Electronic Records and Digital Archiving Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Records Managers, Information Governance Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-KRM-027

Before you join: Participants should have experience working with organisational records, documents, information systems, compliance processes or archives.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Electronic records fail when staff cannot determine what must be captured, find authoritative versions, apply retention rules, or prove what happened to information over time. Email, collaboration platforms, scanned files, case systems and shared drives create records outside traditional filing structures. Poor controls can lead to lost evidence, privacy breaches, failed audits, unnecessary storage costs and inability to respond to litigation, regulatory review or information requests.

This course builds the practical knowledge needed to design and run electronic records and digital archiving controls. Participants work through ISO 15489 recordkeeping principles, ISO 16175 system requirements, business classification, metadata, email and collaboration-content capture, access controls, retention scheduling, legal holds, defensible disposal and audit trails. The course also addresses long-term preservation through OAIS, PREMIS, file-format risk, fixity checking, migration and archival transfer.

The five-day instructor-led programme combines focused briefings with realistic records-management cases, small-group analysis, control-design tasks, system scenarios and application planning. Participants develop an electronic records and digital archiving implementation pack containing a requirements matrix, classification and metadata model, retention and disposition controls, preservation risk register, and improvement plan. Delivery is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, with training running from 08:30 to 16:30 each day and approximately 6.5 contact hours daily. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

The course is suited to professionals responsible for records, information governance, archives, compliance, privacy, legal operations, digital transformation or system administration. It is particularly relevant where organisations are replacing shared drives, implementing repositories, digitising paper files, migrating systems, or establishing formal controls for born-digital records.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply ISO 15489 principles to assess electronic recordkeeping controls
  • Design a business classification scheme and metadata model for digital records
  • Create capture rules for email, collaboration platforms and digitised content
  • Build retention schedules with event-based triggers, legal holds and disposition actions
  • Assess repository requirements using ISO 16175 control criteria
  • Plan digital preservation controls using OAIS, PREMIS, fixity and migration methods
  • Conduct records audits using evidence sampling, traceability and control testing
  • Produce an electronic records and digital archiving improvement plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Assess whether electronic records controls meet evidential and audit requirements
  • Write clearer requirements for repositories, migrations and document-management projects
  • Make defensible retention, legal-hold and disposal recommendations
  • Identify preservation risks before files become inaccessible or unverifiable
  • Build a practical improvement plan for current recordkeeping responsibilities

For your organisation

  • Improves retrieval of authoritative records during audits, investigations and information requests
  • Reduces unmanaged duplication, unnecessary storage and uncontrolled shared-drive content
  • Strengthens evidence trails for regulatory, contractual and legal obligations
  • Reduces risks of premature destruction, excessive retention and missed legal holds
  • Establishes clearer requirements for repository procurement, configuration and migration

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish electronic records from other information and assign accountable governance roles.

  • Records, documents and data distinguished through evidential, transactional and informational value
  • ISO 15489 principles for authentic, reliable, integral and usable records
  • Business activities mapped to record-creating transactions and accountable roles
  • Recordkeeping controls placed at capture, use, maintenance and disposition points
  • Paper, born-digital and digitised records assessed for distinct control needs
  • Information governance roles: business owner, records manager, IT custodian, legal counsel
  • Risk appetite linked to regulatory, operational, evidential and reputational exposure

Participants can gather, document and prioritise requirements for electronic records controls.

  • Functional analysis identifies activities, transactions, records and retention triggers
  • Stakeholder interviews convert legal, operational and audit needs into requirements
  • ISO 16175 requirements applied to business systems and records repositories
  • Requirements traceability matrix connects controls, evidence sources, owners and tests
  • Use cases define capture, search, hold, transfer and disposal scenarios
  • Acceptance criteria specify metadata, access, audit trail and export behaviour
  • Gap assessment prioritises high-risk controls before configuration or procurement

Participants can create classification and metadata controls that support reliable retrieval and disposition.

  • Business classification scheme derived from functions, activities and transactions
  • File plans assign stable identifiers, titles, security categories and ownership
  • Metadata schema separates descriptive, administrative, technical and preservation elements
  • Mandatory fields support retrieval, retention calculation, access decisions and audit
  • Controlled vocabularies reduce synonym drift, ambiguous titles and inconsistent indexing
  • Naming conventions distinguish drafts, final records, versions and superseded copies
  • Quality rules detect missing metadata, invalid values and duplicate identifiers

Participants can specify controlled capture processes for digital and digitised records.

  • Point-of-capture rules determine which emails, chats and documents become records
  • Email capture uses mailbox rules, subject conventions and immutable filing locations
  • Collaborative platform content assessed for record status, ownership and exportability
  • Digitisation workflows apply preparation, scanning, indexing, quality assurance and release
  • Archival PDF selection considers rendition, accessibility, searchability and long-term readability
  • Chain-of-custody logs document ingestion, corrections, exceptions and responsible staff
  • Audit trails preserve actions, timestamps, identifiers and authorised user accounts

Participants can apply proportionate access and privacy controls to electronic records.

  • Access classification aligns public, internal, confidential and restricted record categories
  • Role-based access control assigns permissions through business roles and separation duties
  • Privacy review identifies personal data, special categories, minimisation and redaction
  • Redaction procedures protect sensitive content while preserving evidential context
  • Freedom-of-information searches balance disclosure duties, exemptions and review records
  • Encryption, backups and logging address confidentiality, availability and incident investigation
  • Access reviews remove obsolete permissions after role changes and departures

Participants can establish retention and disposal controls that withstand scrutiny.

  • Retention schedules connect record classes, triggers, periods and disposition actions
  • Event-based retention calculates closure, expiry, supersession and contract-end triggers
  • Legal holds suspend destruction, preserve scope and document release decisions
  • Disposition authorities distinguish destruction, transfer, review and permanent preservation
  • Defensible destruction records approvals, methods, exceptions and destruction certificates
  • Retention conflicts resolved between legislation, contracts, audit requirements and business need
  • Disposition review queues manage overdue actions, holds and owner decisions

Participants can plan preservation controls for long-term accessibility and authenticity.

  • OAIS functional entities structure ingest, archival storage, data management and access
  • PREMIS events record fixity checks, migrations, rights actions and preservation history
  • Format risk assessment considers obsolescence, dependencies, encryption and proprietary encoding
  • Fixity verification uses checksums, scheduled validation and exception investigation
  • Migration planning defines source formats, target formats, testing and rollback
  • Emulation and migration compared for complex interactive or software-dependent records
  • Storage replication separates geographic copies, media refresh and recovery objectives

Participants can appraise digital records and prepare controlled archival transfers.

  • Appraisal criteria assess evidential value, research value, uniqueness and long-term cost
  • Transfer packages include records, metadata, rights information and preservation documentation
  • Accession registers assign identifiers, custody details, restrictions and receiving conditions
  • Arrangement preserves original order while documenting intellectual and physical relationships
  • Description levels distinguish collection, series, file and item-level metadata
  • Access copies separate user delivery files from preservation master files
  • Restricted archives manage closure periods, donor conditions and review dates

Participants can prepare implementation controls for repositories, migrations and user adoption.

  • Repository selection assesses metadata support, audit trails, export and preservation functions
  • Configuration decisions map classification, retention, access and workflow requirements
  • Data migration inventory identifies volumes, formats, duplicates, mappings and exceptions
  • Migration validation reconciles counts, hashes, metadata values and sampled content
  • User adoption plan combines role-based training, guidance, support and monitoring
  • Governance board reviews policy exceptions, metrics, risks and improvement actions
  • Supplier exit provisions require usable exports, metadata mapping and documentation

Participants can test records controls and plan targeted improvements for their organisation.

  • Control testing samples capture, metadata, access, retention and disposal evidence
  • Records audits trace transactions from creation through disposition or archive transfer
  • Key performance indicators measure filing timeliness, retrieval, exceptions and backlog
  • Preservation risk register scores likelihood, impact, ownership and treatment dates
  • Incident response records loss, unauthorised access, corruption and recovery actions
  • Corrective action plans assign priorities, owners, due dates and verification evidence
  • Personal application plan schedules three recordkeeping improvements and stakeholder conversations

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Electronic recordkeeping requirements traceability matrix
  2. Business classification and metadata model
  3. Email and collaboration-content capture checklist
  4. Retention, legal-hold and disposition decision template
  5. Digital preservation risk register
  6. Records audit and improvement action plan

Who should attend

  • Records Managers — responsible for records policy, retention and disposal controls
  • Information Governance Managers — need consistent ownership, classification and accountability arrangements
  • Digital Archivists — manage preservation, archival transfer and access to digital collections
  • Compliance and Risk Officers — require defensible evidence for audits, investigations and regulation
  • IT Systems Managers — configure repositories, migrations, security and integration controls
  • Legal Operations and Privacy Professionals — manage holds, disclosure, personal data and redaction

Skills and tools covered

Electronic records controlMetadata designRetention schedulingDigital preservationRepository requirementsRecords audit

Tools and standards

ISO 15489, ISO 16175, OAIS reference model, PREMIS

How the course runs

Training methodology

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with case-based analysis of email, shared-drive, repository, digitisation and archival scenarios. Participants examine sample classifications, metadata fields, retention rules, access decisions, preservation risks and audit evidence. Group exercises test requirements gathering, disposition decisions, migration validation and incident response. Simulations examine competing privacy, disclosure, legal-hold and operational demands. Each participant completes structured application planning for a current records-management issue, supported by instructor feedback and peer discussion.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience working with organisational records, documents, information systems, compliance processes or archives. Familiarity with shared drives, email, document-management systems or business applications is useful. Participants should understand their organisation's basic filing, retention or information-security arrangements where these exist. No prior qualification in archives, records management, library science or digital preservation is required. Technical programming, database administration and specialist forensic skills are not required. Participants do not need to be responsible for selecting or operating a records repository.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should understand how records, documents or business information are handled in your work. Previous formal study in records management, archives or digital preservation is not required.

Bring examples of non-sensitive recordkeeping issues, such as filing problems, retention questions, repository plans or migration concerns. You do not need to bring confidential records, system extracts or organisational data.

The course suits records managers, information governance staff, archivists, compliance professionals, IT managers and legal or privacy specialists. It also suits project staff involved in repository implementation, digitisation or system migration.

Document management commonly focuses on storing, sharing and collaborating on files. This course focuses on records as evidence, including controlled capture, metadata, retention, legal holds, disposal, audit trails and long-term preservation.

Participants can use the templates to assess current controls, identify high-risk gaps and define improvement actions. The methods also support conversations with legal, IT, privacy, business owners and repository suppliers.

The programme contains ten connected modules covering governance, requirements, metadata, capture, access, retention, preservation, archives, implementation and assurance. Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30, with approximately 6.5 contact hours.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

Related courses in Knowledge & Records Management