MMC Records Management & Administration 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which records management standard provides guidance on designing trustworthy electronic records systems for government agencies?
- ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems
- ISO 15489 Records Management (Correct answer)
- ANSI/NISO Z39.48 Permanence of Paper
- ISO 27001 Information Security Management
Correct answer: ISO 15489 Records Management
ISO 15489 is the internationally recognized standard for records management that guides the creation and maintenance of authentic, reliable, and usable records.
Question 2: What is 'appraisal' in archival and records management practice?
- Estimating the monetary value of historic records for insurance purposes
- Evaluating records to determine their value and appropriate retention period (Correct answer)
- Grading the physical condition of aging paper documents
- Assessing whether records meet public records law definitions
Correct answer: Evaluating records to determine their value and appropriate retention period
Appraisal is the process of evaluating records to determine their administrative, legal, fiscal, and historical value and setting appropriate retention periods.
Question 3: A city council approves a resolution authorizing the clerk to sign contracts up to $10,000. The resolution is a:
- Directive record with a 3-year retention period
- Policy record retained until superseded
- Governance record that should be retained permanently (Correct answer)
- Transactional record that expires when the contracts expire
Correct answer: Governance record that should be retained permanently
Resolutions of the governing body are governance records that document official municipal decisions and should be retained permanently.
Question 4: What does 'chain of custody' mean in the context of municipal records?
- The organizational hierarchy responsible for records management policy
- The documented history of who has possessed or controlled a record (Correct answer)
- The sequence of approval required before a record can be destroyed
- The order in which records must be produced in response to a public request
Correct answer: The documented history of who has possessed or controlled a record
Chain of custody documents the chronological history of possession and control of a record, which is critical for establishing its authenticity and admissibility.
Question 5: Under most state records laws, electronic signatures on municipal records are considered legally valid when they comply with:
- The municipality's own IT security policy
- The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) and/or state UETA statutes (Correct answer)
- The federal Freedom of Information Act provisions on digital records
- IRS regulations on electronic government transactions
Correct answer: The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) and/or state UETA statutes
ESIGN at the federal level and state UETA adoptions provide the legal framework that makes electronic signatures on public records legally equivalent to handwritten signatures.
Question 6: Which filing system is MOST efficient for retrieving individual citizen records when the requester provides only the person's name?
- Chronological filing by date received
- Numerical filing by assigned case number
- Alphabetical filing by surname (Correct answer)
- Geographic filing by address or zip code
Correct answer: Alphabetical filing by surname
Alphabetical filing by surname is most efficient when the primary identifier available is a person's name, as no cross-reference lookup is needed.
Question 7: What is the purpose of a 'file plan' in a municipal records program?
- A disaster recovery blueprint for records stored off-site
- A structured scheme that identifies categories of records and how they should be organized and titled (Correct answer)
- A legal authorization from the state to maintain digital records
- An annual report to the governing body on records management activities
Correct answer: A structured scheme that identifies categories of records and how they should be organized and titled
A file plan provides a standardized framework for organizing, naming, and categorizing records to ensure consistent filing and efficient retrieval.
MMC Records Management & Administration 4
Which records management standard provides guidance on designing trustworthy electronic records systems for government agencies?