Over the past few years, we’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons from our work with sponsors, internal and external auditors, and campus partners for managing information. This information can be thought of as a university record. The Administrative Policy Statements (APS) define a university record as “Any form of recorded information, regardless of physical characteristics, that is created, received, maintained, or legally filed in the course of university business.” These records need to be retained to provide value to the university.
What is records retention?
Records retention is the systematic management of university documents designed to meet legal requirements, optimize the use of space, minimize cost, preserve the history of the university, and destroy outdated and useless records, through the deliberate identification and retention of necessary documents and the destruction of outdated and useless records in a documented and secure process.
Helpful tips and reminders:
Keep documentation in a central location (i.e. MarketPlace, PeopleSoft, InfoEd, etc.) so they can be easily accessed and located by other university employees.
Move email approvals or email record of activities to an easily accessible and known location, if the individual should leave the university, we want those correspondences available.
Scan hard copies of documents to PDF which will optimize the use of space, minimize cost, and preserve the history in a more accessible format.
Original records can be destroyed once the retention schedule-defined period has passed, as long as there are no legal, administrative, audit or historical holds on the material.