Simon Fraser University Archives and Records Management

Records management is based on core knowledge that is not specific to an institution. Organizations can address knowledge gaps among their records creators by creating training materials that are openly licensed and may be freely reused, or by reusing open training tools that have been produced by others. Open educational resources or “OERs” are part of a wider open access movement in education, and may be part of the answer to how we can be more efficient, cost-effective, and strategic by creating and sharing resources. This interactive poster allows the audience to test examples of recently produced OERs.

Records of the university are created by records creators in departments and units, administered by records administrators (who can sometimes be the same person as the record creator) and kept in your office while the records are active. They can then move through the records system into the University Records Centre (URC) and sometimes into the Archives.

The graphic below breaks down where university records can be located and who is involved in their care. Note that the graphic applies to PAPER records only.

Not all of your emails, Office files, or paper documents are university records. A good portion of them are transitory records, notes, meeting notices or copies that can be discarded as soon as you have taken action or no longer need them.

The graphic below breaks down what are transitory records versus what are substantive university records.

Substantive records need to be kept according to approved retention schedules. Transitory records, however, should be destroyed or deleted when you have no more use for them.

The purpose of this podcast is to answer frequently asked questions from records creators around the university about records management.

This is episode three: how to name digital files.

The purpose of this podcast is to answer frequently asked questions from records creators around the university about records management.

This is episode two: how to read an RRSDA (or "retention schedule").

In this episode we will cover

• what is an RRSDA
• the alternative names for the RRSDA, and how it's useful to you
• We will also look at each section of the RRSDA and talk about the information
• that's presented in each section.

The purpose of this podcast is to answer frequently asked questions from records creators around the university about records management.

This is episode one: What is a record of the university?

In this episode we look at a simple test that can tell you if you are dealing with university records.