Definitions
Please find below a list of terms, which you may come across while fulfilling your recordkeeping responsibilities. At this point we would like to thank the following instituations and individuals for their kind permission to list their definitions of the terms:
- The State Records Authority of New South Wales (click to visit their homepage)
- Judith Ellis (book title: Keeping Archives)
| Corporate governance: | 1 |
“The processes by which organisations are directed, controlled and held to account. It encompasses authority, accountability, stewardship, leadership, direction and control exercised in the organisation.”
| Corporate record: |
Based on the definition of records (see below), corporate records are
seen as:
Information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information
by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in
the transaction of business on a superior university-wide level and requires
university approval from executive and decision making bodies. Corporate
records cross-divisional boundaries and/ or go up the university structure.
| Counter Disaster Plan: | 1 |
“A plan for measures to be taken for disaster prevention, disaster response and recovery and vital records protection.”
| Custody: | 2 |
“1) The responsibility for the care of records, archives or other material, usually based on their physical possession. Custody does not always include legal ownership, or the right to control access to records. 2) The physical location of records and archives."
| Privacy: | 2 |
"The right of a living person to be secure from the unauthorised disclosure of or access to information contained in records and archies of a private or confidential nature about himself/ herself or his/her immediate family."
| Recordkeeping System: | 2 |
“The principles, methos and processes devised for capturing, arranging and maintaining the records of an agency or person."
| Records: | 2 |
“Documents containing data or information of any kind and in any form, created or received and accumulated by an organisation or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs and subsequently kept as evidence of such activity through incorporation into the recordkeeping system of the organisation or person. Records are the information by-products of orgnaisational and social activity."
| Records Management: | 2 |
“Activities within the management of the continuum of records of an organisation which facilitate the systematic capture, control, maintenance, dissemination and disposition of the records of that organisation. Records management is primarily concerned with capturing complete, accurate and reliable documentation of organisational activity for current purposes.”
| Retention period: | 2 |
“The period of time, usually based on an estimate of the frequency of current and future use, and taking into account statutory and regulatory provisions, that records need to be retained before their final disposal.
| Vital record: | 2 |
“Those records that are essential for the ongoing business of an agency, and without which the agency could not continue to function effectively. The identification and protection of such records is a primary object of records management and disaster planning.”
| 1 | The State Records Authority of New South Wales: Glossary of Recordkeeping Terms. The State Records Authority of New South Wales, Sydney, 1998. |
| 2 | Judith Ellis, ed., Keeping Archives, 2nd edition, Melbourne, 1993, p. 481 |