Information Governance – Glossary of Terms

30(b)(6) Witness – The provision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that allows an organization such as a company to designate a representative to speak on its behalf. In discovery, the 30(b)(6) witness typically testifies on what data and other ESI an organization has, policies supporting this data, locations, etc.

5015.2 – Implementation and procedural guidance standard for the management of records for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Analysis – Phase of the EDRM lifecycle for evaluating ESI for content, context, including key patterns, and topics.

Automatic Classification – Using automated systems to classify electronic documents based on their content.

Basel II -- Basel II is an international business standard that among other rules including recordkeeping requirements requires financial institutions to maintain enough cash reserves to cover risks incurred by operations.

Categorization— The process of associating a document with one or more subject categories based on context.

California Consumer Protection Act – Privacy law providing California residents and employees specific rights over their personal information.

CCPA – California Consumer Protection Act

Classification — the systematic identification and arrangement of records into categories according to logically structured conventions, methods and procedural rules represented in a classification system.

Cascading Legal Hold – A situation where documents under legal hold for one matter are subject to legal hold for new litigation or other matters.

CEDS – Certified eDiscovery specialist offered by ACEDS.

Collection – Phase in the EDRM lifecycle for gathering ESI for further use in the eDiscovery process (processing, review, etc.).

Compliance — In the context of ERM, used to mean obeying laws, regulations and standards.

Concept–Based Searching — A search for documents related conceptually to a keyword – rather than just those containing the specific term. (Source: AIIM)

Concordance – An older electronic discovery, litigation document management, and litigation support tool.

Content Management System (CMS) (see also Enterprise Content Management (ECM)) – An software application (or system) used to control content.

Contoural – The largest independent provider of Information Governance consulting serving more than 30% of the Fortune 500, plus many smaller and mid–sized organizations as well as public sector organizations.

Convenience Copy – a “nonofficial,” extra copy of a record.

CRM – Certified Records Manager. A certification for records managers provided by ARMA.

Declaration (of a record) – the process of defining that a document’s contents formally passes into corporate control and is thereby declared as a record

Destruction Hold – See Legal Hold

Discovery – the phase in a legal dispute when the opposing parties gather evidence and share it before the trial goes to court. Disposition – The final destruction , transfer to another entity, or permanent preservation of a document or record.

Document Management System – Software that controls and organizes documents throughout an organization. Incorporates document and content capture, workflow, document repositories.

ECA – Early Case Assessment. The implementation of eDiscovery that provides information about relevant documents on an expedited basis in order to provider a preliminary assessment of the case and the optimal method for proceeding. eDiscovery – Any process in which electronic data is sought, located, secured, and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case or regulatory inquiry.

Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) – A standardized lifecycle model for the eDiscovery process, created by an industry group, EDRM.net.

Email File Plan – Classification schema for arranging and storing email to promote organized storage and retrieval and compliance with a Records Retention Schedule.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) – A set of tools and methods that allows an organization to obtain, organize, store, and deliver information crucial to its operation.

Event–based Disposition – Disposition of a record or document based on the occurrence of some future event, such as the conclusion of litigation.

ESI – Electronically Stored Information. Legal term for describing all types of electronic data.

ESI Map – Map generated to facilitate eDiscovery identifying data repositories, custodians, systems, legacy data, etc.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – Rules enacted by Congress that dictate procedures within the Federal Courts. The 2006 update to these rules created new, stringent requirements for discovery.

Federated Search — Simultaneous search of multiple online databases.

File Classification System – A logical and systematic arrangement for classifying records into subject groups or categories based on some definite scheme of natural relationships representing numbers, letters, or key words for identification.

File Plan – Classification schema for arranging and storing documents so they can be retrieved.

FOIA – See Freedom of Information Act.

Freedom of Information Act – A Federal law ensuring public access to U.S. Government Records.

FRCP – See Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Full–Text Indexing — Indexing words in documents so they can be retrieved by those words or phrases.

Full–Text Search – The ability to retrieve documents based on words or phrases that were indexed from within the documents.

GARP – Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles. Guiding statement on information governance based on eight recordkeeping principles published and copyrighted by ARMA International.

General Data Protection Regulation – A regulation enacted by the European Union giving European citizens specific rights over their privacy information.

GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation

HITECH – The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) is legislation created to stimulate the adoption of electronic health records.

Hold Notice (see also Legal Hold) – Notice to record or document holders (custodians) that the organization has an obligation to preserve documents, typically related to either litigation or regulatory inquiry.

Inactive Record – An infrequently or never accessed record.

Identification – Phase in the EDRM lifecycle to identify potential sources of relevant information.

IG – Information Governance

IGMM – Information Governance Maturity Model. A maturity model developed by ARMA.

Information Governance — the accountability for the management of an organization’s information assets (especially its records), in order to achieve its business purposes and compliance with any relevant legislation or regulations.

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) — A comprehensive approach to managing the flow of electronic information and associated metadata from their creation and initial storage to the time when they become obsolete and are deleted.

IP – Intellectual Property – refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

J-SOX – Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, is considered the Japanese version of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). The J-SOX compliance law introduces strict rules for the internal control of financial reporting in order to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures.

Keyword – Words in a title or within or document that describes the content of that document, usually submitted by a user of a search engine.

Legacy Data – Older, often unused or unneeded data.

Legal admissibility — describes what a court of law will and will not accept as evidence in a case. Sometimes used incorrectly to express Evidential Weight.

Legal Hold (aka Litigation Hold) – The legal requirement that an organization must preserve all information relevant to a particular lawsuit, inquiry, etc.

Meet & Confer Conference – See Rule 26(f) Conference.

Metadata – Data describing context, content, and structure of documents and records and their management through time. Literally, data about data.

MidFID II -- The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2004/39/EC is a European Union law that provides harmonized regulation for investment services across the 31 member states of the European Economic Area.

New York Cybersecurity Regulation – A set of regulations from the NY Department of Financial Services that places new cybersecurity requirements on all covered financial institutions.

NSF File – Notes Storage File (or .nsf) (NSF) – The default file format for the IBM Lotus Notes database, which also serves as a personal archive file. It can contain messages, contacts, and calendar items, as well as documents, forms, and other collaborative elements.

Paper Remediation – The process of identifying, classifying and destroying stores of older paper documents.

Personnel Storage Table (or .pst) (PST) – Microsoft’s Personal Message Store format. The default format for the Microsoft Outlook personal archive file, it can store messages, contacts, calendar items, and folders. (Source: AIIM)

Physical Record – a record held in non–electronic form. Where a record is held electronically on a removable medium such as a DVD, the DVD may itself be considered a physical record.

Policy (see Records Retention Policy)

Precision – The measure of the degree of repeatability of a search or action. (NOTE: Accuracy is the measure of correctness.)

Predictive Coding – A process employed in eDiscovery to have computer system select which documents are relevant to a particular litigation. Often used to reduce the cost of discovery.

Presentation – Phase of the EDRM lifecycle for displaying ESI before audiences.

Preservation – In eDiscovery, the process of ensuring that document, records and ESI are saved and not deleted.

Processing – Phase in the EDRM lifecycle for reducing the volume of ESI and converting it, if necessary, to forms more suitable for review & analysis.

Production – Phase in the EDRM lifecycle for delivering ESI to others in appropriate forms and using appropriate delivery mechanisms.

Record – Information created, received, and maintained as evidence or information created by an organization or person in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business. (ISO 15489)

Recall – The measure of completeness of a search.

Record Types Inventory (RTI) – A catalogue of the what types of records an organization holds.

RIM – Records and Information Management. The field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use, and disposition of records, including processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records. See also information resources management. (ISO 15489)

Records Management Policy – Policy detailing the preservation and destruction of records.

Records Retention Schedule (or Retention Schedule) (RRS) – a formal instrument that defines the retention periods and consequent disposition actions authorized for records described in the schedule. Typically an addendum to the Records Management Policy.

Relativity – A cloud–based eDiscovery software that offers case assessment, fact management, review, production, analytics and legal hold functionalities within a suite.

Relevancy, Relevancy Ranking — relevancy is an abstract measure of how well a document satisfies a user's query. Based on any number of algorithms the retrieved content is displayed in relevant order.

Review – Phase of the EDRM lifecycle for evaluating ESI for relevance and privilege.

Scanning – In electronic imaging, OCR scanning is the conversion of marks that represent symbols, into those symbols for use in a data processing system.

Rule 26(f) Conference – A meeting stipulated in the Federal Rules of Procedure requiring all parties in a litigation to meet within 99 days of a lawsuit being filed to discuss and negotiate and cooperate on discovery. Also referred to as Meet & Confer conference.

Security Classification – the methodology and rules that are employed to grade the sensitivity level of information within documents and records.

Sedona Conference – The Sedona Conference® is a nonprofit research and educational institute, dedicated to the advancement of law and policy in the areas of antitrust, complex litigation and intellectual property. This is the most prominent academically–oriented authority on discovery.

Sedona Canada – Canadian subset of the Sedona conference.

Singapore Personal Data Protection Act – This law sets out the law on data protection in Singapore. Apart from establishing a general data protection regime, the Act also regulates telemarketing practices.

Spoliation – The intentional or unintentional destruction of evidence that may impede legal proceedings.

Sunshine Laws – Local and state laws providing access to public records and proceedings.

Taxonomies – A classification structure to enable storage and identification of records.

Transborder Data Flows – European and country-specific laws that limit or restrict the transferring of personal information across borders.

Vital Record – Record identified as essential for the continuing conduct of an organization’s business.