Records Management

Why do we file?

So we can find it again.

Records are generated and retained to document events of infinite variety. And almost anything can be a record. Records are not necessarily kept on paper, they may be film, video, sound recording, digital files. Regardless of medium, the same principles apply.

If you file a record, make sure you can retrieve it and not just 'you'. Records of University activity need to be retrievable by any authorised person. This means someone else doing your job, the next school, unit, division who takes over the course you are administering, or the auditor who checks whether the funds were correctly accounted for.

Not many people enjoy filing. What records management hopes to achieve, is to persuade you that the better you manage your records, the less time and effort you will need to invest in filing or finding lost records. Therefore the less you will have to file, the less space you will take up and the less cost the University will pay for its records. And the more time you can devote to what you do best.

RECORDS are kept for a number of reasons:

To document transactions
To provide legal evidence
To facilitate administration
To document history

There are a variety of pieces of legislation which impact on whether or not a document becomes a record, and consequently how long it must be retained.

General Administrative records may be disposed of in according with the General Disposal Schedule issued by State Records. A disposal schedule summarises the types of records, how long they should be retained, and when they may be destroyed. Records which have long term or even (very occasionally) permanent value are:

Policy