Corporate Records are defined by the Records Management Standard AS ISO 15489.1 as "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organisation or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business".
Corporate Records include, but are not limited to, paper and electronic documents, drawings, maps, plans, photographs, microforms, sound and video records, computerised data on tape or disks, CD-ROM, DVD or Optical Disks.
Some examples of Corporate Records:
As a University employee you create and/or access University records and information. All University employees have a responsibility to ensure University records that they create as part of their business role are complete, accurate and managed in accordance with the University’s Records Management Policy, Records Management Guidelines & associated procedures.
The University owns all records created and received by individual employees as part of their day to day business. This includes research data, teaching materials and correspondence.
Not all documents/information are identified as a "record". A document becomes a record at the point in its lifetime when it is:
Some information such as emails, depending on value of content, are records automatically, because they are transmitted between individuals in the course of business. However, not all records will have long term value and therefore may not need to be kept over time. Records of very low or short-term value are known as "ephemeral records".
For more information, please see:
Emails can be corporate records if they contain evidence of a business activity or transaction, provide formal advice or recommendations, order or approve a course of action, or record a decision or agreement. Emails of this nature should be captured into TRIM, or if TRIM is not available, saved in an appropriate folder in a shared mailbox, or exported as a PDF and saved in an appropriate folder in your business area's shared drive or wiki. You do not need to capture 'FYI' emails or bulk emails (unless you were the sender in the latter case).
While it is tempting to capture only the last email in an email 'thread' or conversation, on the basis that the previous emails are quoted within the last email, this practice should be avoided, as there is no way of determining whether the quoted emails have been altered, undermining the evidential value of the record.
For more information, please see:
The University allows a small amount of personal information to be retained by an individual. A folder or folders should be identified in your directories/email package to identify your personal information. Business information should not be included in these personal areas.
Personal electronic documents email and papers can be destroyed as soon as staff members no longer require the information and should be removed or destroyed prior to leaving the University. Refer to the Human Resources Termination of Employment Clearance form and the University Records & Information Cessation of Employment form for procedures. If correspondence incorporates both personal and work-related information, then the correspondence is a business record and should be saved into a formal recordkeeping system (e.g. TRIM).
It all depends on the content contained within the records. There is no set period or 'seven year rule': the required retention period varies depending on the type of record. If it is duplicate or ephemeral information, then you only need to keep it for as long as you need to reference it. If it has a legal or business requirement to be kept for a specific time frame then it will need to be retained until the minimum requirement is met.
This may be up to 25 years for permanent records or even longer in some cases. You can identify the legal retention period for a given type of record by looking it up in the disposal schedules. In rare cases, you may find records that aren't listed in any disposal schedules: these are called unscheduled records and must be dealt with specially.
For more information, please see:
Once you have identified the retention period from the disposal schedules, the appropriate disposal action will depend on whether the records are permanent records or temporary records. If the records are permanent, you will need to transfer them to the State Archives using an Application to Dispose of State Records.
If the records are temporary and you have confirmed that they are eligible for destruction, you will need to list the records and the reference numbers from the disposal schedules in a form called a Register of Records Destroyed. This is a legal document and must be signed by the Records Management Unit and the head of your business unit before you can destroy the records. Please see Information Sheet 3 for instructions on how to complete the form.
Paper records should be destroyed via shredding. Individual sheets may be passed through a cross-cutting paper shredder, while larger quantities should be placed in a locked bin for secure shredding by a commercial firm such as Veolia (this can be arranged through Property Services). Paper-clips, staples and dog-clips should be removed from any documents prior to placing them in the shredding bin, as these may cause problems during the shredding process.
Electronic records should be destroyed by reformatting the disk or drive or overwriting the data using another technique that conforms to the Secure Disposal of ICT Equipment Procedure. Simple deletion is insufficient, as this does not actually overwrite the information until the space is required, meaning that the information could still be retrieved for some time.
For other formats, contact the Disposal & Training Officer for advice.
For more information, please see:
Not unless your business unit has an approved digitisation program and you have been trained and authorised to digitise and destroy source records under that program. As records may need to be relied upon in court, there are a number of requirements that must be met in order for a scanned reproduction to be used as the official record and permit the destruction of the original. Chief among these is the requirement to capture the electronic reproduction in a formal recordkeeping system such as TRIM, which is currently only possible at a limited number of business areas across the University.
For more information, please see:
Inactive records are records that are no longer required on a daily basis, that have little if any use but are required to be retained before destruction or disposal. For example a research project that has finished but is required to be kept per the grant funding contract requirements.
These records may be located in a nominated secondary storage area be it physical or electronic.
For more information, please see:
Inactive records need to be stored in an environment that is appropriate to the format they are in and organised in way to aid retrieval. For example, paper records need a stable temperature, stored in a secure area, in sturdy archival boxes and on shelving to prevent damage. Boxes should be Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office preferred boxes (these can be ordered from Archival Survival or Zetta Florence) and given a unique number for quick identification. Boxes should have their items listed on an attached box list and a Register of Inactive Records should be maintained to track which items are stored in which boxes and storage areas, to enable easy retrieval.
Off site commercial storage is available to business areas that have a storage problem. The storage cost is funded centrally, but fees for services such as delivery and retrieval, reboxing, cataloguing and destruction are the responsibility of the business unit. The Records Management Unit currently recommends storing inactive records at either Grace Records Management (for short to medium term storage) or Iron Mountain (for longer than seven years).
Contact the Disposal & Training Officer for contact details and/or more information.
For more information, please see:
HP TRIM (commonly referred to as simply TRIM) is an Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) currently in use at some University business areas. An EDRMS is a system which captures, manages and provides access to records and information over time, ensuring their integrity, authenticity and accessibility. TRIM can be used to capture, manage and track both physical and electronic records.
Business areas wishing to request TRIM access may use the Application for TRIM Access form, but should be aware that TRIM is currently rolled out to new business areas on a case by case basis. A business case is required to substantiate the need for a roll-out to an additional area and a formalised project will be set up to support planning and implementation. Please note that the Records Management Unit has limited resources to implement and support large installations, so consultants may need to be engaged to assist with business analysis, configuration and training requirements.
For more information, please see: