National Occupational Standards in
Archaeological Practice

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AF2 Develop and maintain procedures for the use of information systems

AF2.3 Maintain the security and safety of information

Performance Required

This will involve:

1. Specifying clearly the means of access to information and ensuring they conform to all relevant legal requirements
2. Ensuring data are stored and secured in safe locations
3. Maintaining primary copies of essential records in a secure place with a suitable environment
4. Ensuring backups of primary copies are regularly made and securely stored at a different location
5. Archiving the information not in current regular use according to procedures for handling information
6. Recording clearly the rules for the security and safety of information and distributing them to all the relevant people

Occupational Context

1. Information relating to:
   • organisation's resources
   • assets
   • sensitive material
   • valuable material
2. Safe locations and suitable environment
   • minimising unauthorised / illegal access and criminal damage / theft
   • away from environmental damage (fire, flood, lighting, temperature etc)
   • with appropriate access for relevant departments, individuals etc
   • taking account of access issues (such as disability) in line with Best Practice
3. Relevant people
   • data input staff
   • information system managers
   • maintenance and support staff
   • students / supervisors / teaching bodies
   • research team staff
   • external professionals: specialists, advisors, consultants

Knowledge Requirements

You need to know and understand how to:

• Store data securely, and what constitutes a safe location
• Provide and distribute guidelines and procedures for users

You need to know about:

• The procedures for accessing and amending data
• The security measures that are necessary for the information - including guidelines on best practice
• What is a suitable environment for keeping different types of primary copies
• The procedures for making and storing backup copies of data
• The archiving procedures
• Why security rules are important
• The potential implications resulting from a breakdown of the security procedures

Required Skills

You should demonstrate:

• Technical competence in updating IT-based information systems
• An appropriate level of software literacy
• Book keeping skills, e.g. logging, indexing, etc

Evidence Required

You should provide evidence that you can maintain the security and safety of information

The candidate should be questioned, based upon the documentation provided, to explore how they

• maintain the security and safety of information. This should be information relating to the organisation's resources, assets or other sensitive or valuable material

Evidence Rules

The candidate should have been involved in developing procedures for and using information systems over a period of time within a working context.

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Today's date: 21/11/2008
This page last updated: 27/7/2007 15:17