Compliance and Clarity: Resolutions for Records

Put a Date on It: Organizing Your Tasks for a Record-Perfect Year

This year don’t let your records pile up—stay ahead of the game! Set yourself up for success by scheduling these simple, systematic tasks throughout the year. From deleting outdated files in January to having new employees take records management training in November, each month brings a new opportunity to tidy up, organize, and stay on track.

Check out our new resource. Use it to add reminders to your Outlook calendar and make records management a seamless part of your routine throughout the seasons. Before you know it, it will be easy as pie to stay in legal compliance.

Keep Calm and File On: Best Practices for Folder Structure Demo Event Recording

In case you missed it, check out the the recording of our recent Zoom event.  You can learn tips and tricks that you can apply to your office’s records, which will help optimize and streamline your daily work, including best practices for naming and organizing electronic files and folders.

Once you have best practices in mind, you can generate a list of your existing folders and subfolders by following these simple directions on our website.  Once you can see your naming and organizing patterns, it’s easy to work with your colleagues to decide on improvements. And of course, you are always welcome to work with our staff as you make decisions.

Here are some of our additional resources on this topic:

Recommendations on File/Folder Naming Conventions

Best Practices for Folder Structure

Structuring Electronic Files

 

Save the Date: Participate in Compliance & Ethics Week

Planning for our third annual Compliance & Ethics Week is in full swing, and this upcoming year we are scheduling it to coincide with National Clean Out Your Computer Day, which occurs during the week of February 10-14, 2025.

From February 10-14, 2025 at 10am each day and on Tuesday at 3pm we’ll be hosting engaging events that will help you improve your compliance game in 2025. We’ll cover hot topics such as business continuity, research administration and the new ADA digital accessibility requirements.

We’ll teach you practical skills, such as understanding the difference between Records Management Services and UW Medicine Records Management & Information Governance, as well as effective ways to clean up your electronic records.

We’ll also feature a new event called “What’s Wrong Here?” where our many partner offices present scenarios of behaviors that are both correct and incorrect, and we’ll use Zoom polls for attendees to guess which one is in legal compliance.

Check out the event page to get the details on all this year’s events.

Upcoming: Annual Records Authority/Records Coordinator Audit

On February 1 our office will be conducting its annual review of Records Authority and Records Coordinator contacts to maintain compliance with state statutes. This review ensures the contact information that we have on file for your office/unit is up-to-date, especially following end-of-year staff changes.

If you’re currently the Records Authority and/or Records Coordinator for your unit, you will be receiving an email from us to validate your contact information.

Some things to keep in mind:

• While one person can fulfill both roles, only a maximum of two individuals may be designated.
• Students may not serve in these roles.
• The RA/RC should possess good understanding of all records within their unit, regardless of format or storage location (e.g., Document Management System/DocFinity, University Records Center, a creepy basement, a dust-collecting 30-year old filing cabinet, etc.)
• Make sure to check your junk email for our audit email

We also commend proactivity so if you already know that you need to update your department’s contact information now, please email us at recmgt@uw.edu.

(More) Retention Updates

Effective Immediately

We added a new record series titled Meeting Materials, Attendees’ Copies/Notes to the General Office Administration Section of the UW General Records Retention Schedule:

Individual attendees’ meeting materials from UW governing/executive/policy-setting bodies, routine staff and internal committee meetings, or informal staff meetings provided the primary meeting record(s) are centrally retained by the meeting host/delegate.

Includes, but is not limited to:

• Agendas, meeting/agenda packets

• Meeting minutes, transcripts of proceedings (including AI-generated transcripts and notes)

• Recordings of meetings on conferencing platforms, etc.;

• Working notes/drafts

Official Copy: Any Office

Retention: Administrative purpose served

Disposition Method: Shred/delete

If you are the primary copy holder of any meeting records, you’re still expected to follow the retention requirements for the following series:

Meeting Records of Governing/Executive/Policy-Setting Bodies

Meetings, Routine Staff and Internal Committees

Meetings, Informal Staff

FETCH THE FUTURE...GO DIGITAL
Click here to watch the video on this University-wide initiative.