VCOM Institutional Policy and Procedure Manual

VCOM Policy and Procedure

Policy #U021

retention period is the minimum length of time a record needs to be maintained to satisfy the purpose for which it was created and to fulfill the legal, fiscal, and administrative requirements of the College and external agencies. The retention period as indicated in the Records Retention Schedule means the records must be kept until the designated period has ended. Except as noted in the Records Retention Schedule, the retention period runs from the date the record was created or received. As it is not possible for the Records Retention Schedule to be exhaustive, employees must follow all regulatory guidelines when determining if a record not included on this schedule needs to be maintained or destroyed or consult the Office of the President or Provost. RECORDS STORAGE All College departments and offices must maintain their records in a safe, stable, and secure manner that supports their timely and accurate retrieval and applies appropriate controls on their accessibility. To do this departments and offices must: • Develop consistent and accurate filing, classification, and/or indexing systems for records, both paper and electronic, that all employees understand and follow. Such systems must enable the efficient finding of appropriate records and need not be complex. • Store their records in secure and stable environments, including electronic records storage on stable media and in accessible software formats. • Determine the confidentiality and privacy status of all records and ensure that security measures are appropriate to meet the needs of the records. o Records in physical form that contain Sensitive Information or PII must be secured via a locked file cabinet to prevent unauthorized access to these records. o Electronic records must be stored on secure College servers and devices that require a computer login with a secure password in order to access the records. All records with sensitive information or PII, must not be stored on portable media (such as USB and other removable drives). DISPOSITION OF RECORDS Records disposition is the final phase in a record's lifecycle. College personnel are required to check the Records Retention Schedule before disposing of materials generated in the course of College business. Departments are strongly encouraged to conduct an audit of their records at least annually to determine whether any such records have reached the end of their retention period and should be disposed of in accordance with this policy. When the prescribed retention period (see the Records Retention Schedule) for official college records has passed, a determination of whether to preserve or dispose of the documents must be made. Records should be destroyed promptly after the end of their retention period unless there is a continuing legitimate business need to retain them as established by the responsible records custodian. • Paper records containing non-sensitive information can be discarded through proper recycling means. • Paper records containing sensitive information (personally identifiable information) are to be shredded. 5. 6.

VCOM Records Retention Policy

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