I agree all student records should be kept in a fire/flood safe area, also all the scanned back ups.
Schools who cannot afford to pay (or just do not want to spend the money) for the upgrade to electronic storage, keep graduate files on site for one year then move to off-site storage. We currently have student information in two seperate files-accademic and financial aid. Upon graduation, we attach the files together and handle as above. I am looking forward to e-storage!
Kimberly,
It's important that any off-site storage adheres to the same requirements you have for those on campus to ensure compliance with relevant regulatory bodies.
Traci Lee
Hi from my experience current student records must be kept safe from fire, theft or any type of destruction. the same premise goes for graduates however for graduates we would automatically ship their records off site therefore not requiring them to be on campus.
Good point Stephanie, often times we forget about catastrophic desaster especially when you live in an area where its rare. I also think the electronic files are more efficient for the work place as well as the planet.
I think there should be alternative methods when securing student files and documentation. My school uses fireproof cabintes, electronic file storage and a outside file storage company that secures the files.
Stephanie - I am sorry to hear you had to go through a tough experience. I have heard several sad stories of such loss. Although the likelihood of such an incident is low, the damage can be significant. As you noted, electronic storage provides an efficient means to have a safe, secure, and efficient approach to maintaining records.
Keeping files electronically is much easier and efficient. Before Hurricane Ivan, we did not keep our files electronically, so as you can imagine, we lost years worth of files. So in some instances, fire is not the only hazard that could jeopordize your files.
We have all our files (Active/Grads) in our FireKing Cabinets. We currently do not have online storage for our files, but would be efficient as takes up less space and can actually be accessed quicker than physical files.
I don't follow those guidelines. I maintain all records past and present in a fireproof locker so that past students have access to their records at any time.
Student records hold a lot mroe detailed information than graduate records hold. For example, student records have social security information, parent/guardian information, and financial information.
More and more schools are moving to digital/imaged storage solutions to address the space issue you reference (in addition to additional security measures). If anyone has any tips on that, please post any suggestions on this discussion thread.
It makes perfect sense to keep current files protected on location especially since students are still in attendance and administrators should be able to locate files easily when issues come up and needs to be resolved right away. Additionally, as institutions grow and population increases, space will be a factor as it relates to storing information.
I’m nor sure I have a best practice as it sounds more like a nightmare…..
Our accrediting agency requires that we maintain an official transcript for every student INDEFINITELY. We have an off site storage unit that is filled to the brim with old files. At first we were scanning every piece of paper contained in the student file which became time consuming. So we switched to keeping just the Official Transcript, the full attendance history, the accounts receivable ledger and a copy of the diploma awarded…which is the bare minimum. The nightmare began when our computer servers crashed and we could not retrieve all software programs…including the scanned archived student records. THEY WERE COMPLETELY DELETED. Good thing we hadn’t destroyed the paper files…we had to do all the scanning over again (double work) !!!! :(
Tiersa - I completely agree although I am also in the midst of a migration from paper files to imaged documents and there are challenges with imaged files as well. I'm curious if anyone has some "lessons learned" or best practice recommendations for those reading these posts related to managing imaged files. Please share...
Our school maintains paper files (academic, financial, program specific documents, etc) for 5 years. We have several campuses and space is always an issue in addition to the cost of FireKing cabinets. Our SIS is backup nightly.
Electronic Storage is the way to go.
I'm a big believer in having multiple back up plans, particularly with sensitive information such as student records. Therefore, I think a school should have a disaster recovery procedure that includes consideration of any method of storage - online or physical. Additionally, I think disaster recovery should include business continuity considerations as it's not just about having access to the data/information but, having a plan for how staff can continue to do their jobs after such a disaster. For example, it's of little use to have the data safe if there is no plan on how someone can print a transcript from that data to provide to a student.
Since online storage seems to be the future of maintaing records, if your school is using an outside source for mainitaining its records, should the school still have a disaster recovery procedure, or does the school rely on the servicer's internal controls?
In agreement with both of you, online storage is definitely the way to go. With so many functions of our job going "paperless" anyway, my guess is that online will be the only storage of records in the very near future.
Just to be on the safe side, it is important to keep all records in fire/flood safe area.
