The action is simple, delete the content without needing to retain a copy. But what does that look like in practice and more importantly, under what circumstances can a unit take this action?
Content that is archival must be sent to the UW Archives prior to deletion. To find if your content may be archival, visit our common retention examples related to web content and look for “Archives” in the disposition method. Contact the UW Archives for instructions on how to provide them web content prior to deletion.
Reasons that would enable a unit to delete content in its entirety without retaining a backup:
The content is duplicative of other web or local content
This will be the most common occurrence. Often units will already have a local copy of what they posted on their website. This often occurs as part of the drafting stage where a unit will draft content in their secure Shared Drive, Google Drive, or SharePoint environment. They will have multiple drafts and then finally a clean product. The finalized and clean product is then duplicated onto the public facing internet or intranet site. However, the unit may still have the original saved in a word document or a PDF. Even more commonly, a unit may host a PDF, an image, a PowerPoint presentation, a video, or some other file format on a website. However, there will often be a local copy of that PDF, image, PowerPoint or video saved outside of the webpage. As long as the unit maintains a copy of that content somewhere offline, there is no need to retain the duplicative web content. The published web-version can be considered a duplicate, and the unit subsequently should retain the local copy of the information until the legally approved retention period has been met. Visit our common retention examples related to web content to determine how long you should retain your content.
The web content is beyond the legally approved retention period
This will often occur when units have information posted on their websites for long periods of time. When data has met it’s legally approved retention period, based on its content and function, the unit does not need to retain a copy of that material any longer and can permanently delete the web content.
An example of this would be, an office who had a monthly newsletter for their unit posted to a Blog section of their website. They haven’t posted a new article in the last 4 years. All that content would fall under a Publication Production Record Series, which only needs to be retained for 3 years. Therefore, all the articles are beyond retention and that entire section of the website can be removed.
Another common example often occurs with labs or other research studies where a webpage was created to document the progress of the study and to share-out results. If the lab closed or the study was finalized, and it has been 6 years since that triggering event occurred, all that content is now beyond the retention period of UW's Research Records and Data records series and can be deleted without retaining a local copy.
Disclaimer: Contact the UW Archives prior to deleting your site if your content is archival and has “Transfer to the UW Archives” in the disposition method under our common retention examples.