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Guidelines for use of IT resources |
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What responsibilities do I have as an employee (faculty or staff) for managing, retaining and disposing of electronic information, including e-mails? You are responsible for knowing the content of important e-mail communications sent to you by University officials. Faculty and staff who have e-mail accounts with services outside the University are encouraged to use only their University-managed e-mail accounts for communications regarding University matters so that their responses to subpoenas and other requests calling for the inspection or disclosure of such communications can be handled properly and efficiently. You are responsible for retaining information that is of value to the University, whether that value is for business processes, required for legal purposes, or the information has historical value. The University has draft Record Retention Guidelines (http://www.princeton.edu/records) offering recommended retention periods for common University records. Disposition of records created, retained or stored in information systems or computers should proceed on the same basis as for traditional paper records. E-mail should be handled as any other correspondence in terms of retention and disposal. There are three ways of preserving e-mail: on the e-mail system, within an office’s paper files, or in some form of electronic record keeping system. As a general rule, the longer the message must be maintained or the more it need to be shared, the greater the need to remove it from the e-mail system and store it as hard copy (including the metadata accompanying the message) or in an electronic record keeping system. Attachments must also be identified and linked to the original message so that they may be easily located. Regardless of the methodology chosen, the authenticity and integrity of the entire e-mail message should be preserved. Generally speaking, e-mail systems are communication systems, not record keeping systems, and are not designed for the efficient management or preservation of messages stored on them. Storage of e-mail to some form of record-keeping application most fully satisfies the need of current access to e-mails and also enhances their value by allowing searching and sorting, maintaining linkages, and allowing for the full integration of the e-mail file into the offices’ workflow processes. These systems also offer the potential for preserving and making accessible records scheduled for long-term retention. E-mail retained in electronic format must be migrated to new software and storage media as upgrades occur. Like all records, e-mail will eventually cease to be useful to the office, and at this point should be deleted from your inbox and/or sent folders. Then the “Trash” or “Deleted Items” folder must be emptied (either manually or on an automated schedule) to properly dispose of the e-mail record. These records are permanently deleted. (While it may be possible for a specialist to reconstruct deleted files, it is not necessary for you to do anything further.)When you trade in or replace a computer, it is required that you or your computing support specialist use appropriate effective software to remove any and all data from your hard drive, or if warranted, destroy the hard drive by means approved by the University’s Information Security Officer. As with the disposition of any other University records, e-mail disposal should be regularized and documented. With respect to back-up media, it is recommended that these storage devices be physically destroyed. Previous Section  |
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© 2009 by the Trustees of Princeton University. Last modified
9/9/09
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