Recordkeeping Manual - Glossary of Recordkeeping Terms
The following glossary contains definitions obtained from various sources, including the State Records Act 2000, Australian Standard on Records Management AS4390 and AS ISO 15489 and also State Records Office publications.
Accountability
Is the principle that individuals, organizations, and the community are responsible for their actions and may be required to explain them to others.
Archive
Are those records that are appraised as having continuing or permanent value.
Capture
Is the process of determining that a record should be made and kept. This includes both records created and received by the University. It involves deciding which documents are captured, which in turn implies decisions about who may have access to those documents and generally how long they are to be retained.
Disposal
Refers to the removal of records from the University once they have reached the inactive phase, and their subsequent destruction, or permanent retention as State archives.
Disposal Authority
Is the University's policy for the retention and disposal of records, as approved by the State Records Advisory Committee.
Electronic Records
Are records communicated and maintained by means of electronic equipment.
Ephemeral Records
Are documents that have only short-term value to the University with little or no ongoing administrative, fiscal, legal, evidential, or historical value.
Evidence
The information that tends to prove a fact and supports the business activity.
Indexing
The process of establishing access points to facilitate retrieval of records and/or information.
Keywords
The terms used to title files or documents, referring to specific functions, activities or topics which describe the contents of a file or documents and are used for control and retrieval.
Preservation
Is the processes and operations involved in ensuring the technical and intellectual survival of authentic records through time.
Record
Means any record of information however recorded and includes;
(a) any thing on which there is writing or Braille;
(b) a map, plan, diagram or graph;
(c) a drawing, pictorial or graphic work, or photograph;
(d) anything on which there are figures, marks, perforations, or symbols, having a meaning for persons qualified to interpret them;
(e) anything from which images, sounds or writings can be reproduced with or without the aid of anything else; and
(f) anything on which information has been stored or recorded, either mechanically, magnetically, or electronically.
Recordkeeping
The making and maintaining of complete, accurate and reliable evidence of business transactions in the form of recorded information.
Records Continuum
The whole extent of a record's existence. Refers to a consistent and coherent regime of management processes from the time of creation of records, through to the preservation and use of records as archives.
Records Management
The discipline and organisational function of managing records to meet operational business needs, accountability requirements and community expectations.
Registration
The act of giving a record a unique identity in a recordkeeping system.
Research Data
Means data as facts, observations or experiences on which an argument theory or test is based. Data may be numerical, descriptive or visual. Data may be raw or analysed, experimental or observational. Data includes: laboratory notebooks, field notebooks, primary research data (including research data in hard copy or in computer readable form), questionnaires, audiotapes, videotapes, models, photographs, films, test responses. Research collections may include slides, artifacts, specimens, and samples.
Research Records
Are records associated with the research process including correspondence (including electronic mail as well as paper-based correspondence), project files, grant applications, technical reports, research reports, master lists, signed consent forms, and information sheets for research subjects.
Retention Period
In relation to a record, means the period for which the record must be kept before it may be destroyed.
Significant Record
Is any record that contains information which is of administrative, legal, fiscal, evidential or historical value to the University and is not recorded elsewhere on the University's public records or, any record that documents formal communication between staff members or between a member of staff and another party or, any record that documents the rationale behind University policy, senior officer's decisions and directives, such as minutes, reports, submissions, rough notes and calculations used in the preparation of reports, correspondence and statistical tabulation, unsuccessful applications and tenders where a set retention period is stipulated for audit requirements, manuscript drafts, graphics, facsimile transmissions, personal copies of minutes and other official papers that have been annotated, electronic mail, audio recordings in any format and important communications received verbally or in person that are subsequently minuted as standard practice.
State Record
Is a parliamentary record or a government record.
State Archive
Is a State record that is to be retained permanently.
Thesaurus
Is a complex alphabetical listing of all terms derived from a classification scheme. Such tools act as a guide in the allocation of classification terms to individual records. In a thesaurus the meaning of the term is specified and hierarchical relationships to other terms shown. A thesaurus should provide sufficient entry points to allow users to navigate from terms that are not to be used to the preferred terminology adopted by the organization.
Transaction
The smallest unit of business activity. Uses of records are themselves transactions.
University Record
Any record, in all formats and purposes, created or received by an officer, academic or general, of the University in the course of their duties and as a record of transaction or conduct of affairs for the University.
The Records and Archives Office can be contacted during business hours in the following ways:
Telephone: 9266 7050
Facsimile: 9266 2255
Email: records@curtin.edu.au