Banner

What is a Record

A record is a document, data, or a set of data that:

  • is created or received in the course of an organization’s business
  • has Content—that is the text, data, metadata, symbols,
    numerals, images, and/or sounds that make up the
    substance of the record
  • has Structure—that is the physicality and internal
    organization of the content
  • has Fixity—that is the quality of the Content being stable
    and resisting change
  • has Context—that is the organizational, functional, and
    operational circumstances surrounding a record’s creation,
    receipt, storage, or use
  • is maintained as Evidence of an organization’s activity(s)2

IUC member institutions are public agencies in Ohio and are compelled by the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) to manage our institutional records. The ORC defines what records are for the “public” agencies, organizations, and institutions of Ohio:

  • The ORC defines in 149.011(A) and (B) a public office as “…any state
    agency…established by the laws of this state…including any statesupported
    institution of higher education…”
  • ORC 149.011(G) defines a record as “…any document, device, or item,
    regardless of physical form or characteristic3, created or received by, or
    coming under the jurisdiction of, any public office of the state or its
    political subdivisions, which serves to document the organization,
    functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities
    of the office.”
  • ORC149.43 goes on to designates a subset of records as “Public records”
    that are available for public scrutiny: “…any record as defined in ORC
    149.011(G) that is kept by any public office with certain exceptions,
    such as medical records, trial preparation records, confidential law
    enforcement investigatory records, intellectual property records, donor
    profile records, and records the release of which are prohibited by state
    or federal law.”
  • Finally, ORC 149.33(B) empowers state-supported institutions of higher
    education to run their own records management programs stating, “The
    boards of trustees of state-supported institutions of higher education
    shall have full responsibility for establishing and administering a records
    program for their respective institutions. The boards shall apply efficient
    and economical management methods to the creation, utilization,
    maintenance, retention, preservation, and disposition of the records of
    their respective institutions.” This is the basis for the IUC acting in
    unison in the development of this manual.

Therefore, to put it succinctly a record is:
“…any document, device, or item, regardless of physical form or
characteristic…” that has been created or received in the course of a University’s business that meets the criteria of content, structure, fixity, context as discussed above, and is maintained as evidence of the organization’s activity(s).

NON-RECORD: A non-record is any document, device, or item, regardless of physical form or characteristic, created or received that DOES NOT serve to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office. Non-records may include, but are not limited to:

  • personal correspondence
  • non-university publications
  • Listserv® materials
  • junk mail/spam
  • catalogs
  • journals, books, other library materials
  • faculty papers (Faculty papers are the property of thefaculty member, not the university and as such are not
  • university records; however, in some cases a university’s
    archives may be interested in collecting faculty papers.)

It is important to note that a significant amount of documents that we handle on a daily basis fall into the final two categories: transient (duplicate copies are considered transient) retention or non-records. When we routinely and appropriately dispose of these records, we can more effectively expend our energies on managing those records of intermediate, long term, and indefinite retention that require our attention. If we do not perform these routine disposals of records with extremely short retention periods, we run the risk of generating such large volumes of these documents, that we will overwhelm our ability to effectively manage our records of consequence. In handling of these documents, one needs to consider how they handle their "snail mail" at work and home.

Review the documents content; this may mean thoroughly reading the document, but more often than not one is able to judge just by the look of the document or a subject line:

  • If it is a non-record, then toss it into the garbage or recycle
    bin (paper-based or electronic) immediately;
  • If it is a transient/transitory record, then place it in a file
    or sub-file (paper-based or electronic) that is designated
    for periodic review and dispose of as soon as allowable.

2 Adapted from Challenges in Managing Records in the 21st Century, National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council (ec3), 2004
http://www.ec3.org/downloads/workgroups/2004/Challenges_in_El_Records.pdf
3 This is a key concept—it does not matter whether the information is in paper-based (e.g. typed memorandum) or electronic (e.g. email memorandum) format, it is the value of the content of the document that determines whether it is a record or not and how long it should be maintained, not the medium on which it is delivered. Therefore, we DO NOT have separate record series for paper-based and electronic records, nor is email a single record type with one blanket retention period.