What Is a Record?

Records are anything containing information which is made, produced, executed, or received in connection with the transactions and official activities of the University or executed in the conduct of University business, including research, teaching, service, and administration. Examples include documents, books, paper, electronic records, photographs, videos, sound recordings, databases, and other data compilations that are used for multiple purposes, or other material, regardless of physical form or characteristics.

Records can be divided into two categories: 1) Official, and 2) Transitory/Convenience.

• a. "Official records" are:

  • (1) records having the legally recognized and judicially enforceable quality of establishing some fact, policy, or institutional position or decision.
  • (2) the single official copy of a document maintained on file by an administrative unit of the University which is usually, but not always, the original.
  • (3) subject to the records retention requirements included in the Records Management Program and Retention Schedule.

  b. "Transitory/convenience records" are:

  • (1) duplicate copies of official records.
  • (2) extra copies of documents or records created or preserved for convenient access and/or for reference, including computer backups and duplicate computer files. (See University of Iowa IT Backup and Recovery Policy for specifics on electronic record backup.
  • (3) miscellaneous papers or correspondence without official significance such as post-it notes, letters of transmittal, or route slips.
  • (4) versions or drafts of reports, memos, word processing files, letters, messages, or communication (electronic or otherwise) that are used to develop a final official document.
  • (5) records that do not carry a requirement for retention and should be destroyed when they cease to be useful (using secure destruction methods if they contain confidential information).

  Either official or transitory/convenience records may contain confidential information. Confidential information is information of various sorts that the University receives and holds confidential unless otherwise ordered by a court, by the lawful custodian of the records or by another person duly authorized to release such information. Examples include: student records, medical records, personnel records, etc. (See Iowa Code 22.7, Confidential Records.) University faculty and staff should determine if records contain confidential information when conducting an inventory of departmental records and maintain and dispose of them accordingly.

  Either official or transitory/convenience records may also contain vital information. Vital information is considered essential for the operations of a department (and/or the University) and includes information that may prevent a department from incurring serious liability or risk, or that would be extremely costly to replace. In the event of a disaster, this information, if destroyed, would make it difficult for a department to conduct normal business activities. University faculty and staff should determine if records contain vital information and maintain and dispose of them accordingly.

  Any record, official or transitory/convenience, may be considered a public record; however, not all public records are subject to release (see University of Iowa Office of Transparency Site or Iowa Code 22.7).

Maintenance of Records

Review of Records Inventory

The first step in reviewing your department's records and the management of those records should be to identify the type of records being maintained, in what form (paper, electronic, etc.) they exist and for how long they're being retained. As this inventory is being taken, identical records that exist in several places should be noted. Once this inventory process is completed, the next step is to determine the importance of the record(s) to the ongoing operation of your department. The process of determining a record's relative importance can result in the decision to limit its retention period or even to eliminate entirely the need for its further retention. (See the section on "Retention Schedules" for more information.)
 

Organization/Filing

Organizing your records more efficiently has many benefits and if you're having trouble finding things on a regular basis or often misplace things, the following suggestions are offered:

1. Which records do you need most frequently? For those records/files needed on a regular basis, keep them in the most accessible place such as a file cabinet within your desk. If you're in an area where the records are needed by many people, keep them centrally located so everyone has fairly easy access. For those records that you don't need regularly, keep them in a place that is out of the way such as a closet or basement so they don't take up valuable office space and inhibit your ability to locate records needed more regularly.
2. Are there types of records that could be grouped together? Sometimes filing compatible records together by function or project works out well for certain individuals or departments. Many people have a file drawer dedicated to types of records such as finance, employee or research files. Within the finance drawer there might be folders such as budget, monthly expenses and statements of account.
3. Do more copies of a record or document exist than are really needed? Are the people in your department in the habit of printing off every e-mail they receive whereas keeping them as e-mail may work just as well? Or, what's the worst thing that would happen if the record was destroyed?
    

Organizing Electronic Records

Many people store records/files on their desktop computer. Organizing these files and keeping them straight can be troublesome but fortunately, computer operating systems are becoming much more proficient at arranging folders and finding files that you can't find. If you prefer not to do a search of the hard drive every time you're looking for a file, the following are a few of the more common options for organizing your computer files:

• If you prefer to keep all of your files for a particular project or function together, then you'll probably want to create a folder for each project or function that you use (i.e. finance, employee, research etc.). Each of these main folders will store all of your records/files regardless of file type such as spreadsheet or word processing. If you're working on the employee files for the day, all of them would be located in one place.
• Create a main folder that has all of your word processing documents, another main folder that has all of your spreadsheets, a third main folder that contains any databases and so on. Within these main folders you would then create sub-folders for each type of record/file such as finance, employee, research, special projects, etc. The main advantage of this system is that it allows you to organize or search for files using a software program such as Word or Excel since these programs look for files that only they use. For example, when you're in Excel and want to open a file, Excel will automatically look only for Excel files (called the "default" setting). Excel has the option of looking for Word files or other types of files but you have to tell it to do so. Using this option may mean that there are finance files in two different main folders on your computers hard drive (budgets in Excel, narratives in Word) but finding files that you haven't used for awhile is quick and efficient.

Destruction of Records

All records have some practical period of usefulness. The decision to keep a certain type of record permanently or destroy it at some pre-determined point in time should be based on the significance of the record to ongoing operations within your department. Every department should establish a written policy outlining the conditions under which the destruction of records is appropriate. Once records have outlived their practical usefulness, you must decide whether or not they should be retained. In some instances, there may be a required legal retention period in effect beyond the period of practical usefulness. Whenever possible, you should utilize all available information to determine the retention requirements of a record.

The following points of information should help you to make correct decisions regarding records destruction:

• Any convenience copy records or non-records (post-it notes, miscellaneous papers, correspondence without official significance) can be thrown away at any time after they have outlived their usefulness in your department.
• Official records and confidential records require no prior approvals for destruction as long as they are listed on an approved records retention schedule (see "Developing a Retention Schedule"). The destruction of these records must follow the retention time frames listed on the schedule.
• The UI Archivist (located in the Main Library) collects and preserves records of permanent historical value. The Archivist can be consulted at any time and should be consulted when destruction of records not previously placed on a retention schedule is contemplated. If the Archivist determines the records you have scheduled for destruction should be preserved, he/she will arrange for their transfer to the Library.
• Once its been determined that the records scheduled for destruction can actually be destroyed, shredding is the preferred method for paper records. For electronic, magnetic tape, CD and other types of computer records, make sure that the records are erased and can not be eventually retrieved. The ITS Help Desk (319-384-4357) can answer questions regarding ways to assure computer records are unretrievable.