Guidelines for PDFs and Imaged Records
Departments may be interested in converting their master records from paper to an electronic format in order to free up physical space in their offices.
The Office of Accounting applauds these efforts. However, care and consideration must be given prior to converting paper records to an electronic format. Departments should review the following checklist and verify that any electronic records system currently in use or proposed meets these requirements.
Document all processes for converting, indexing, filing, and destroying the paper records once the images are verified. Provide for quality assurance processes, including a visual inspection of the images, scanner testing, and verification of image recording and index data. Test to ensure that the full content of the document has been captured. In the event of a legal requirement to produce the records, this documentation will be part of demonstrating the authenticity and integrity of the imaged records. Provide training and update training for staff in imaging, retrieval, and disposition policy and procedure. Should legal issues arise, courts consider up-to-date documentation and training demonstrations of good faith in records management practice. Confidential records must be secured so that only authorized personnel can access them. See the Information Security Office for support and information in developing secure departmental electronic records storage and retrieval systems. Consider how the images will be indexed; master records must be retrievable throughout the life of the record. Naming conventions should be consistent. It may be useful to include information from the University Records Retention Schedule both as part of a naming convention and to determine record destruction dates. When managing files manually, organize records in a way that will ease their disposition when retention requirements are fulfilled. Similar record series should be filed together; records with a retention period of FE+1 should not be filed with records that must be kept for AC+8. If destruction dates are set for the purpose of automated deletion when requirements have been fulfilled, there must be fail-safe measures to place document holds and suspend destruction in the event of any litigation, claim, negotiation, audit, public information request, administrative review, or other action involving the record, and to reinstate destruction when all outstanding issues have been resolved. Consider the format for records storage. The industry standard is TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). PDF (Portable Document Format) is widely accepted as a standard format. There are now International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for archival quality PDFs for retention of imaged records with retention requirements of five or more years. Although state law does not require the use of industry standards, it does facilitate migration to new systems and allows access to the records for the entire retention period. Consider hardware and storage issues. Plan to accommodate future growth. We strongly recommend that a central server or storage device be used to prevent accidental destruction of important data. Regular backup copies of the data should be created. These backup copies of vital and essential master records are required to be stored off-site for disaster recovery purposes. See the Information Security Office for support and information for developing departmental disaster recovery plans. You may wish to review
For your convenience, we have provided a signature line below, so that your department or office may print this out and have the appropriate authority sign and date, should legal issues ever arise in the future.
I have read and taken into consideration the above list of recommendations.
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* Note: PDF documents best viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 or later. Earlier versions may result in incomplete rendering of information. A free update of Adobe Acrobat Reader may be obtained here.
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