Archives and Society seminar
6 November 2012
Kirsten Ferguson-Boucher (University of Aberystwyth)
Computer-Assisted Review

 

computer (shutterstock)Kirsten Ferguson-Boucher talks about Computer-Assisted Review (also called content analysis amongst other things).  There is a lot of detail here about the variety of elements that make up archival practices and the increasing need to rely on computers to aid in this task.  The issues surrounding Big Data – including volume (amount of data), velocity (the increasing flow of data), Veracity (preservation issues), and value (what do we gain by saving and managing this data for the future?) – are all vital elements in the Information governance and insurance agenda.

Ferguson-Boucher works here way through the complexity of the subject and makes comparisons between the UK and US approaches and legal variations.  She concludes that computers enable archivists and lawyers to reduce the error in their work, but this is by no means a replacements.  Computers need to be used in conjunction with human investigators to assess and analyse materials.

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