UT Tyler Records Retention and Management

Frequently Asked Questions

What is records management? Records management is the management of a record during its entire life cycle. The life cycle of a record begins when it is created and ends at its final disposition whether that be destruction of the record or the transfer of the record to archive.

What does records management have to do with me?All departments have a responsibility to preserve and protect all records that are under its control. The best way to do this is to understand the kinds of records that your department creates and maintains and actively manage them. Each department also has the responsibility to follow the polices and procedures of good records management as set out in this website.

What are the benefits of a records management program? Records Management frees up physical storage space such as file cabinets, storerooms or frees up server space and allows departments to dispose of unneeded records with confidence. Proper records management reduces the volume of records that must be searched when responding to audits, requests for public information, subpoenas, and other administrative requirements. It also ensures compliance with federal and state records management laws, policies, and rules.

Are some documents not considered official state records?Extra copies or duplicate copies (referred to as convenience copies) maintained only for reference, a stock of publications or blank forms, catalogs or trade journals are not considered official state records.

How do I go about storing records in the university's records storage room? There are procedures you must follow if you are storing records in the university's records storage room. 

Is email a code on the Records Retention Schedule? Email should be regarded as a format of a record and categorized by its content. Just as written correspondence is classified as general, administrative, or transitory, depending on the content of the correspondence, email generally falls into one of these three categories. Email may by retained as an electronic file or printed and managed in a hard copy or both.

What is transitory information?The Texas State Retention Schedule defines transitory information as: Records of temporary usefulness that are not an integral part of a records series of an agency, that are not regularly filed within an agency's record keeping system, and that are required only for a limited period of time for the completion of an action by an official or employee of the agency or in the preparation of an ongoing records series.

Transitory records are not essential to the fulfillment of statutory obligations or to the documentation of agency functions. Examples of transitory information which can be in any medium (voice mail, fax, email, hard copy, etc.) are routine messages; internal meeting notices; routing slips; incoming letters or memoranda of transmittal that add nothing of substance to enclosures; and similar routine information used for communication, but not for the documentation, of a specific agency transaction.

In the Retention Schedule, what do the codes CE, FE, FE+3 and AC mean?

• CE means "Calendar Year End" (end date of 12/31/xx).
• FE means "Fiscal Year End" (end date of 8/31/xx).
• FE+3 means "Fiscal Year End plus 3 years."
• AC means "After Close" which should always be defined in the Schedule, because it changes. It may mean after the project is complete, after the employee is terminated, after completion of audit, etc. AC could fall at any time throughout the year, whereas FE and CE refer to the end dates listed above.

What if I do not see the document I am looking for on the official UT Tyler Records Retention Schedule? Some of the documents may not be on the schedule for example student tests. Your college has policies on how long to keep student tests so check with your chair or dean. Any questions on records retention can be directed to the associate vice president for human resources, who serves as the records management officer for the university.

Does the university pay for shredding documents that have met or exceeded the retention date?Once a year, usually in February, the university contracts a certified vendor to come on campus to shred documents that have met or exceeded the retention date per the university's Records Retention Schedule. The budget authorities and administrative support staff will receive an email announcing the shredding, so the department can include boxes that are either stored in the Physical Plant Records Room or in the department itself.

Each department will need to fill out a Records Disposition Log form which can be found on this website, which must describe the information being shredded and must be signed by the budget authority. The original must be sent to the Office of Human Resources. The department may also do their own shredding at their own cost, but they still must fill out and sign a Records Disposition Log form and send to the Office of Business Affairs.