial banks have to consider in developing a long-term archival plan.
The Universally acceptable standard
It shares an essential aspect as far as setting up the digital plan is considered. They incorporate available standards. In this regard, therefore, it becomes beneficial for commercial banks and essential as a result of the format stability. The implication is that the bank may preserve its records and statements in a stable file format that maybe retrieved then presented quickly once required.
Discussion 2
Within the education industry, while some documents may only need to be kept for months or a few years, there are some that need to be kept forever. An example of documents that need to be kept for long term digital preservation (LTDP) are student transcripts. Whether the student just completed their education or stopped attending last month or 50 years ago, the student’s academic transcript record needs to be preserved for all eternity or at least as long at the student themselves may request a copy.
Some considerations that must be made with regards to long term digital preservation is to reduce the data to the lowest capacity through using efficient information governance policies. The more data that is being preserved, the greater the cost. Therefore, lowering the data capacity will reduce the cost of the long-term digital preservation. Additionally, an organization must decide whether they will have LTDP systems in house or outsource the task. This decision needs to be determined early on, as the purchase of the systems is costly and an organization does not want to purchase the needed systems, then make the decision to outsource their LTDP task.
Due to the complexities involved with long term digital preservation, many higher education institutions are using cloud-based providers such as National Student Clearinghouse or Parchment. Thus, instead of the higher education institution handling the long-term digital preservation of the student transcripts themselves, many have outsourced the task to cloud service providers specializing in the storage, backup, retrieval and sending of student transcripts.
Then there are some educational institutions, such as Udemy, which promise lifetime access to their courses once purchased. According to their website, currently offers 130,000 online courses. Given that each course is offered with lifetime access, that amasses a lot of data that must be planned for long term digital preservation. Of course, when just starting out, Udemy management probably made some calculations and estimates as to how much data would be housed after one year or five years, but to allow lifetime access, one must think about how much data may be housed after 20 or even 50 years. Udemy terms of agreement pertaining to lifetime access does state that the students have lifetime access to the course content, but not the Instructor. Therefore, unless the course content is found to be in violation of infringement or copyright, the course is supposed to be available to the student purchaser for their lifetime.