And one of the greatest proofs of the blessing of this life is how few people want to leave it. There are very, very few people who are suicidal, who have become so despaired of this life, so disgruntled with this life, so dissatisfied with this life that they will take measures to leave it. That's one of the proofs of the blessing of life itself. Alhamdulillah, all praises due to Allah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala opens His scripture, the Qur'an, with the surah, the chapter referred to as Al-Fatiha, the opening. And this chapter opens up for us, not only the rest of the Qur'an but it opens up to us the pathway to a successful life. The first thing we need to do or to know to lead a successful life is to know that we have a Creator. And the first thing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does in His book is He introduces Himself to us. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. In the name of Allah, in the name of Allah or with the name of Allah, Ar-Rahman, the one who is inherently merciful, Ar-Raheem, the one who extends that mercy to others. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala introduces us Himself to us by name. His name, the name of the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all between is Allah. Bismillah in the name of Allah. And then after introducing or informing us of His name, He informs us of His most preponderant attribution. Some people we meet and immediately we know they're dominant characteristic. You know this person is stingy, this person is self-centered, this person is egocentric, this person is gentle, this person is harsh. We know from the initial meeting Allah ta'ala after informing us of His name, Allah. He informs us of His predominant or preponderant attributes, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem, the one who is inherently merciful and the one who extends that mercy to others. And the most significant of those others, Allah ta'ala informs us in the Quran, wa kana bil mu'mineena raheema, and He is merciful to the believers. He's merciful to everyone, but He's especially merciful to the believers. And the greatest mercy He's bestowed upon the believer is faith itself. It's faith itself. Some people believe if I have material wealth then God has been merciful to me. If I have intellect, I've been shown mercy. If I have physical safety and security, mercy has been shown to me. But the greatest manifestation of Allah ta'ala's mercy to a human being in this world is the blessing of faith. Wa kana bil mu'mineena raheema, because the blessing of faith makes the absence of everything else bearable. But if a person has no faith, then there's very little that that person can bear the absence of. With no faith, the lack of money becomes unbearable. With no faith, the lack of a spouse becomes unbearable. With no faith, the lack of various material things can in some instances become unbearable. But with faith, real faith and true faith, the lack of a car, a house, a spouse, a job, money, a bank account is all bearable. Because a person finds in his or her relationship with Allah ta'ala the sweetness of life that makes everything else in life bitter. And the loss or lack of anything that's bitter is bearable. La ilaha illallah. So he informs us of his mercy. And then he informs us of his might. Alhamdulillah, or before that, he gives us a reason to praise him. To be praised because of his mercy. Our Rahman Rahim. Bismillah Rahman Rahim. Alhamdulillah. Allah ta'ala is praiseworthy because of his mercy. He's praiseworthy for many things, but in this context. Because he has manifested his mercy to us. He has manifested his mercy to this creation. And establishing balances in everything. He's manifested his mercy. And he's to be praised for that. When we understand the mercy in our lives, as it's been manifested to us in our lives. What has left for us except to say Alhamdulillah? When we realize how merciful Allah has been to us. He's guided us to faith. He's guided us to a realization of who we are. He's placed no enmity in our hearts. Based on the teachings of this religion.  Because of their race. Or their color. Or their ethnicity. Or their origin. Or their socioeconomic status. The Quran doesn't encourage the poor people to envy and rebel against the rich. It encourages the rich people to be charitable to the poor. So that the wealth circulates in society. And everyone has a basic standard of living. And a basic standard of well-being. But some people have more than others. And we're encouraged to pray for them. And to acknowledge that Allah is bounty that is extended to them. And he doesn't encourage the wealthy people to look down on and despise the poor people. He doesn't encourage them to think of ways they can keep them locked into poverty. But he encourages them to enrich them. Give them from the wealth of Allah. He's giving you. And zakat isn't what we think it is. Zakat, its origin is also to be given in gold if you have gold. Or silver if you have silver. Or grain if you have grain. And not a little bit of grain so you can have dinner tonight. That's zakat ul fitr. Zakat is to bring someone a ton of grain. So that they can go to the marketplace, become self-sufficient. Not only self-sufficient can themselves engage in commerce. And then they have an excess that they can then extend to others. It's to enrich people. And to make people self-sufficient. Not to just divvy up a little, little here, little there. To give a lot here. So that that person can become self-sufficient. And that person can then extend and be merciful to others. As others have been merciful to him or her. So that the mercy is never lacking. And as we reflect on Allah Ta'ala's mercy. Not only in the teachings that he extends to us in the Quran. But the mercy he's extended to us in our lives. A person might say, well I haven't experienced much mercy in my life.   You're so wretched. You've been afflicted with these suicidal impulses.  Or your neighbors? Or your relatives?  And find some beauty that warms your heart? And if you say no, no, no, no, no to all of the above. Then that's a manifestation of Allah's mercy in your life. And that's sufficient reason to say Alhamdulillah. So when you step out of these doors. Look at the sky. Look at the flowers in bloom. Even in the heart of the city. And say Alhamdulillah. All praise is due to Allah. For His mercy are Rahmanu Raheem. Alhamdulillah. Rabbil Alameen. Then he mentions his power. He's mentioned his Jamal. His mercy. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah. Then he mentions his Jalal. His power. Rabbil Alameen. The Lord, the owner, the sovereign of all the worlds. So he mentions his majesty. Rabbil Alameen. How much power does it take to control the world? All of the worlds. To decree every process that unfolds in every corner of creation. At every moment of creation. Infinite power. Infinite might. Unqualified strength. But even after mentioning that. He reminds us again. Don't allow that to overwhelm you. Don't allow that to absorb you. And to remove you away from the dominant reality. Yes, I'm the Lord of the worlds. But unless you, unless you forget. I'm inherently merciful and I extend my mercy to others. Ar Rahmanir Raheem. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah. Rabbil Alameen. Ar Rahmanir Raheem. So he surrounds his majesty with his mercy. Ar Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah. Rabbil Alameem. Ar Rahmanir Raheem. And then he reminds us. Maliki Yomiddin. He comes back to his might. He comes back to his jalal. Maliki Yomiddin. The owner, the master. The sovereign of the day of judgment. Maliki the owner. Maliki the sovereign. Half's wash. Who will be guided? And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. There is no partner. And I bear witness that our master Muhammad, his servant and messenger. O my people, those who believe, fear Allah, the Truth is in your hands. The Truth is in your hands.  O my people, fear Allah, the Lord who created you from the one soul. And created from it her husband. And of them there are many men and women. And fear Allah, those who ask for him and the mercy. Indeed, Allah is kind to you. O you who believe, fear Allah and say a very good word. He makes your deeds good for you.  And whoever obeys Allah and His messenger, he has achieved great success. As for others, All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we ask His forgiveness. We forgive Him, we repent to Him, and we seek refuge with Allah from the evil of our souls and from the bad deeds of our deeds. Why this Tarteeb, this arrangement? After his mercy, after he reminds us again, he mentions his majesty. But what context? Malikiyyomiddin, the owner or the sovereign of the day of judgment. What happens on the day of judgment as far as we're concerned? We're told by our prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, Allah divided his mercy into 100 parts. One part, his dispenses amongst the creation and all of the mercy that's manifested by every living thing from the beginning of creation until the end.  Yomiddin, on the day of judgment. La ilaha illallah. So he reminds us Malikiyyomiddin of the time and the place, the maqam, the station where his mercy will be more manifest than at any other time. Ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Malikiyyomiddin. And if we recognize that, if we know he is Allah, who Allah, that's his name, Allah. And if we know of his mercy alhamdulillah bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim and if we praise him as he should rightfully be praised alhamdulillah and if we understand his power and his might that he controls our life, that he gave us this life, that he sustains this life, that he controls this life every breath that we're in existence, that he controls our faith, he will make the determination as to ultimately we are disposed to hell or we're entered into paradise if we know that and then we understand that despite that awesome power that he has as the Lord, Rabbil Alameen, he is still the inherently merciful who extends his mercy to others. Ar-Rahman ar-Rahim and if we know that most of that mercy 99 out of 100 parts are held back to when we will be judged Maliki Yomeddin How can we do anything other than worship him? Iyakan abudu Iyakan abudu Who else would be deserving of worship? Who else would be fittingly worshiped? Who else can we fittingly bow down and humble ourselves to than the one who possesses those descriptions? Iyakan abudu Iyakan abudu and this is the point we want to focus on Iyakan abudu Many who are engaged or have been engaged throughout human history in the philosophical quest one of the greatest questions that has occupied their minds is what is the purpose of this life? What is the purpose of life? This question is vexed philosophers it is challenged theologians but we have a clear, simple, unequivocable answer unequivocable answer وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنْسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ Allah Ta'ala says I have only created the jinn and the humans that they worship me The purpose of this life is to worship our Lord The purpose of this life is to worship our Lord That's why we are here and worship is why they can be vexed One of our scholars defines mercy كل ما يحبه الله يرضاه من العمل الظاهرة والبعطنا كل ما يحبه الله يرضاه Allahumma sallallahu wa sallam من أقوال وعمال الظاهرة والبعطنا Everything that Allah loves and is pleased with from our speech and our internal and external actions That's worship So worship isn't just praying Worship isn't just fasting Worship isn't just zaka or charity Worship isn't just going to hajj Worship is everything that Allah Ta'ala that Almighty God loves and is pleased with from our speech our internal and external actions and our actions are the greatest witness to our speech Oh you believers Why do you say that which you don't do? Hated is it with Allah that you say that which you don't do? Islam is not empty talk So the actions are a testimony to the speech and the speech is a testimony to what's in the heart One of our poets mentioned He doesn't like you from a letter to be with the original words The words are in the heart and the speech is a testimony to what's in the heart Don't be amazed by the speech of a speaker He doesn't like you from a letter Don't be amazed and impressed by the letter that the qateeb gives or more generally by the speech of a speaker until there's something to authenticate that speech Inna ma l-kalamu la-fil-fu'adu wa inna ma rather speech resides in the heart and rather ju'ila l-lisanu ala ma fil-fu'adi dalila the tongue has only been made as an indicator of what's in the heart the tongue has been made as an indicator of what's in the heart and the limbs have been made as an indicator of what's on the tongue and this is why we strive for the total rectification of the human being We don't want to rectify people's tongues If that were the case instead of the Quran we give them Shakespeare If they could read Arabic the Quran is the Shakespeare of the Arabic language to use that parable But in English we give them Shakespeare maybe Carlisle Canterbury tells or something But we don't just strive for the rectification of the tongue We strive for the rectification of the heart and the rectification of the tongue and the rectification of the limbs Total rectification of the human being That's our goal and this is what we have to bring into the world brothers and sisters and we'll come back to this So, Iyaka and Aboor I've only created the jinn and the humans that they worship me that they worship me That's our purpose and as we say worship is vast at the essence of worship a bad act There are two things a ta'a obedience what tadallul or what tawada and humility obedience and humility that's at the foundation of worship and that's one of the reasons so much of the Islamic moral system strives to inculcate in the believer obedience of our Lord and humility and our actions our state and our hearts humility because humility is one of the great keys to obedience you can't obey someone you don't humble themselves to can you go and get my phone I left it in the car and I didn't lock my car it's right on the seat someone can take it go get your own phone why should I get your phone you should be going to get my phone you want to obey someone you don't humble yourself to who are you to tell me to do anything I don't care someone steal your phone who are you asking me to go do something for you our humility allows us the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he's our exemplar if children asked him to do something he would go do it Imam Malik is related that he was in the masjid he came into the masjid after the congregation performed awesome in his school there's no prayer after the congregational prayer until the sun sets and the students who were waiting for him saw him pray two rakats and they said Imam Malik what's this you told us there's no prayer after the congregation the congregation passed and now we see you praying he said that little boy passed when I passed by he said Malik prostrate yourself and I reflect on the Quran the verse that says when they're told to prostrate they prostrate themselves or they refuse to prostrate we're there we're there and when it's said to them prostrate yourself they refuse to do so hell is for those who belay the truth so he said I didn't want to come over the hookah under the ruling of the verse and where did it come from a little boy from a boy a person who understands the nature of reality doesn't fear humbling himself or herself because number one they understand that's an integral part of me worshipping my Lord why are so many people turning away from the worship of God because they've aggregated themselves I don't need religion that's just old fashioned superstition I don't need that I have this great mind where did you get it why aren't you like a chimpanzee or an orangutan especially in the case that you say you evolved from the apes you say I'm not saying it that's what Mr. Interleck says revolved from the apes why is there such a huge gap between you and the closest ape then evolution implies slow change over a long period of time does it not? we say he evolved into an entirely different person so he didn't wake up one day and bam, he's different just slowly went to school got a job came more responsible got married assumed responsibilities of marriage and over time became a whole different person but it is man he went to that boot camp program for one month and it revolutionized him boom almost overnight new person but evolved is slow so if we slowly evolved from the apes why is there such a huge gap between us and the apes how come the best an ape can do is use a stick all of them to get some meat out of the nut and they've been doing that for generation after generation after generation which is another blessing on humans a lotile is not an ape not only blessed us with this intellect that nothing else in this creation shares he's blessed us with the ability to accumulate knowledge so when you see a cell phone that's not something that people working for Bill Gates or Steve Jobs came up with that's a result of the accumulation of human knowledge from the being of time which allows us to do what not to have to reinvent the wheel what does someone say they see you doing something that's already been worked out don't reinvent the wheel that's already been figured out let me explain it to you but every generation of monkeys has to do what you can't say reinvent the wheel monkeys haven't gotten to the wheel yet but they have to use primitive tools a stick or stone to break like their monkey ancestors whereas human beings started with the stone and the stick and now human beings are using invisible digital signals bounced off of satellites hundreds of miles in the sky in synchronized earth orbit they figured out how to do that so the satellite stayed in the same place over the earth for years without falling based on its own momentum satellite doesn't have a rocket that's keeping it moving with the earth it's based on the gravitational pull of the earth bouncing a signal off that satellite so that we can talk right now if you have the necessary iPhone 4 to someone halfway around the world you evolved from an ape and because you evolved from an ape you become too arrogant to prostrate yourself to your lord a lot has divided his mercy into 100 parts one part he dispenses amongst the creation and all of the mercy that's manifested by every living thing from the beginning of creation until the end of the other 99 parts he's held back to be dispensed amongst us when Yomeddin on the day of judgment la ilallah why this Tartif, this arrangement after his mercy after he reminds us again he mentions his majesty but what context Maliki Yomeddin the owner or the sovereign of the day of judgment what happens on the day of judgment as far as we're concerned we're told by our prophet we're entered into paradise if we know that and then we understand that despite that awesome power that he has as the lord he is still the inherently merciful who extends his mercy to others and if we know that most of that mercy 99 out of 100 parts are held back to when we will be judged Maliki Yomed r-Rahman r-Rahim and if we praise him as he should rightfully be praised alhamdulillah and if we understand his power and his might that he controls our life that he gave us this life that he sustains this life that he controls this life every breath that we're in existence that he controls our faith he will make the determination as to ultimately we are disposed to hell so he reminds us Maliki Yomeddin of the time and the place the maqam, the station where his mercy will be more manifest than at any other time al-Rahman r-Rahim Maliki Yomeddin and if we recognize that if we know he is Allah that's his name, Allah and if we know of his mercy alhamdulillah bismillah humility allows us to prostrate ourselves to our Lord and a believer doesn't fear humbling himself for the sake of God where if you're humble people push over you they think you're a chump, you're a punk they're just gonna trample on you the next time I see you you're gonna have footprints on your chest a believer doesn't fear that because a believer believes not only in the promise of Allah but in the promise of the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who said no one humbles himself for the sake of Allah except that Allah elevates them and Allah ta'ala when believers believe that he gave them control of the world and when believers got away from that and started relying on their own power and became too humble to humble themselves before Allah and to humble themselves before their fellow human beings Allah took power away from them there are forces at work that defy our physical calculations that defy our reasoned arguments and those are the forces we need to tap into because those are the real keys to power and strength, authority and dignity in the world so humility at tadallul or we could say tawada and love, mahabba those are the foundations of worship those are the qualities that may iyayk and a'aburu a living reality in the heart of the believer in the interest of time there was more I want to say I want to remind myself in you of a few verses that convey to us what Allah loves Allah ta'ala says Allah loves the people who exemplify excellence in all that they do Allah loves the people of excellence excellence in their worship excellence in their relationship with their fellow human beings excellence in their relationship and in the work that they do excellence in every realm we're encouraged to be people of excellence Allah has ordained excellence in everything as our prophet informs us and then he goes on to say if you slaughter do it in a most excellent fashion sharpen your knife and give rest to the animal because that animal is going to become part of you you are what you eat you are what you eat and so that animal and people might say you know slaughter sacrifice they're filming this don't they this is a concept that's not some crude barbaric process this is again their forces at work an animal wants to be slaughtered when he or she knows they're going to be part of your righteous deeds they're going to give you fuel to do righteous deeds pleasing to your Lord this is a reality and the opposite is also true so it behooves us to be excellent in everything from the mundane to the most refined articulation of our religious and ethical principles to have excellence Allah Ta'ala mentioned Allah loves those who turn to Him in repentance Allah Ta'ala loves to accept repentance which means what? Allah Ta'ala isn't concerned with us messing up some of us we mess up so to speak then we're down in the dumps we get so far down in the dumps we forget to repent that's the problem the problem is not the sin the problem is the refusal to repent for the sin sinning is not good I'm not saying it's but it's not an inherent problem sinning will not put you in hell unless you fail to repent from the sin and sincere repentance vows to never return so perhaps you will keep falling and falling and falling into the sin maybe you're not sincere but the sin will not ruin you the failure to repent will ruin you for that reason Allah loves those who repent so you then say Allah loves those who are free from sin no Allah loves those who turn to Him in repentance and He loves those who keep themselves pure pure in their dress pure in their thoughts pure in their actions pure in their speech and we've said many times that's why we don't imitate the speech of vile, profane people it's not fitting a Muslim to walk around with profanity coming out of his or her mouth because why? these are not pure even if you say well the meanings change it's not pure in its origin and we always look at the origin of things and what were they intended for? its original intent was vulgar and that vulgarity affects people there was a young lady some of you might have heard her a spoken word artist who does poetry and she said in poetic form I'm summarizing what she said she says funny how the young men in our community acted with a lot more maturity and self respect than respect for others when they called each other my man as opposed to calling each other my boy and my dog think about it you are what you eat we don't need just the physical full weave messages when I was growing up you say yo what's up my man? my man my man my man my man now I hear the young folks my boy what's up my boy what's up my dog what's up my nigger and we wonder why we got problems you are what you eat and the food is not just physical food purity of speech purity of thought we're not just purity of clothing not extravagant clothing what we have should be pure we don't want pig in it we don't want something that's stolen I'm looking good in my stolen goods you're looking wretched because your good looking stolen goods testify to the wretchedness of your character and if you were internally sound you look good in whatever you wore it might have holes and patches on it your internal beauty would beautify it man you look good so you inherit them clothes from your grandparents they should look good on you la la hella la in the la yuhibbul muhsineem in the la yuhibbul tawabeen wehibbul muttahtahireen he loves those who are pure in the la yuhibbul muttaqeen he loves those who are mindful of his commandments and prohibitions we should be mindful and that should weigh on us it should impact our character am I keeping myself within the parameters Allah Ta'ala has established Almighty God has established for my actions that's the challenge for a human being that's what dignifies a human being that's what humanizes a human being it's not just let it all hang out that humanizes us you don't even find animals that just let it all hang out unless they're rabid or something they have rabies and have lost their faculties animals have restraint they won't even fight each other to the death one animal gets the other one down gets up and goes off and says well I'm not encroaching on this territory but the animal doesn't come kick him and gore him until he's dead you don't find that in the animal kingdom you find it in the zoo you find it in an artificial environment and to a certain extent we all live in a human zoo which makes it especially critical for us to consciously rise above our circumstances by holding on to what our Lord has given us to hold on to how fast to the rope of Allah which is the Quran and don't be divided amongst yourselves these are the people Allah loves wallahu yuhibbu s-saabireen Allah loves those who are patient patience is a virtue that's what all of us heard that even those of us who didn't grow up Muslim patience is a virtue our parents would tell us we read in the books patience is a virtue it's a virtue because patience again is one of those foundational traits that is a key to a successful life you might not get it today you might not get it tomorrow but if you live right and you do right sooner or later you're going to get it if it's good if it's good and worth having you're going to get it but sometimes it takes patience because Allah to Allah in many instances he doesn't give it to us right away because he sees do we really want it do we really value it do we really cherish it do we have a real desire for it Allah to Allah will test us as we said words are empty I really want this okay how long are you willing to wait for it two weeks you don't want it too bad your words are false if you really wanted it you'd be willing to wait for it you'd be willing to wait a lifetime for it how long did Nuh Aleyhi Salam wait for the rectification of his people he didn't write them off in two weeks I may die when they didn't respond forget them Allah destroy them 900 years he waited 900 years for the rectification of his people that's patience how long did Ibrahim Aleyhi Salam wait for a child he waited 80 years no I married the sister and we've been married 6 months she's not pregnant yet man I got a you know I got a good mother you know she 6 months how long did Ibrahim Aleyhi Salam wait 80 years 80 years that's patience we have to really look at the standards that Allah has given us to measure ourselves by that's what they're there for that Ibrahim Aleyhi Salam was an ummah meaning of an ummah an example the prophets Aleyhi Salam are examples that's why they're human beings we can't say they're angels so we're human they're angels how could we be like that no we're human they're human and we can't be exactly like them but we can begin to strive to attain what they attain to and finally well there's more in Allah Allah loves those who trust in him Allah loves those who trust in him brothers and sisters everything's going to be alright don't panic say it's bad for Muslims right now it depends on how you look at things it depends on how you look at things if you look at my good good or bad with me is based on my relationship with Allah then it's as good or as bad as you make it as a powerful hadith qudsi the beginning of it Allahumma sallallahu wa sallam wa sallam I am as my servant thinks I am that's the basis for good or bad if my servant the human being thinks I don't exist I won't exist I am as my servant thinks I am atheism isn't a proof for the nonexistence of Allah atheism is a proof for the existence of Allah because Allah's existence is so manifest only he could veil himself from someone only he has the power to veil himself from someone if a person thinks Allah is merciful they'll find mercy if a person thinks Allah is stern they'll find sternness but the sternness won't be because Allah is not merciful it will be because of the circumstances and situations that person imposes on himself or herself because they've shielded themselves from Allah's mercy these are the foundations of worship those are the qualities that make a living reality in the heart of the believer in the interest of time there was more I want to say I want to remind myself in you of a few verses that convey to us what Allah loves Allah Ta'ala says Allah loves the beliefs not only in the promise of Allah but in the promise of the messenger of Allah who said no one humbles themselves for the sake of Allah except that Allah elevates them and Allah Ta'ala when believers believe that he gave them control of the world and when believers got a reasoned arguments and those are the forces we need to tap into because those are the real keys to power and strength authority and dignity in the world so humility or we could say and love love from that and started relying on their own power and became too humble to humble themselves before Allah and to humble themselves before their fellow human beings Allah took power away from them there are forces at work that defy our physical calculations that defy our humility allows us to prostrate ourselves to our Lord and a believer doesn't fear humbling himself for the sake of God where if you're humble people push over you they think you're a chump you're a punk they're just gonna trample on you the next time I see you gonna have footprints on your chest a believer doesn't fear that because a believer


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and thank you for joining today's NARA's Regulations for Digitizing Permit Records webinar. Before we begin, please ensure that you have opened the WebEx Chat panel by using the associated icon on the bottom right corner of your screen. Please note all your connections are currently muted and this conference is being recorded. You may submit written questions throughout the presentation and these questions will be addressed during the Q&A session. To submit a written question, select all panelists from the drop-down menu in the chat panel and see your question in the message box provided and send. If you require technical assistance, please send a chat to the event producer. With that, I will turn the webinar over to Arian Revampash, so please go ahead. Thank you, Michelle, for that introduction. Good afternoon, everyone, and as said, welcome to our webinar on the Regulations for Digitizing Permit Records. My name is Arian Revampash and I will be serving as the moderator for today's webinar. First some housekeeping information. The presentation slides that we are using today are already available on our website. We will place the link to those in the chat as well. When we have the recording available, we will also be posting it to this web page as well as our YouTube channel. A summary of this webinar and all relevant links will also be posted on our blog, Records Express, in the coming days. Records Express is where you can also find a series of posts with additional information about these regulations. For questions during the presentation this afternoon, please use the chat feature as Michelle described. We will be addressing those questions after the presentations. With that out of the way, I'd like to introduce the Chief Records Officer for the US government, Lawrence Brewer. Good afternoon, Lauren. Hi, Arian, and thank you. So as Arian said, I am Lawrence Brewer, the Chief Records Officer, and I am really excited to welcome all of you to this webinar. I cannot believe the numbers are still climbing. We're at, by my account on my screen, 640 attendees. So by the end of this webinar, we may end up setting a record in terms of attendance to one of the webinars that we've hosted. So thank you so much for tuning in, and I promise you we have a lot of really good information to share with you. But before we get to our speakers and introduce them and get to the program, I wanted to tell you all just given how many years and how much time and how much effort has gone into getting to where we are right now, which is having NARS regulations for digitizing permanent records now in effect, how much has gone into this. And it's really been a story of doing a lot of work to get this really watershed critical standards out for all of you to use. So in one sense, it's a story about persistence because it's taken us so long to get here. And I want to thank all of the speakers today and everyone on the team for all their contributions over many years to get us to the point and sticking with it and getting us across the finish line. This is also a story about patience from all of you because we know for years and years you've been waiting and we are finally at the point where we have these standards and can talk about them in final form and really roll up our sleeves now to get to the really critical part, which is implementation and making sure that all of us, our agencies, our vendor community are all fully aware of what we need to do and we're doing it as effectively as we possibly can. So for all of that, my thanks for all of you. We really appreciate you attending and we encourage you to ask questions, drop them in the chat. And we will have time hopefully at the end to answer some questions, but we have some very really important information to share, which is where we're going to begin. So with that, we're going to flip the slide and I'm going to turn things over to Lisa Harrell-Lampus and the team of speakers that we have for you today to start talking about digitizing permanent records. Thank you again for attending. Thank you Lawrence. I appreciate those kind words and I think patience and persistence are two great words to describe the path that we are on today or that got us to where we are today. And path patience and persistence are the hallmarks of where we'll be going next because we know the regulations for many people was really the first step in what is now a process of implementing these regulations. So I'm Lisa Harrell-Lampus. I'm the director of records management policy and outreach and I work for Lawrence in the office of the chief records officer for the US government. And joining me as a speaker today, I'm two of my colleagues, John Martinez and Kevin and I'll let them introduce themselves as well. Hi, I'm John Martinez. I'm supervisor of the policy and standards team. Our team works within Lisa's program and we're obviously that means we're also within the office of the chief records officer. And like I said, I'm supervisor of the team that developed this. One of the experts is here with us today, Kevin, who's going to introduce himself next. And let me pass it to Kevin. I'm an electronic records policy analyst and work for John and Lisa in Lawrence and have been involved in the development of this regulation, as well as other guidance that we put out relating to transfer of permanent electronic records. Thank you. And so the three of us today, we're going to cover our presentation. Our goal for this presentation is to provide a familiarity and awareness. I know there's probably a lot of questions that are going to come like, how do I implement and we'll answer those to the best of our ability at this time. Please know we'll be working on more products that we'll be sharing over the upcoming weeks and months. So I'm saying this now and I'll say it again at the end of the presentation. And so our hope is that the end of our presentation today. We'll have this understanding, this familiarity, we'll know what's in the digitization regulations and we'll take any of your questions towards the end. So let's get started. Next slide. Please slide three. I will say keep sending us questions. One of the questions we've already had is how do I get access to these slides?  So we'll drop in the link again as we, I'll thank you, Andy, and you just dropped in the link again. If you wanted to follow along and see those slides or have a copy for you, they're already available. So let's talk about how we got here. I'm going to cover in the beginning, I'll do a little scene setting and provide a little bit of context. We've written these digitization regulations for a specific purpose so that agencies can take analog records, source records, originals, digitize them, and send those digitized versions to NARA to serve in the place of the original records. The originals or the source records will then be disposed of, destroyed. That is the whole guidance approach that we've built the framework on. And that came from quite a few places. Starting in November of 2014, when the Federal Records Act was amended by Congress and signed into law, it told us, that's the first quote you're seeing on the screen, that we should do regulations, so that was clear, wasn't going to be a different type of guidance. NARA, I wanted you to do regulations for reproducing records using digital processes. We'd already had the regulations on photographic and micrographics, so that wasn't new. What was new was to say, do the digital processes with a view to disposal of the originals. So that was our foundation. In 2018, NARA issued one of its first strategic plans that said, we're going to issue regulations and clear policies, and I hope these policies are clear, that permit agencies to digitize records and wear appropriate disposal of the originals. And then we have two hallmark pieces of guidance, OMB and NARA signed joint memos that talk to the entire federal government about the importance of transitioning to electronic records management. And each one of those memos, they said, and NARA will issue regulations that provide standards for digitizing images and disposing or destroying the original analog records. So that is our philosophy. There's many reasons agencies have digitized records over time. They may have digitized for better access. They may have digitized for reference. They may have digitized records to put them into a system, so they can have a complete set of information to take actions on. These records, this guidance is set up again, so that you can digitize records and send those digitized versions to NARA. Next slide, please. So how did we get here? That's what we were told to do. The question is, how did we get here? And I just wanted to share the review process as a way of providing some context into what you've seen in the past and what you're seeing now. So nothing, I know, and it's also a little history lesson and you'll have to forgive me or archivists, we'd like to talk about our history. So starting in 2004, we got those requirements, but at that point we were actually very much focused on email, member email, email management. We were doing a lot of work, so we started our planning and then we started our drafting. And yada, yada, yada, the first piece of digitization guidance we issued was in 2019, and that was the digitization standards for temporary records. So we kind of thought we covered the majority of what agencies produce when they're digitizing records with those temporary record standards. And John's going to talk about them a little bit. So I won't scale his thunder. But once we had the temporary records, we were also starting to work on the more technical digitization standards for permanent records. Back in May of 2020, through the regular regulations process, OMB sent out the draft standards to its regulations liaison officers and federal agencies. And because we're NARA and we have a close relationship with federal records managers, we sent out the draft to our points of contact, hoping that the regulation liaisons and records officers would meet together and respond with our initial comments to our initial draft. And boy, did you ever. I have to say every single round of comments, as Lauren said, we paid the patient in persistence. I love it. We patiently worked through the comments. We created a draft. We got it, went through the process. And in December of 2020, it was posted for public comment. Again, we got so many comments from various members of the public and agencies again. And I say various, we had academics commenting. We had watchdog groups commenting, different people really provided us with a lot of context. So we took those comments. We redid them. We addressed them. We wrote the next version of the rights. That went to review to a certain number of select agencies. We are office of not O and B's office of information regulatory affairs said, you made substantive revisions. So we'll send this back to the agencies that commented, they gave us comments. We get it again. Got more comments. So we had a lot of back and forth. So what you're seeing now is different than what we saw in 2020 on then the miracle happened. We got them published as a final rule. We finished all the processes, got all the signatures on May 4th. They were published and just double checking my calendar. And just two days ago on June 5th, the regulations are now in effect. And they are now, they're done. So done. But are they really done? They're done. So now that is how we got here. I could go to the next slide, please remind myself it's on the next slide. The regulations were have, there was more in those regulations than just digitization standards. So I did want to comment if you read the whole package and said, wow, there's a lot in here. The digitization standards for permanent records are in sub part E, E for excellent, excellent regs sub part F contains metadata that is needed when agencies transfer permanent records to NARA. One of the comments we got back as we were doing our regulations was the importance of having transfer metadata. As people said, they're going to be transferring large sets of digitized records. So we need digit, we need transfer metadata. You need transfer metadata no matter when you send records to NARA or how. So we put that in its own sub part. So out of the digitization regs and some party came some part of metadata. We also had hanging along for the ride for those entire four years, a set of regulation changes that have nothing to do with digitization. It was the 1225.22 a where we have issued a new regulation that says agencies must review all of their schedules at least once every five years. And that should include schedules that are 10 years or older. So the clock on that right started two days ago. And in five years, we will see how that review has gone and what sort of guidance we need to help people with and what that review looks like. So that's in there. That's in the regulations package. If you have questions about that, that's fine. But neither of those two things will be our focus today. Next slide, please. And that's my context and my setting. And now I'm going to turn it over to John and Kevin to talk about the standards themselves. Thanks, Lisa. So we're going to start and as Lisa mentioned, we're going to take sort of a start by taking sort of a step back to talk about the digitization standards or temporary records. And so why are we starting with a discussion on temporary just to emphasize where we started with this and that the regulations just published are for permit, obviously. So and I think, Lisa mentioned that the regulation for digitization of temporary records was the first to be issued in 2019. And you can see here on the slide, the shortlist of the contents of the regulation for temporary. So very brief set of requirements is very brief requirements, brief set of requirements on its own, but especially compared to the standards for permanent records. It's probably much less than a pay printed page in the CFR of the requirements are the requirements for temporary are also at a much higher level, which gives gives agencies the flexibility as well as the accountability to ensure that their permanent records are digitized to an appropriate standard for your business needs. The high level requirements for temporary are really to capture all the information containing the original source records to ensure that you can use the digitized versions for the purposes the original records served. You have the ability to protect them against unauthorized alterations to digitized versions and to ensure that you can locate and retrieve access and use the digitized versions for the records entire retention period. And again, agencies have latitude on how to implement these requirements. You know, they agencies need to meet the thresholds in each area and ensure that those digitized versions can serve the same purpose as the original versions. The temporary regulation introduced the requirement that agencies the term validate that agencies validate the digital records that they create and that they comply with the regulation before destroying the source records, the original records that you digitized. So it validation means that you validate that the digitized versions are suitable quality to replace the original source records, document your validation process and that process again for temporary records, the validation process agencies have latitude agencies can establish their own process to validate that the digitized versions comply with the requirements in this subpart. We've had in 2019, we also issued a a frequently asked question document it's posted on our website. Obviously, an FAQ about NARA's digitization regulation. We'll be doing an update to that actually as part of the part of the part of the series of additional products or producing to support the permanent rack. Next slide please. So the moving to the standards for permanent records. This first slide shows the sections of the regulation for permanent. As we said, obviously this is more requirements and goes into much more detail than the regulation for temporary records. This is a higher threshold because these are to create the requirements in this in this regulation are to create digital versions that are going to serve the same purpose of the original ultimately be transferred to the National Archives and the original paper will be destroyed. So these are not just technical specifications either it's a holistic approach and includes important processes for records management documentation and quality management as well. It goes beyond sort of it goes beyond questions sort of like what resolution do I do or what file format do I use. It's about we try to make a sort of a total quality management approach to ensure completeness usability and again to create digital versions that can serve the same purpose as the original. Next slide please. So the first part I'm going to talk about is the scope section. The scope addresses the types of materials covered by the regulation and you can see on the slide the first part talks about what is it's applicable to records that can be scanned using reflective techniques meaning the digitization process means that light bounces off the surface of the of the document being digitized. So for this we sort of applied it 80-20 rule. We figured this would be the 80% was paper records all sizes and types printed photographs photographic prints and as part of this we also address address mixed media records. What's not in this in the scope is things like photographic negatives motion picture films microphones dynamic media meaning audio visual audio audio or videotapes. Those are not in the scope for this that's going to be the next regulation we work on. So the scope also addresses how the regulation establishes the process and requirements to ensure that agencies can identify the records that you're going to digitize for each project how to account for the records covered by the project implement how to implement quality management techniques for things like verifying your equipment performance and to monitor the processes to detect and correct errors and to produce complete and accurate digitized records again that the agency can use for the same purposes the original source records and the scope also discusses the validation validating that the resulting digitized records meet the standards in this subpart what's again talking about what's not in the scope and this was a question we got a lot at least was talking about the comment periods we had both with the public and agencies but one thing that's we do mention we mentioned that is not in the scope is does not require any that optical character recognition be performed OCR we got a lot of questions about OCR it's not a requirement for this for in the digitization regulation by the same token obviously it doesn't prevent agencies from performing OCR if there's a business need it also doesn't address what we also don't address is other applicable laws and regulations governing documents or digital files in other words if it's addressed elsewhere we didn't repeat it in here this purely deals with the digitization process so we don't get into you know we don't address things like handling of classified CUI questions compliance with section 508 for those areas obviously an agency should work with their legal counsel and other officials to ensure compliance where applicable with these and other requirements and we also don't address other business needs or legal constraints that an agency may have that make it necessary to retain source records for a period of time after digitizing and same thing we advise working with legal counsel and appropriate officials to determine you know if the return longer retention question related to rights and interests litigation holds similar reasons that's an internal discussion and and determination and then again mixed media is included because it's not in common for other media types to be co-located with paper records a CD have them forbid a floppy disk may show up interspersed with your paper records and we'll talk more about mixed media considerations in depth a little bit into the presentation next slide please so the next section is about records management and as we said this regulation includes important processes as part of digitization work as well as the more technical requirements and specifications it's important to establish intellectual control first over the records to be digitized this section talks about how you want to inventory the records to ensure that records are prepared and index and maintained in their original order that you survey the source records for any potential preservation problems make sure you're selecting the equipment that is going to be able to safely digitize those originals and then it discusses identifying the age the media types dimensions the required level of detail and again the condition of the source records prior to digitization again to make determinations about you know it will there be an impact on the image capture techniques you use the equipment you select you know you look at things like the type of paper the type of printing or the size of the records and see if those have an impact on what kind of decisions or equipment you're going to use to digitize and you'll also want to note to identify and note there any missing record or any records that can't be digitized you'll use that informant and part of the reason you're documenting this is you're going to use some of this information at the time of transfer to populate the note section of the ERA TR again when it's when it comes time to transfer them to NARA the digitized origin to NARA this part also talks about capturing relationships any relationships must be captured as part of the digitization process for example are there case files that are associated by case number are there multiple documents staple together what are the relationship of one folder each other folders in the box and you can capture the relationships through metadata and we'll talk more about this in the a little later in the presentation more about metadata or by using file formats that allow for multi-page files such as PDF or TIFF and then during the digitization process you also need to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards for the source records to prevent loss or damage and to minimize the risk of any unauthorized additions or deletions or alterations to the digitized versions next slide please so this next part is about documentation requirements agencies must create digital documentation when digitizing permanent source records the documentation is going to be maintained along with the digitized records until the records have been transferred to NARA and NARA notifies that the agents identify notifies that the the accessioning process is complete disposition of documentation is done in accordance with the appropriate general record schedule GRS or agency record schedule and again this documentation will help the agency some of the information here will help populate parts of the transfer request instrument the TR in ERA we got a lot of questions I'll say we got a lot of questions also during this about will NARA you know what is NARA's role in looking at that you know it does not inspect this documentation and most of the questions were about at the point of transfer is NARA gonna require it review it the answer is no where the one area where NARA may ask to see the documentation is from the office of the chief records officer at the oversight team when they do one of their agency inspections they may review documentation as part of one of their site business so you must create several documents when digitizing permanent records and like I said retain them in association with the digitized versions one is a defined project plan that addresses the record series or file units to be digitized things like the method that we that will be used to name the records the date range if there are missing pages any gaps the estimated volume the media type dimensions the equipment and software you're using the estimated file storage requirements access or use restrictions the method used to capture relationships which we talked about and any metadata if you have we have metadata like I said we'll talk about metadata later and if you have any metadata element labels that differ from those that are specified in the rag will ask you for a crosswalk as well another document will require a piece of documentation is a quality management plan that Kevin's going to talk more more deeply about quality management and quality control coming up but at a high level the quality management plan describes the policies the functions the roles and responsibilities and requirements and objectives the project and the quality control component addresses inspecting image and metadata quality and corrective actions to ensure that the records digitized versions conform to your requirements like I said that's coming up next and then additional documentation as well could be any information needed to associate the digitized records to the source records the agency record schedule and if there are any additional related finding aids or indexes or inventories metadata schemas that are used to manage the records they can serve as sources of the metadata you'd want to capture that and keep it alongside as well next slide and like I said we're moving to quality management and other areas so I'll turn this over to Kevin thank you John as John mentioned for the documentation you'll be capturing information about quality management and here we're using quality management as an umbrella term under which there is quality assurance and quality control and throughout this if you read the reg you'll see reference to something referred to as Faji which is the federal agency's digital guidelines initiative and we were very fortunate that Faji exists it is a group that's managed by the Library of Congress but NARA has participated in for I believe about 15 years and what Faji has done is worked with the vendor community to come up with the image science for how to accurately record information from paper or film so that you have assurance that digitization is being done properly so the quality management in this regulation is very similar to that in Faji and it may be a little bit different from quality management that you've done in the past if you've digitized where you go through your digitization project and then do random sampling at the end here as John mentioned it's a total quality management process it's interwoven into everything and so when we talk about quality assurance that includes working with your vendors to ensure that the equipment that you purchase or rent is appropriate one for the material type if you're using 8.5 x 11 modern office paper then high-speed sheet-fed scanning may be appropriate but if you're dealing with bound volumes or onion skin or something more fragile then you'll want to find equipment that's appropriate for that and then the quality control includes actually the testing and analysis of your equipment and then periodic inspections throughout the process and that helps kind of relieve that burden because you don't want to get to the end where you've digitized large volumes of material and then discover errors and have to pull the paper again and start over or send them back to your contractor so it helps identify malfunctioning equipment if you set up your software incorrectly done metadata and properly or other human errors which I am personally guilty of having committed in the past this quality management approach is quite lengthy and there's a lot there but it you know it's a part of Fadji and has been proven to make digitization more reliable and more efficient so could we go to the next slide please so I've mentioned Fadji and I've mentioned that quality management is interwoven into this process and so on the screen is one of the test targets that were developed as a part of Fadji and it's part of what they refer to as the digital image conformance evaluation or dice process and by scanning this test target and then analyzing the results of that scan with the dice software you can actually determine if your equipment is capable one of achieving the parameters in this regulation and then as you continue to digitize make sure that nothing has gone wrong a lamp hasn't failed or a mechanism isn't working the way it was when it was new because it analyzes the colors for accuracy and then it also measures the resolution because unfortunately just setting your resolution for 300 PPI does not guarantee that your equipment is actually capturing 300 PPI so it's wonderful that we had the Fadji process to rely on so that we didn't have to come up with other quality assurance mechanisms so next slide please so file formats as John mentioned you know throughout this we're balancing the cost to agencies but then the archival needs of the National Archives and researchers in the future and so we're mindful that there are lots of different agencies doing lots of different types of digitization and so we've tried to give options both in terms of file formats as John mentioned if you're scanning a case file and you want to keep material together then packaging it in the PDF may make sense to you if you're doing other types of digitization that may not be a requirement what is novel to this regulation is we have included several types of compression deflate also known as zip but then also JPEG 2000 compression and one thing the agency should be aware of is and this is coming from Fadji's latest guidelines we are allowing up to 21 20 to 1 visually lossless compression and that's with the requirement that if you do that there is no degradation or negative impact on the resulting images but that's you know maybe of interest to agencies if you're doing very high volumes where file size and storage concerns are going to be something that you're looking at and so would encourage you to work with your vendors to test and kind of select from these what's going to best fit your needs so next slide please so 1236 50 is the actual digitization requirements and these again are extracted from Fadji and modified to meet the requirements of federal agency digitization in the Fadji world they line up with what's referred to as Fadji 3 star and there are two major subcomponents in this digitization the actual parameters and one is for permanent paper and then you know as John discussed the scope we were trying to be able to account for as much materials we possibly could and so since the type of equipment that's used is common types of quality control are common we were able to include printed photographs so the actual parameters are a little bit different so that there are these two sec sections detailing what parameters apply to each and as I said earlier the equipment that you select should be appropriate for the material that you have and make sure before you contract or purchase that it's actually capable of meeting the requirements in this regulation and implement the quality analysis that was described earlier in the quality management section and continue to test throughout the process so that you catch any mistakes early and can correct them so the next slide please next media again as John mentioned we recognize that when you pull boxes of what you think are paper records it's not uncommon to find other physical storage device or media inside a box with paper the expression mixed media actually refers to record files that exist on different media so you may have a medical file and then an x-ray and so we've included instructions for that case where you discover related permanent records in your box but they just happen to be on some other media that you're not able to digitize at this time but also instructions in case you find a thumb drive and there's other material on it that's not related to the paper records and that's because you know part of the records management is there is an obligation to treat all records appropriately and so there's instructions to analyze those materials to see are these federal records do they belong in another record series or do they relate to what's the contents of this box and so that's just to assist agencies to avoid either missing failing to digitize or properly account for all of their records so could we go to the next slide please metadata obviously metadata is an important aspect of this process as has been said repeatedly especially with the permanent records the resulting digital files are going to be required to stand in place of the source records and since the documentation that is created by agencies is not going to be transferred to NARA these files need to have all of the information that they're going to need for researchers agencies and the National Archives to be able to manage them appropriately and then discover them and interact with them so as you can see we have administrative metadata to assist in the management and that includes the disposition and item number but then there's also requirements for descriptive metadata which relates to the source record and since the source records are going to be destroyed at the end of the process they're not around for researchers to refer to there is this metadata which describes the source records so that a hundred years from now people have an understanding of what what was originally recorded by an agency and then also any access or usage restrictions that apply to the source records must be captured and retained in the digital versions that are created again so the agencies and the National Archives can manage them appropriately moving forward your equipment is going to generate technical metadata and we have laid out some requirements that will help us preserve these records for as long as they're needed we've also included instructions as part of the records management for maintaining the digital records until you transfer them to NARA and one of those is the generation of checksums so that you can monitor for any unauthorized alteration or corruption that may occur through time and then there's the technical metadata describing the digitization process in the equipment that you've used so could we go to the next slide and validation again this was introduced with our temporary regulation and as John described NARA is not involved in inspecting or approving of your digitization projects our oversight team may conduct an inspection but that's a distinct thing and so this validation at the end of the process is a very critically important step and we recommend that your agency meet with your general counsel and review who is the appropriate person at your agency to conduct this validation it's a high-level process that's distinct from quality control or quality management it's not a review of every image it's more a high-level review where you look at the documentation you look at your processes and you make a determination that you as an agency are satisfied that you followed these regulations and that you feel that what you have produced is of sufficient quality and completeness and accuracy that the digital records can take the place of the source records and once you've done that you have the authority to execute disposition on the source records according to the record schedule or associated GRS so can we go to the next slide and I believe I'm turning this over to Lisa thank you so much Kevin and John so once you hit validation you have come to the end of what is in the regulations on how to digitize permanent records before we get to questions I just had a few more I said in the beginning my goal was to hopefully leave all attendees with an understanding and familiarity of all the parts of the digitization regulations I also said we know that that was the start of our work there's a lot more information we need to provide you on how to implement these digitization standards there's been a lot of questions we've given them we're not appropriate was appropriately not addressed in regulations but there might be some explanations coming so what you're looking at right now is the link that our colleague Andy Leo has been dropping into the chat with crater web page under our hot topics or important topics and this is the the web page where as we develop future products or we have answers they're going to be on this web page and for those of you on the phone it's www.archives.gov backslash records hyphen management MGMT backslash policy backslash digitization and I hope a quick couple of searches will get you to this page you can see here we've got a couple of boxes of information and we plan to add more this is where you can find a link to the standards and if you scroll down on your page you don't see it on my screen capture underneath that there's the box where we're communicating and that's where the web's oh they're forward slashes thank you Patty Stockman I just saw your chat forward slash forward slash forward slash you'll be able to find information on communications so more to come and this is the place to find it and then in closing I think there's one more slide I did want to say how are you going to find these additional products I wanted to let you know what was coming so we have been issuing a series and we're we're working through that there's a few more to come on our records express blog and that was sort of doing in writing what we did here today in our webinar take each one of those sections piece by piece and talk about what's in them we will be issuing a GRS 4.5 for digitizing records believe that's one of the questions we had in chat already is has transmittal 34 with that GRS gone out yet and the answer to that question is no it hasn't gone out yet it's still going through the internal signature processes and we expect that GRS will be issued I would say hopefully the next few weeks those of you know when Nara says soon we know sometimes soon takes longer than any of us would appreciate but it should be up very soon in a few more weeks and that did GRS is key as John said in order to implement the digitization regs give you the standards that you have to validate to the disposition authority comes from your record schedules either a general record schedule or an agency record schedule and we will work to get that general record schedule out as soon as possible and as Kevin and John mentioned we know we have more digitization standards to issue the next set of issues things will be issuing will be those film records we expect that will go much much faster than the package we put out as you saw our history of going through it because we're going to be adding those standards to what already exists so we don't need new documentation new records management new valid and that's all going to stay the same we just need to get your technical standards for digitizing those types of materials and I appreciate all the suggestions you haven't been able to see them but I've been watching them come in through chat we are going to be working on some more guidance products and I appreciate the suggestions I'm sure we'll talk about that soon so believe that takes us to the end of our recorded so I our end of our formal presentation so I'll turn it over to Arian. Thank you Lisa and at this time let's stop recording.


Are there wine experts? So are there people who claim to be better at at tasting and appreciating wine than say you or me? Well there there's certainly experts out there in terms of the level of training that they might have or or being a sommelier. You know certainly here at Brock University we have our cool climate enology and viticulture Institute. A lot of our students who are in that program know quite a lot about wine and when we have them come in as part of our participant pool they they sometimes those students come and participate and it's it's it's very easy to say oh well I'm an expert so what we in our research what we rely on is a wine knowledge questionnaire so we usually give this questionnaire to our participants to see an objective well it is an objective way of seeing how much knowledge somebody really has. But wine tasters like these these expert wine tasters who evaluate wines and give them scores out of a hundred that are used you know to put the medallions on the wine and things like that are they better at identifying and talking about wines than I am. That's a that's an interesting question I I know there are some studies that that show that experts really aren't experts and there are some studies that show that that they really are experts. I think at the end of the day the the scores that are given for for consumers again is used as a useful piece of information for the consumers and the the the judges or the the wine raiders as you call them they are probably more more knowledgeable than the average consumer so I think that that there is because they they do have training and they do have more expertise than the average consumer so I would say that that there is a basis for that. Having said that I think that it might also depend on the definition of of expertise so you know so I have two black wine glasses here and most people can't tell if there's you know when you lose those visual cues of the actual color if you're to sample these wines most people can't tell if the glass contains a red or a white. Now I haven't done an experiment like this with a trained sommelier but I'd like to one day and and you know so it's that that kind of thing where well you know can can a sommelier tell the difference they probably can but somebody like you I'm not sure I don't know if I can so we want to get our friends to run an experiment where they find out whether novices undergraduate students can tell the difference between wines on a whole bunch of levels can they tell the difference between red and white can they tell the difference between the grapes can they tell an expensive bottle from an inexpensive bottle without going into detail can you run through some of the things that they should really consider when they're designing a well controlled experiment to find a reasonably good answer to some of these questions. Well one way to in terms of looking at price having a you know having this wine in you know a brown paper bag so we don't get any other cues of where the wine is from and and what vintage it might be and and so on or if there might even be a price label on it we want to hide all that and we can you know pour from the brown paper bag into glasses so that again we're trying to if price is a variable you're looking at examining try to minimize any other influence that might affect the consumers judgment. If you can get a hold of these black glasses again we're trying to take away any other visual information maybe the respondent based on their own personal experience or something else that they might think that if it's a darker color red it might be more expensive whatever maybe if you want to kind of eliminate any of those other cues that they might use into their judgment try to isolate whatever variable it is to examine. If we did this properly using the experimental method we would probably take a sample of sommeliers a sample of maybe high knowledge consumers sample of low knowledge consumers and see after various trials so we might not just do one trial we might do several trials and with several different types of grape bridles so not just Pinot Noir versus Graversterminer but maybe also you know like you said a like a Malbec or Shiraz versus oak Chardonnay or something else so that over consistently over many trials and across different grape bridles with a representative sample for each category of consumer is there a statistically significant difference that would not be due to chance. If you guessed correctly by chance which is what you you said earlier well you know how do we know that I didn't just guess the correct one then it would be 50-50 that people said this was red and this was red it would be 50-50 right so what we're looking for for let's say you're in the group of you would say low okay well fair enough if we're looking at the group of low knowledge consumers we might see is the rate at which they're saying red 50-50 right or is it higher than 50-50 right so is it higher than chance and you use a statistical technique called chi-square which I won't get into to determine whether that probability or that rate of responding red for this one is is higher than 50-50 now we'll do that also for the high knowledge consumers we see is are they saying red for this one and red for this one 50% of the time or is it higher that they're saying red for the actual red one and we'll do the same thing for the Somalia group and that would be a proper test in to answer this question