Records Management
A page within Administration & Finance
Records are a basic tool of transacting business on behalf of our institution. They are the foundation for accountability. Records management is the process of actively and appropriately managing a record throughout its’ lifecycle. From creation, to filing and storing, to proper disposition. UW-La Crosse employees must adhere to the approved schedules adopted by the UW-System and approved by the State of Wisconsin’s Public Records Board. Information about these schedules, including a search tool and downloadable copies of the full schedules, is available from the UW-System Records Schedule link above. By abiding by these schedules, we know specifically what is approved to discard and when; what must be kept in our files and for how long; and what should be transferred to the University Archives for permanent retention.
UW-La Crosse personnel create records, in any format, in the course of university business for administrative, fiscal, and legal purposes. The primary value of these official records is for use by the university office of origin to better serve the UW-La Crosse community and to ensure compliance with federal, state, and UW System regulations.
It is important to realize that State and Federal Laws apply to all records we create as public employees, regardless of form or format. As many UW-La Crosse employees are working remotely, we remind you that written communications, documents and recordings created by employees and relating to university business must be retained and made available to the public upon request according to the applicable records retention policy, regardless of whether employees are working on campus or remotely. Work-related items created on university-sponsored and non-university-sponsored tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Microsoft Office365, etc., such as chats and recordings, are records and may be subject to public records requests.
Please consider the implications of forwarding UW-La Crosse email messages to personal email accounts.
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- Forwarding email from your university account (<user-name>@uwlax.edu) to a personal email account could potentially cause your personal account(s) to be included in an open records request.
- The University may be required to compel you to comply with the release of information stored in your personal email accounts or on your personal devices should you choose to utilize them to conduct university business.
- You should also consider your obligations to protect student privacy under FERPA rules.