Records Management
Why do we have records management?
The University of Oregon has an obligation to ensure orderly retention and destruction of public records of value for administrative, research, and legal purposes. Reliable, authentic, complete records evidence decision-making and serve as primary vehicles for demonstrating compliance with policies and laws, preserving institutional memory, and promoting business continuity.
When UO was part of OUS, it was subject to the Secretary of State’s retention schedule, which was not initially created with universities in mind and had not been updated (as it pertained to universities) since the 1990's. When UO became independent from OUS on July 1, 2014, it gained the authority to develop its own policies and procedures. The university knew it would not be able to develop all new policies in a single day, so the university adopted OUS policies to provide continuity, and over time, the Board Secretary’s office and the Policy Advisory Council have been going through hundreds of inherited policies to see if they need to be repealed or revised. The Records Management Policy is one such policy. Without a new policy specific to UO, we would still be subject to the old schedule. The new policy and schedule are updated to reflect the different ways records are created, used and maintained in the 21st century, custom-designed for UO, and much easier to understand and use.
Are records and public records the same?
See the What is a Record webpage.
What are records stewards? What do they do?
See the Records Stewards webpage for more information and specific FAQs about records stewards.
What is the Records Retention Schedule?
See the Records Retention Schedule webpage.
How do we store and dispose of records?
See the Managing Records webpage.
Chat Retention
What is automated chat retention?
See the Chat Retention webpage for more information and FAQs specific to the chat retention implementation.
If you have a question that isn’t answered in the resources above, email records@uoregon.edu.