August 5, 2025
The following message was sent to all faculty, staff, and graduate employees.
Dear colleagues,
As a public institution, the University of Oregon is responsible for ensuring the orderly management and retention of all records related to the institution. Each of us, as university employees, is obligated to keep records created in our daily work in such a way that they are reliable, available, and accessible for the duration of their established retention periods. The Questions and Resources section of this notice explains how to learn more about established retention periods.
What is a Record?
A record means any information that:
- Is prepared, owned, used, or retained by the university;
- Relates to an activity, transaction, or function of the university; and
- Is necessary to satisfy the fiscal, legal, administrative, or historical policies, requirements, or needs of the university.
In practice, this means that all the paper, email, spreadsheets, digital images or video, and other material that we make, receive, file, or record at the university in connection with the transaction of any university business or activity or pursuant to law, whether confidential or restricted in use or access, are considered records.
However, only some records are subject to strict preservation requirements. The University of Oregon Records Retention Schedule (https://rrs.uoregon.edu) lists the kinds of records subject to very specific preservation requirements; the Question and Resources section of this notice explains how to learn more about records and their retention.
What is your role?
- Understand our shared responsibilities as a UO employee by viewing this 8-minute video.
- Know who the Records Steward is for your unit and coordinate the care of records with that person.
- Vice Presidents, Deans, Directors, and managers or their delegates should assign a Steward for their unit as needed by completing the designation form.
- Before destroying records, review UO Records Destruction Procedures.
- When using Teams or SharePoint, make certain there is more than one “owner” in order to support business continuity.
- Be aware that files maintained in storage solutions tied to an individual’s @uoregon account, for example, OneDrive and Dropbox, will become inaccessible when the employee separates from the organization; any files that serve as authoritative records are best stored in solutions with more than one owner, for example, Teams or SharePoint, so please plan accordingly.
Questions and Resources
If you have questions about records management or would like to learn more, visit the Records Management website or email your questions to records@uoregon.edu.
Sincerely,
University Records Management
The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This message was sent to mghaznav@uoregon.edu based on your affiliation with University of Oregon.
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