Tools and resources

The goal of the Records and Information Management Program at Athabasca University is to make sure that information is captured, maintained, organized, retained and disposed of in compliance with legislation and policy requirements.

Records and Information management helps to ensure that quality information is created, that program and service delivery is efficient, and that information is protected and securely disposed of.

Athabasca University cannot meet its accountability and performance standards without the active assistance of all university staff to apply Records and Information Management principles and practices to their work on a daily basis. More information can be found in the Records and Information Management Framework.

A record is

• recorded information, in any form (paper, electronic, email) that is created or received by the University in the course of transacting its business, and
• is retained as evidence of that business or activity

Records support Athabasca University’s business operations and can be used to prove that an event or decision took place.

Records include, but are not limited to: correspondence, minutes, research files, reports, maps, photographs, financial documents, legal documents, work plans, performance documents, policies and procedures, computer tapes and disks, email, microfilm, and records in electronic systems including One Drive and SharePoint.

Transitory records are routine records with short term value that are approved for destruction either immediately or after a short specified retention period.

Examples of transitory records include but are not limited to:

• duplicate copies used for convenience or reference that are originally maintained by another office
• information received as part of a distribution list
• miscellaneous ‘fyi’ notices about meetings, holidays, or other routine administrative events
• photocopies of departmental publications
• draft documents where all critical content changes have been incorporated into a final document
• blank forms
• books, magazines or other reference material
• informal correspondence, emails, or instant messages about routine administrative tasks

Examples of transitory emails include but are not limited to:

• The email is personal and is not related to AU business
• The email is from outside of the AU community and is used for only reference purposes (e.g. non AU listservs or aliases)
• The email is cc’d or bcc’d to you (e.g. it originates in another office, including emails from AU listservs or aliases)
• The email is an fyi and no action or decision is required
• The email is about routine administrative tasks, e.g. setting up meetings, notices of events, etc.

If you are not sure if the record is Transitory or not, use our Transitory Decision Tree to help you to decide.

There are a number of common elements that can be included in file names. The order of these elements in the file should be standardized according to a department’s business needs for sorting or retrieval. Some examples include:

• Date*
• Student number
• Student names
• Creator
• Department/Program name
• Version (e.g. V01)
• Type
• Title

Date (*mandatory)

Dates should be formatted as Year-Month-Day (or, at a minimum, the Year) to allow for consistency, sorting and to provide retention information. The date used should be defined by the business needs of the department, e.g. what is the most useful date for retrieval purposes. Some examples are the date the document is received, or the date of the document, or the calendar year.

*Dates should be mandatory on all documents to allow for easy calculation of the retention and disposition of the document and, wherever possible, the date should be the first item in the file name.

Student Number

Documents pertaining to current students should contain the student number.

Student Name

Documents pertaining to current students may have the name attached. In order to keep file names short, only the Last name can be used, but if departments require both First and Last name, then the name should be applied as Last/First.

Creator

If multiple people are creating versions of the same document and departments include the creator name in the title, it should be a standardized format. Some examples are the first initial and last name (sjones) or their AU ID (samanthaj) or initials (SJ).

Department/Program Name

If a document will be circulated among multiple departments, it may be useful to indicate the authoring department. Acronyms for departments should be taken from the Organization by Division list supplied by Financial Services so that a University-wide standard is recognized.

Departments may use program names in addition to department names, or in substitute of department names if they wish to narrow the scope of the authoring area. Program names should be taken from the online Calendar so that a University-wide standard is recognized.

Version

If multiple versions of the same document are needed, adding a version number allows changes to be tracked. Version numbers should be included at the end of the filename and should be based on two digit numbers to allow easy sorting. For example V01.

Type

Including an abbreviation of the type of the document can help reduce the length of the title. A short list of the most commonly used abbreviations can be maintained by the department. Always use the acronym near the end of the file name.

Some examples include:

• AGD – Agenda
• AGR – Agreement
• ARS – Action Request
• APX - Appendix
• CPA – Cover Page
• CON – Contract
• DFT – Draft
• EXA – Example
• FRM – Form
• GRA – Grant
• IDX – Index
• LTR – Letter
• LST – List
• MEM – Memo
• MIN – Minutes
• MTG – Meeting
• NTS – Notes
• PLN – Plan
• PAP – Paper
• POL – Policy
• PRS – Presentation
• PRC – Procedures
• RPT – Report
• SCH – Schedule
• SPE – Speech
• SUM – Summary
• SUP – Supplement

Title

Titles of documents should be based upon the function and content of the document if there is no proper title already assigned to the document (e.g. Application for Admission). The file name should allow any staff member to determine the contents of the document based upon the title.

Some examples of file naming are:

FAQs

Not Good	Better
Simon Fraser University Business program	2015 Simon Fraser University Business Program collaboration
Student satisfaction surveys (draft) samantha	2014-01-26 student satisfaction survey statistics RPT DFT sjones V01
OVP Advancement budget 4th quarter 13/14	2013-2014 OVPAD Budget 4th quarter RPT
Dean letter January 2013	2013-01 GCDE to Arcadia University re: student recruitment
Minutes July-14	2014-07 Ad Hoc Committee MIN
Reference for jim douglas	2012-03-05 Douglas, Jim recruitment reference
ARM proposal	2014 Association of Records Managers joint certificate proposal
Karen notes September	2013-09 retention requirements of legal records NTS karenl