Handbook of Business Procedures
Date published: October 23, 2012
Last revised: August 22, 2022
Issued by: Records and Information Management Services
20.6.1. MASTER RECORDS
The University of Texas at Austin is required to keep one copy of every record created in the course of university business whether the record is created and maintained within the university or by a private contractor to the university. The master record or official university record is the record that is retained, subject to The University of Texas at Austin Records Retention Schedule (UTRRS) requirements and university disposition policies. The master record may or may not be the original and may be created or retained in any medium, e.g., voice mail, fax, email, hard copy.
When the same record serves different business purposes in two or more departments, each department must manage the record as a master record. This is known as dual master records. If a master record is captured as an image, the image may be retained as the master and the hard copy original becomes a convenience copy. For more information refer to 20.6.2. Convenience Copies.
Some master records are retained at the enterprise level, such as the Image Retrieval System (IRS), for some financial records, or Workday, for some employee records. Other master records are retained and managed only in the department.
Departments may also engage a private contractor for services that create, manage, store, and dispose of master records. This is permitted so long as the contract expressly provides that the contractor will comply with applicable state laws and university policies relating to the management, access, retention, and destruction of state records. For more information refer to 20.4.4. Contracts Pertaining to State Records.
Notes:
Texas state law requires that the university develop and maintain a disposition log to document the destruction or transfer to archives of every master record. The university disposition log is maintained by Records and Information Management Services (RIMS).
Master records are the records that must be produced for open records requests, audits, or subpoenas, and other investigations.