MMC Technology & Digital Records Systems 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A municipality adopts a 'cloud-first' policy for records storage. What contract provision is most critical for the clerk to verify before signing a cloud service agreement?
- The vendor's social media presence and customer ratings
- Data ownership, portability, and the right to retrieve or delete records upon contract termination (Correct answer)
- The vendor's physical office location
- The number of storage tiers offered at different price points
Correct answer: Data ownership, portability, and the right to retrieve or delete records upon contract termination
Without explicit contractual guarantees of data ownership and portability, a municipality risks losing access to its own official records if the vendor relationship ends.
Question 2: What is the purpose of a 'disposition authority' in an electronic records management system?
- It grants IT administrators the right to delete servers
- It is the legal authorization specifying when and how records may be transferred, destroyed, or permanently retained (Correct answer)
- It defines who may approve public records requests
- It controls which staff members can export records to external drives
Correct answer: It is the legal authorization specifying when and how records may be transferred, destroyed, or permanently retained
A disposition authority, typically issued by the state archives, provides the legal basis for disposing of specific record series after their minimum retention periods have been met.
Question 3: During a routine audit, a clerk discovers that the electronic voting system used for council meetings does not create a log of individual member votes. What action should the clerk take?
- Accept the system as-is since electronic voting is inherently anonymous
- Report the gap to the council and work with IT to implement an audit log, as roll-call votes are typically required by law to be recorded (Correct answer)
- Reconstruct votes from member statements in draft minutes
- Disable the electronic voting system and revert to voice votes only
Correct answer: Report the gap to the council and work with IT to implement an audit log, as roll-call votes are typically required by law to be recorded
Most open meetings laws require roll-call votes to be recorded by name; the clerk must escalate the compliance gap and work to implement proper audit logging.
Question 4: A municipal clerk is evaluating a new AI-powered agenda summarization tool. What is the most important governance question to resolve before deployment?
- Whether the tool has a mobile-friendly interface
- Who is responsible for reviewing AI-generated summaries for accuracy and what the liability policy is if errors appear in official records (Correct answer)
- How many languages the tool supports
- Whether the tool can export to PDF format
Correct answer: Who is responsible for reviewing AI-generated summaries for accuracy and what the liability policy is if errors appear in official records
AI tools can introduce errors; the clerk must establish a human-review workflow and liability framework before AI-generated content becomes part of any official municipal record.
Question 5: Which records management concept describes the total lifespan of a record from creation to final disposition?
- Digital preservation
- Records continuum
- The records lifecycle (Correct answer)
- Archival appraisal
Correct answer: The records lifecycle
The records lifecycle model describes the stages a record passes through: creation, active use, semi-active storage, and final disposition (destruction or permanent preservation).
Question 6: A city receives a litigation hold notice related to a pending lawsuit. Which electronic records must be immediately suspended from routine destruction?
- Only records directly named in the lawsuit's discovery requests
- All records potentially relevant to the litigation, regardless of whether they have passed their normal retention period (Correct answer)
- Only records created after the lawsuit was filed
- Only records stored on the city attorney's workstation
Correct answer: All records potentially relevant to the litigation, regardless of whether they have passed their normal retention period
A litigation hold requires suspending destruction of all potentially relevant records, even those past their normal retention period, to comply with federal and state discovery obligations.
Question 7: What is the primary purpose of conducting a 'business impact analysis' (BIA) as part of a municipal records disaster recovery plan?
- To calculate the cost of purchasing new hardware after a disaster
- To identify which records and systems are most critical to government operations and prioritize their recovery order (Correct answer)
- To determine which staff members should be laid off after a disaster
- To satisfy insurance requirements for municipal property coverage
Correct answer: To identify which records and systems are most critical to government operations and prioritize their recovery order
A BIA identifies critical records and systems, the impact of their unavailability, and acceptable recovery time objectives, forming the foundation of an effective disaster recovery plan.
MMC Technology & Digital Records Systems 5
A municipality adopts a 'cloud-first' policy for records storage.
What contract provision is most critical for the clerk to verify before signing a cloud service agreement?