Part One: Concepts

Appendix B: Definitions

Accountability: Accountability is the obligation to demonstrate and take responsibility for performance in light of commitments and expected outcomes.

Evaluation: The application of systematic methods to periodically and objectively assess effectiveness of programs in achieving expected results, their impacts, both intended and unintended, continued relevance and alternative or more cost-effective ways of achieving expected results.

Government information: Information created, received, used, and maintained regardless of physical form, and information prepared for or produced by the government institution and deemed to be under its control in the conduct of its activities or in pursuance of legal obligations.

Information: The intelligence or knowledge capable of being represented in forms suitable for communication, storage, or processing.

Information management: A discipline that directs and supports the effective and efficient management of information, from planning and systems development to disposal and/or long-term preservation.

Information Services:

Knowledge Facilitation Services: comprise the activities undertaken to ensure that users (staff, clients, partners, stakeholders) are provided with the information they require to make decisions and otherwise carry out their program responsibilities.
IM Architecture Services: comprise the activities undertaken to identify user requirements (at the individual, group and corporate levels) and to design the high level architecture reflecting the combination of policies, standards, practices, procedures, systems and enabling technologies, and people that comprise the IM infrastructure.
IM Infrastructure Services: comprise the activities undertaken to ensure that the components of the IM infrastructure (policies, standards, practices, procedures, systems and enabling technologies, and people) are developed and implemented in accordance with the IM architecture.

Life cycle: The life cycle of information management encompasses the following: planning; information collection, creation, receipt, and capture; information organization, use and dissemination; information maintenance, protection and preservation; information disposition; and evaluation.

Management of information: An element of every job function that has to do with treating the information used or produced in the course of performing job duties as a strategic business resource and in line with legal and policy requirements.

Program: An accountable mandate to address recognized needs of eligible target groups and to achieve specified outcomes by producing service outputs using resources

Published information:Library matter of every kind, nature, and description resulting from the act of publishing and released for public distribution or sale. Publications include material such as books, maps, periodicals, documents, working or discussion papers, audio or video recordings, online/networked publications (both static and dynamic), and compact discs. Publications can be in any format on or in which information is written, recorded, stored or reproduced.

Record: Recorded information, regardless of physical form, created, collected or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an activity, including any correspondence, memorandum, book, plan, map, drawing, diagram, pictorial or graphic work, photograph, film, microform, sound recording, videotape, machine-readable record, any other documentary material, and any copy thereof.

Service: A means, administered by a program, of producing a final valued output (i.e. service output) to address one or more target group needs; a set of service processes that produces and delivers one service output.

Under the control of: Information is considered to be "under the control of" the institution when the institution is authorized to grant or deny access to it, to govern its use and, subject to the approval of the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, to dispose of it. Information that is in the possession or custody of the government institution, whether at headquarters, regional, satellite or other office, either within or outside Canada, is presumed to be under its control unless there is strong evidence to the contrary.