What is a Record?

The State Records Act defines a "record" as "any document or other source of information compiled, recorded or stored in written form or on film, or by electronic process, or in any other manner or by any other means".

What is a University Record?

Any document or other source of information in any format (including electronic documents and websites) that is made or received by employees of UNSW as part of their work is a university record. University records are corporate assets which represent a tangible product of the work of staff. Without a record of the thousands of transactions, instructions, agreements, authorisations and reports created every day throughout UNSW the efficient functioning of the University would be seriously impeded.

What is a State Record?

A "State record" is defined in the State Records Act as "any record made and kept, or received and kept, by any person in the course of the exercise of official functions in a public office, or for the purpose of a public office." For the purposes of the Act a university is a "public office". This means that all university records are also State records.

What is not a University or State Record?

The critical issue in determining whether a record is a university record is whether or not it was created or received as part of the work of the person who created or received it. Personal or social email communications are not university records. Records held by staff relating to their outside professional or personal activities are not the property of the University. Records of staff associations, or student clubs and organisations or assignments, essays or other works created by students are generally not university records either.

What is Recordkeeping?

Recordkeeping is defined in the Australian standard on records management as "the making and maintaining of complete, accurate and reliable evidence of business transactions in the form of recorded information".

It consists of the systems and procedures for ensuring that records:

• are made
  
• are accurate
  
• are authentic
  
• have integrity
  
• are useable
  

Why is Good Recordkeeping Important?

Good recordkeeping is essential to UNSW because it supports all communication and decision-making. Good recordkeeping enables you:

• to recall the detail of what was done or what was decided;
  
• to prove what was done or decided (in some cases to prove it in court);
  
• to provide evidence of business transactions;
  
• to distribute information among colleagues working in different places and to make information available to future employees;
  
• to ensure the integrity of information assets;
  
• to make decisions consistently and formulate policy on a solid basis of knowledge;
  
• to save money through continual access to previous research rather than having to recreate information resources; and
  
• to save money by not having to waste time looking for records known to exist but unable to be found.
  

Good recordkeeping is essential for accountability.

The mechanisms for accountability within the University cannot work properly without good records. Records are the primary means by which the University explains its decisions and proves what it has done. The requirement for explanation and proof might come in the form of a simple query from a student, a formal Freedom of Information request, or an inquiry by the Ombudsman, Auditor-General or ICAC. It might also come as a query from a funding body or as a subpoena issued in the context of a court case.