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Summertime And Deleting Is Easy
Text message guidance
Text messaging is a vital form of communication that each of use on a daily basis. But like other forms of communication, it is important to remember that text messages sent/received conducting UW business are considered UW records that are subject to retention requirements and potential disclosure. The nuances of texting on UW-issued mobile devices vs personal devices using monthly allowances vs wholly personal devices can be overwhelming.
Luckily our office is here to eliminate confusion and provide succinct guidance on what types of texts are UW records and the best practices users should adhere to depending on the type of mobile device they’re communicating on. Please visit our Text Message Best Practices Resource for details and contact our office if you have questions: recmgt@uw.edu
Summer cleanup? ROT Squad can help
Do you have a mess in a closet/old shared drive/or email account that you have been hoping to find a moment to clean up and haven’t? Maybe you have files your predecessor left behind because they thought it “might be useful”. Perhaps you still have emails from your previous job in a different department at UW.
Summer is a great time to tackle that mess once and for all. The ROT Squad is here to help! We specialize in identifying redundant, obsolete, and transitory records. We can look at your records with you. We can help you individually or work with your whole team to implement best practices during summer cleaning.
For more information and to book a consult, check out our webpage. If you have questions prior to booking a consult, email us at rotsquad@uw.edu.
Trivia question of the month
Our small records management team prides itself in helping departments and offices develop sound records management skills and practices to mitigate risk and encourage compliance with Washington state laws and regulations.
Apart from ROT squad consults, hosting events, creating training resources, processing dispositions, and many other tasks, we also proactively contact departments/offices each year in an effort to accurately reflect all records we are creating and managing here at UW.
Can you guess how many departments/offices RMS reached out to in 2023?
- 56
- 226
- 117
- 99
Scroll down to find the answer below…
Spotlight on Guard Dawgs
The last couple years the ROT Squad has been extremely popular, and we’ve really enjoyed helping offices clean-up their old messes. This summer, we are going to start a new initiative, called Guard Dawgs which will focus on helping offices safeguard their records that they do need to retain. We are going to focus on contacting offices who have records with really long retention periods, as well as central offices who are the official copy holders for records that document vital university functions to make sure they have the tools they need to manage those records. If you have these kinds of records on your retention schedule, we will be reaching out to you. If you have questions about safeguarding records in general, you can book a consult at recmgt@uw.edu.
As part of this initiative, we will be hosting a variety of events in the next year on such helpful topics as: best practices for folder structures, file naming, vital records, and tips for figuring out retention. Keep an eye out in this newsletter to sign up for those upcoming events!
In the meantime, here’s some helpful links on our website to check out:
Trivia answer: b. 226 In 2023 we proactively contacted 226 UW offices/departments. In 2022 we contacted 212 departments/offices and in 2021 we contacted 161. (Note that these numbers exclude UW Medicine groups, which are under the jurisdiction of UW Medicine Records and Information Governance.)
FETCH THE FUTURE...GO DIGITAL
Click here to watch the video on this University-wide initiative.
WE ARE ALWAYS HERE TO HELP
Barbara Benson
Emily Lemieux
Lynn O'Shea
Sean Whitney
Laetitia Rhodes Kaiser
206-543-7950