Destroying Records

• For records containing sensitive or Personally Identifiable Information (PII), documents must be shredded or confidentially destroyed. For all other records, recycling or purging can be conducted by the records custodian. Records custodians must complete the Certificate of Records Destruction at the time the records are destroyed.
• Records stored in digital format should be destroyed in a manner consistent with media sanitization methods. The Office of Information Technology can provide assistance on these methods.
• For questions concerning destruction of large numbers of physical records, contact the Office of Campus Sustainability.
• NOTE: No record shall be destroyed so long as it pertains to any pending legal case, claim, or action; or to any federal or state audit until such actions have been concluded.

Anytime you destroy records, you must document it by filling out this simple form:

https://fs26.formsite.com/xDqYjm/rmdcod/index.html

• Agency: Austin Peay State University
• Division: Department owning the records that were destroyed
• Address/Location: Box number of Department
• Allotment Code: 33260
• Record Series Title: This is a broad description of each record type you destroy. Examples: "Timecards" or "Promotional Publications"
• RDA Number: Enter the RDA number that relates to that record type's destruction.
• Date range of records disposed: The month and year the records began and ended.
• Volume & Volume Type: This is how much space the records took up prior to destruction. This is measured in cubic feet for physical items; one cu ft is approximately the size of one regular paper box. Electronic items are measured in GB, which can be viewed in the file details before deleting; 1 GB = 1000 MB.
• There is another line for record series through Volume so you can enter two record types per form; this line is not required if you only have one record type.
• Destruction type: select the method you used; purging is for deleting electronic records.
• Date of Records Destruction: the date records were destroyed.
• Contact Name, Title, Email, and Signature: This is you, the person destroying the records
• Agency Records Officer: Christina Chester-Fangman
• Agency Records Officer Email: recordsmanagement@apsu.edu

Destroying extra copies is the only type of destruction that does not need to be documented because it is not destroying the record, just duplicates. This applies to extra copies of any format.

Example 1: You have 10 copies of a marketing brochure for your department. You can destroy 9 of those copies without documenting it because those are extra copies.

Example 2: You have student worker agreements on paper and would like to digitize them. Once they are digitized, you can destroy the paper copies because those are just extra copies now.