Policy 46 covers the management of:
- University records: the administrative information created and used by employees in their work for the University. This is the information that employees encounter most often in their work.
- Published information and archival collections supporting teaching, learning and research. In most but not all cases, these collections are the responsibility of the University Library.
- "Scholarly works" (defined in Policy 73 - Intellectual Property Rights), such as research data and reports, which are shared with the University community through the University's information systems. For example, Computer Science technical reports.
Published information, archival collections, and scholarly works are within the scope of Policy 46 to avoid gaps in defining the information management responsibilities when a unit manages these types of information along with its administrative records.
For example, when academic departments and research centres publish scholarly works on their uwaterloo.ca website, this information is typically managed along with the rest of their website content in the Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS). The website content describing the department and its activities is classified as University records but the scholarly works are not. The department must ensure responsible management of all of this information, and Policy 46 sets the basic criteria for this.
University Records
The About Records Management page provides further guidance on what is & isn't University records.
University Records Management in 5 Steps is the University's record management manual.
Published information & archival collections
Policy 46 has little or no impact on the operations of the University of Waterloo Library, because professional practices for managing information collections are well-established in all university libraries - it's simply business as usual for our librarians.
Sometimes, though, a unit other than the Library will decide to assemble and manage its own collections of published or archival materials - for example, the software, manuals, textbooks, and other information assets collected by the University of Waterloo Computer Museum. In such cases, Policy 46 provides guidance on the minimum requirements units must meet for managing this information responsibly, on behalf of the University.
Scholarly works available to the University community
The term “scholarly work” is defined in Policy 73 – Intellectual Property Rights. While research data, reports, and other scholarly works are the property and responsibility of their creators (researchers or principal investigators, for research data and reports), the University is responsible for how well it manages this information when it is shared with the University community through the University’s information systems. For more information on the sharing of scholarly works, see the Policy 73 section Use of Scholarly Works on Campus.
Policy 73 makes a fundamental distinction between scholarly works and the information University employees create as part of the assigned tasks for their jobs. All information associated with assigned tasks falls within the category of University records.