Methodology and Standards

• Record Descriptions
• Function and Activity Descriptions
• Biographies
• Index Terms
• XML

Record Descriptions

GASHE provides descriptions of the records of ten higher education institutions and their predecessors in Scotland. These descriptions conform to the internationally recognised standard, the International Council on Archives General International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD(G)) (PDF document) second edition, 1999. This standard consists of 32 elements of description that can be applied at any level of description, from collection level down to individual archival item. Certain elements, such as the title, date, reference number and content, are essential in order to identify the archive material. Other elements are optional and help to put the archive material into context.

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Function and Activity Descriptions

GASHE also provides historical information on the functions and activities of the higher education institutions. Functions are the fundamental things that an organisation does to achieve its goals. In the case of higher education, examples of functions are student administration, teaching and governance. To fulfil each of these functions, a number of identifiable activities are carried out. In the case of student administration, for example, activities such as handling student discipline, maintaining student records and administering courses are carried out. GASHE has created descriptions of many of these activities at many of the institutions. These descriptions explain how and by whom each activity was performed right from when it began up until the present day and list all the records that were created in the course of each activity. The descriptions are designed to supplement and complement the descriptions of the records. They not only provide additional access points to the records but also provide vital extra contextual information on how, why and by whom individual records were created and used.

GASHE has used the Joint Information Systems Committee HEI Business Function & Activity Model, compiled by Elizabeth Parker in 2003, to identify the functions and activities performed by higher education institutions. GASHE has made a number of minor changes and additions to this model.

GASHE has also compiled a GASHE Standard for Creating Activity Descriptions, which gives general guidance for the production of function and activity descriptions using the Joint information Systems Committee Business Function & Activity Model.

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Biographies

The descriptions of the records and the functions and activities are supplemented by biographies of key persons and institutions. The biographies give additional information to provide further context for the information in the other descriptions. The biographies conform to the International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families ISAAR(CPF), second edition, 2004 (PDF document).

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Index Terms

The descriptions of the records and the functions and activities are further supplemented by controlled access points or index terms. These comprise subjects, persons, places and corporate names. Key index terms for each description have been selected and compiled according to recognised standards. Personal, place and corporate names are constructed according to the National Council on Archives rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, 1997 and subjects are taken from the UNESCO Thesaurus, supplemented where necessary by the British Education Thesaurus and, in a few cases, by the project’s own terms. Alphabetical lists of these index terms can be searched, providing another form of access to the descriptions.

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XML

All the descriptions in GASHE are created in Extensible Mark-up Language (XML). XML is a simplified version of Standard Generalized Mark Up Language (SGML), a generic coding language used for analysing and marking up the structure of texts.

The descriptions of the records are created in Encoded Archival Description (EAD). EAD is a Document Type Definition (DTD) of SGML. A DTD is a series of rules that allow for the mark-up of highly structured information. EAD is a DTD specifically designed for the structuring of archival finding aids. Each element of the International Council on Archives General International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD(G)) (PDF document) can be mapped to an EAD tag which wraps around information in the same way as HTML tags wrap information for presentation on the Internet. EAD was developed by the Society of American Archivists and published in 1998 and is becoming an internationally accepted standard for the structure of archival finding aids. The function and activity descriptions are created with a DTD specifically designed for GASHE. The biographies are created with a DTD specifically designed for the GASHE and NAHSTE projects.

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